Power my passive subwoofer?

What Amp Do I need to power this Subwoofer !!!?

• Im looking for an amp to power a alpine type r subwoofer at 4 ohms - http://www.amazon.com/Alpine-SWR-1242D-12-Type-R-Subwoofer/dp/B0009NXN7K Need your help, im not good at how to pick an amp. Im only going to power just 1 subwoofer and thats it ! Need to know whats best, and do they mean that the subwoofer power handlin is 200 to 500 rms and then say that the peak is 1500 wouldnt it mean that you can power the sub all the way to 1500 and not 500 ?

• Answer:

  You should make sure the speakers can take the RMS handling power of the amplifier. So if the speaker is 500 W RMS, you should never drive it higher than that. Also, make sure you are working with the ratings for the given impedance of the speaker. A 500 W rms 4 ohm speaker should not be driven by a 500 W rms 8 ohm output amplifier, for example. You can buy a bigger amplifier than the speaker is rated, but you can have the danger of blowing out the speaker. (You just have to know what you are doing) An analogy to the "peak" vs rms: If you could run 25 yards at your "peak" speed, why can't you keep up that speed for 26 miles? The speaker could take a "peak" of power for a very short time, but due to mechanical stress and heating of the coils, it cannot be expected to run for very long - may only be seconds.