amp gain setting

[04silverz 10+ year member]

finally had my crystal sscs6 installed. went today to adjust the gain's using the dmm. at first i was using the sqrt of 130*4 which is 22.8. so i went out to adjust the gain and they max out at like 19. so then i re read the sticky and it says use half the laod impedance. so sqrt of 130*2 is 16.2. seems like the gain is having to be set pretty high for me to get my power. or does this seem about right? ive never ran an amp for my comps bridged before. amp in questoin is a kicker kx350.4 and headunit is eclipse cd5000.

i know ive read before that its ok to have to set gain kinda high to get amp power but usually its for lower voltage h/u's right?

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[04silverz 10+ year member]

come on a littlehelp here people

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

Kicker KX350.4 = 5V low level max input. CD5000 low level output = 8V

 

[04silverz 10+ year member]

forgive my ignorance but what does taht imply?

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

That means that the amp can not match the max RCA line voltage of the HU.

 

[04silverz 10+ year member]

well ok yeah as most amps dont

but i wouldnt think that causes me to have to turn the gain almost all teh way up

on my nine.1 its nowhere near all the way up to get me the desired voltage reading and i owuld be willing to bet my next pay check its not a 8 v amp

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

get an amp that goes from 4 volts not 5

 

[04silverz 10+ year member]

A:not an option as im deploying in 2 months and dont really want to spend anymore money on car audio right now

B:why? wouldnt that just make the gap bigger?

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

on my nine.1 its nowhere near all the way up to get me the desired voltage reading and i owuld be willing to bet my next pay check its not a 8 v amp

Right, it's not 8V. But it is 7V.

 

[04silverz 10+ year member]

Right, it's not 8V. But it is 7V.

**** it sure is. good thing i didnt bet my next paycheck that it wasnt close to 8 V. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/cool.gif.3bcaf8f141236c00f8044d07150e34f7.gif

so back to my question, is it normal/ok to have my amp near maxed out on the gain then if thats what it calls for?

also a side question then. if i have a lower level eclipse unit that was only 5V then my gain setting on the amp wuold be the same (as far as voltage needed) but i would hvae to turn the actual gain knob less then?

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

so back to my question, is it normal/ok to have my amp near maxed out on the gain then if thats what it calls for?

As long as the amp is not clipping, then yes it's ok.

 

[Stel 10+ year member]

It should put out 22.8v if you want 130watts into a 4 ohm load. That amp should be able to put out the power you need. A few things to check: You source sin wave should be recorded at -0db, EQ should be flat, make sure any other adjustments on the HU are not interfering (like treble, bass, fade or other level adjustments). The amp might require a y cable on the end of each RCA (one for each channel) so each of the bridged channels are receiving a signal. Also maybe try different RCA's. The speakers should not be connected.

The mismatched voltage is not limiting you here.

 

[04silverz 10+ year member]

thanks for the help guys

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

sorry for my ignorant post before