Asking about subwoofers will generally get me a million answers, and I am aware of this, but I will throw this out anyways.
I blew my Jl 13tw5, so now im on the fence about its replacement. Should I just get it again? Or try something new? What if I hate the new? Right now I have a pdx 1.600 on that sub, I was considering the new alpine SWR-T12, I would love to hear BM mkIII series to see if it is what they say it is. Unfortunately I may need to get another box for those. Im not one of those it has to be JL people either, the sub just needs to hit everything I throw at it. I just want to see what you guys have to say, Im always open for new information.

 

i like JL.. but i think they are overpriced for what you get... my truck has had the same JL for 13 years though.. no issues.. by far the best sounding and loudest subs i ever had were comp kickers...

 

I've been beating the hell out of my RF Punch P2 for nearly 7 years and it still hits as good as it did when it was new.

 

what size is the enclosure? one of the oldest and most argued myths about car audio is overpowering a sub, people say its safe and less likely to blow a sub.
the facts are this, if you put too much power into a sub and it is in too small of a box you have the following problems..

subwoofers keep their voice coils cool by the movement of the coil in and out of the motor assembly while passing air over the windings and out the hole in the back of the magnet.
if you put it in a small box the lack of air will limit its movement causing less air to pass over the coil.
it also causes a lot of added heat to the coil since the movement is restricted, and you have a lack of air in the box to radiate the spent heat into.

while i am at it let me address the myth. the myth is incorrect that underpowering a sub will cause it to overheat for the following reasons.

the ONLY time an amplifier can fry a sub from being underpowered is if you have the gain turned up so far that the sub is clipping. this is when the sine wave sent to the speaker clips or cap's off the top and bottom of the wave because the amplifier has no more voltage left at the rails to extend the signal any farther. the transistors are already at full saturation so a breif period of time passes between sine wave cycles that the full rail voltage is present to the speaker breifly holding it in a full forward or full backward position.
as i said this is happening for a breif period of time through the full sine wave cycle. the more you clip the signal the more ON time the speaker will experience this straight DC operation.
you will not be able to see this condition and a lot of time may not even hear it due to the bass heavy environment.

this will severly heat the coil and the amplifier because your passing a constant DC signal to the speaker and this offers no cooling effect as the speaker is not able to dissapate heat.

so to recap underpowering a speaker only results in torched equipment when it is severly clipped signal. and it is caused from an inexperienced installer turning the gains up too high, therefore clipping the signal.

if you run a larger amp that has more power you will definitly smoke a sub faster because your dissapating more watts into the same speaker coil, therefore generating more heat, therefore odds are a lot better the coil will eventually fail.
the assumption here is that the larger amp will be better for the sub, the fact is if either amplifier is run and adjusted so it's respective signal is not clipped the larger amp will always cause more failure than the smaller amp.
the missunderstanding comes from people who buy a larger amp who replaced a smaller amp that was probly being over driven and was clipping. you replace it with a larger amp that makes more power and more output and with a CLEAN signal will always be much more friendly on the sub because with the lower gain there is no clipping going on to get the same or more bass than where you started with the smaller amp.

so to answer the problem as stated by the OP i dont know what that subs rating is, but if JL states 600 watts is within its capability then 1 of 2 things has happend or possibly both.
either your box is too small and / or your gains are too high and you clipped the signal for a long enough period of time that you overheated the coil. this is somthing that can be easily prevented by turning the gain down or making a larger box and turning the gain down.
you will find that if you do both, youll get better quality bass and equipment that may out last the car.

in my 12+ years of installing and about 24 years total of doing car audio i have NEVER fried a sub or amp from any manufacturer in any condition on any install i have ever done.
the reason is simple, if you use the basic parameters i have outlined above youll never have this problem.
it has nothing to do in most cases with the quality of the equipment.

 

Thanks bass mechanic, Im glad you mentioned the clipping because thats where I believe the failure began as well. At the point that I realized it, the spider in the sub was already gone, so I knew a replacement would be in order soon. Even though I was happy with the performance of the sub, since i need to replace it, I figured I would see what options have come along since the install. Most likely I will get the same sub again. I will probably also upgrade the amp to the newer version (same wattage) The change in amps is not becuase of the subwoofer situation.

 

Opposition to current flow in a speaker is made up of two things, inductive reactance and resistance. When a speaker is clipping, you loose the reactance. Current goes very high and exceeds the heat carrying capacity of the components.

 

Bass mechanic, I wish you were in southern calidoenia to do my install...i have not found an installer who I trust here...when I tell them I have my own audio equip. They try to sell me more products or just flat out refusw the install saying they only install studd that they sell due to warranty issues.....pure b.s.

 

I meant southern california

 

i am happy to coach you from here and instruct you how to do your own. tell you what, i have cousins in san diego i would enjoy going to visit, i could do a multi purpose trip. i just need a location with AIR CONDITIONING! and some tools! ha ha!

i need a decent table saw and i can bring the hand tools.

i will PM you with some information i cannot post here.