Ok I have been racking my brain for two weeks on this, so i figure id ask you guys. I have recently purchased two 10 inch Alpine Type R subs. They are 4ohms each. Heres where i am getting confused. One store tells me that the alpine MRP M-850 amp will power them fine at 4 ohms. The other place I go to tells me that 4 ohms is old technology and I should drive them at 1 ohm. Apparently when you hook two 4ohm subs together, you can wire them to be 4ohm, or 1 ohm. I dont know much about wiring and ohms and all that so i am lost. This guys suggested the Pioneer Premier PRS-D1100M. This amp is "1 ohm stable". Apparently thats what I need. I dont know what to do. What would you guys do??

 

Type-R's are dual voice coil... so I'm assuming you mean 4+4...
In that case, each sub can have the VC's wired in series or parallel... a 4+4 in series = 8ohms per sub or 2 ohms per sub for parallel
Now you have 2 subs, so you can have each sub wired in series or parallel...
Therefore you can have 2 options for each voice coil setup...

In the end you will have 4 wiring options as follows:
Series VC's, Series subs = 16 Ohms (obviously not a good option)
Series VC's, parallel subs = 4 Ohms
Parallel VC's, Series subs = 4 Ohms
Parallel VC's, Parallel Subs = 1 Ohm

Now, I'd say you shouldn't run them off of that 850 (although you can), but I'm very careful when it comes to high end drivers. My suggestion (and I'm bias cause I like Alpine) is to go with the PDX-1.1000. It's pretty much made to drive two Type-R's or a single Type-X.
Oh... and don't let them charge you any more than $650 for that PDX, other wise they are really screwing you... as in selling for MSRP...

BTW, I always tune my system for quality, and I never run anything at 1 Ohm... always at 4... I know alot of SPL guys go for 1Ohm systems

 

Thanks man, SO 4 ohm would have a higher quality sound? I listen to 100% rock. Maybe a bit of beats here and there but no rap, no rumbling. I would love to get the pdx but i dont have that kind of cash. What sort of difference would I hear from a 1 ohm setup?

 

Well im pretty sure I am going to buy the Premier amp. It is one ohm stable, so I will try that wiring setup and if the quality is poop then Ill re wire it for a 4 ohm setup.