If you have an amp that produces well over rated power, do you set gain for the power in rms that it can actually produce. Or do you set gain for what it's rated? If I have a 1k amp that produces 1.5k easily, do I set my voltage for the 1k and it will just throw more or set it for 1.5k? The amp dynos I watch are a little confusing on how they get their numbers. Thanks
OK, buckle up and get ready for some learnin!
Most reputable amps have a "rated" power, a "dynamic" power, and an "actual" power. I'm going to use your 1k amp as an example with arbitrary numbers for simplicity.
Say you watch a "dyno" video of your amp model and at 1 ohm it dynos at 1500w on a "certified" run and 1800w on a "burst" run.
Your amp is as follows:
"rated" at 1000w
"actual" at 1500w
"dynamic or burst" at 1800w.
Now, these numbers will vary from amp to amp. No 2 amps are the same. Dynamic numbers are a bit of a grey area. It's an approximation of the power an amp can produce on music, but should mostly be disregarded.
So in your case if your subs can take the extra power, there is no harm in setting your gains to the "actual" power of 1500w. However, if your amp only makes 1450w of clean power, you can run into issues. You can get a cheap o-scope to verify your amps clean output power.
Personally, I set my amps to their rated power. I know they will make more, but an extra 300w isn't much at all. You need double the power to be 3db louder. To me, it's not worth the potential cooked speakers trying to run anything right on the edge of what it is capable of.
Matt