what sounds better?

i have a fosgate punch 250 amp, running mono into one 12" jbl sub. the amp is putting out around 400 watts or so.the sub is in a box up in a closed bow. the system rocks but i have another jbl sub new and in the box in my garage and was wondering what would sound better, one sub with alot of power, or two with a little less power?

what kind of 12" JL are they? w3's, w6, w6v2, w7???? I think that will make a big diff. The better sub will sound better by itself with one amp. A couple w3's will be fine with 400watts. I ran two 15 w3's last year on a 500/1 JL amp and i thumped! This year I am running two 10 w6v2, and without atleast 350watts per speakers, they don't sound good.

B

the subs are JBL L-C S1250W im running one now, but thinking of getting a twin box and adding the other one. ive heard this is a pretty good amp, but they are prone to getting hot, and mine does. dont know if being mono has any thing to do with it

The punch series amps run hot and are prone to overheating. The Power series is the way to go. You can add a fan to the punch series amp and that helped me. One thing to look at; where is your gain set on your amp? Most likely you are not even using all of the amp. Also, the amp is generally designed for 4 ohm mono load. You may get away with 2 ohm mono, but, you may decrease life out of the amp or overheat it more.

the gain is up about3/4 what kind of fan did you install? you think 1 sub or two?

Are these dual voice coil subs? What is the recommended rms power for them? If they aren't too pwr hungry you could wire them for a 2 ohm load and get about 200 watts to each. Thats not much for most 12's but there are rare cases of subs that do it. Sorry not to familar w/ jbl subs. My guess without more info is your better off with just the one sub or your gonna need more pwr for the pair.

not sure if they are dual voice coil.power is 120 watts rms 480 watts peak.

Steve,
If you can give me the ohm rating of the voice coil and whether its dual or single, I can tell you how to wire it and I think you can get away with that amp on 2 and it sounding decent

BTW its easy to tell if its dual, it will have 2 sets of connection points on the sub. One set and its a single.

i think its single, there is only two wires going from the wire connecters to the sub. they are 4 oahm

Well steve you can get a 4ohm load on the bridge channel of that amp which might not be enough or its a 1 ohm load which is probably too much for that amp. Honestly your stuck with one sub until you upgrade that amp or get another. At a 4 ohm load you probably won't get enough power to the subs to hit hard. Another trick you can do is take your one sub and put it in a ported box. You'll add a little more spl that way. JBL should beable to give you some specs on what the sizes should be.

rob, thanks for your help. i just talked to a friend of mine who owns a stereo shop and he said the same thing. i bought the subs in a pair,and only put in one. the other one has just been sitting there for about a year, burning a hole in my pocket.i just thought i would do a little research on adding another. the system rocks right now,thats why i was kind of shy about changing anything. once again thanks for your advice! i think ill leave it as is.
steve D.