I recently purchased 4 punishers and before long will also have a K8 of which to run them. I've heard many people say that in order to learn how to run punishers correctly you will blow alot of drivers and , obviously, I want to avoid this so I thought I'd turn to good 'ol speakerplans for some advice on how to run these monsters! The rest of the system comprises of 2 ES18s and two Paul Martyn M2s and will be used primarily at "not so legal" gatherings playing a variety of heavy DnB, Tekno, Bassline, Garage, Minimal and Hard Trance. Any and all tips and tricks are appreciated! TIA

I have had 12 for almost 3 years now, never blown a driver. Have had some dust caps come off, if you hear rattling around inside the cab, that's likely the issue. Just find another strong, 4 inch dust cap and glue it on with the correct glue and you are good to go. 

People will say things like 'they don't sing until you give them 1200 or even 1500 watts a driver'. Don't listen to them unless you like the smell of voice coils burning. I don't know where this comes from, maybe people with overstated power figures on their amps finding they can't seem to kill the drivers with full power. 

I wouldn't give them more than 950 watts a driver, and honestly, I'd be surprised if you gained 1db upping it to 1200 if you factor in power compression. 

Also, punishes roll of very fast below 40hz, the 40hz is strong with 4 or more but even at 35 hz, there is a huge drop in SPL. You won't get deep sub bass out of them. I wouldn't high pass them below 39hz but I haven't done much experimentation with this and maybe you will be able to find a reason to do it without over extruding the driver and killing it.  

Hope that helps

-Hugh

Thank you mate, yeah that was very helpful! Was a bit apprehensive about whacking 1200 into them, thought 1500 sounded ludicrous glad that got cleared up.