Turn up the gain on your amp all the way down then start playing a heavy bass song with your head unit )Equalizer flat) turned up about 3/4 all the way Then go to the amp and slowly turn up the gain while playing that song loudly and you will be able to tell when your kicker 500 starts to distort..usually when the amp is turned up 3/4 of the way you will get distortion. The second you start to hear the distortion stop turning the gain up on the amp and turn it down just barely. Then, leave it at that point and it should prevent clipping and maximize your enjoyment of the products for the lifespan of them.Also, it all depends on the impedance of your kicker 500 to how many watts the pioneer amp is putting out to it. I assume you are talking about a kicker comp c sub which is probably 500 watts max? ? This amp is not 1600 real watts, the 16 00 is max wattage which is irrelevant and a marketing scheme. SO if your Kicker 500 is a single coil 4 ohm sub then the pioneer amp is seeing a 4 ohm load and is pushing out around 300 watts RMS.. If your kIf its a dual voice coil sub at 4 ohms each wired in parallel then the Pioneer would be seeing a 2 ohm load and sending around 500 watts RMS out.. Always remember you can look up tutorials on how to wire your subs properly and match an appropriate amp with one . People end up blowing their subwoofers or complaining that their amplifier is poorly made or garbage because it is always in protection mod. It's in protection mode people for a reason. Most likely you wired the sub incorrectly and are trying to present a 1 ohm load on a 2 ohm stable amplifier and thus protection mode ensues.

RMS : 300 at 4 ohms, 500 at 2 ohms and 800 watts at 1 ohm. This amp is excellent for the money I own one and would highly recommend.