AQ2200 early clipping?

[Badseed]

Long story short, I was running a hifonics colossus on my 2 Sundown sa12's for around 3 weeks and last weekend, a couple of the MOSFETs fried so its getting repaired.

I had an aq2200 on hand that's going in my second car soon, so I installed it so I could still have some bass while the hifonics was getting repaired.

I set the gains using the tweeter method outlined here:

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/amplifiers/614880-poor-mans-oscope-setting-gains-questionable-sub-amps.html

I'm currently running on my stock deck (waiting on a wiring harness) with an loc-1 line out converter with the output on that set to 3/4 up. When setting the gain on the AQ, I barely got past a quarter of the way up before the tweeter started buzzing loudly on the test tone.

Once I had the gains set, I took off for a test run. I was severely disappointed. While the hifonics is supposedly 1,000 watts more output RMS, the audioque wasn't flexing anything. Even my mirror was barely moving, and that thing used to bounce all over the place even on my old alpine mrv m850 and 2 type R's

So to experiment, I pulled out the aq2200 and stuck in my old elemental designs nine.1. I perceived this amp at a bit louder, but it still wasn't flexing anything in the car, and these are known to do 1400-1500 watts at 1 ohm and good voltage.

I never used the tweeter on the hifonics because I wljust went by the built in clipping light on the amp, and the gain was set to just under 3/4 of the way all the way up.

So is my tweeter method faulty, or am I just expecting a lot more than I should from amps that are well known to be liud?

Click to read more...

 

[C1500martin 10+ year member]

dont have the knob with clipping indicator for the aq? its actually pretty accurate surprisingly

 

[Badseed]

dont have the knob with clipping indicator for the aq? its actually pretty accurate surprisingly

Unfortunately no, I got the amp used and it didn't come with it. I went to order one and they're on backorder still.

I've read from a few different places that they're not as accurate because they work on rail voltage? I'm.not going to pretend I know what that is but I just read that people were saying its not the same as a clipped sine wave and therefore not as accurate

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Sounds like your pushing the amps and exceeding expectations, hence your saying my mirror isn't moving.

You gotta be careful pushing amps to their limits. This is why people blow things. Amps. Subs, etc

That aq2200 is a good amp....so Ive read with no complaints whatsoever and this is the only one I've seen disappointed by one.

What is your current electrical like right now?

 

[Popwarhomie 5,000+ posts]

This^^^^ Why not use the AQ clipping light?

EDIT: Post delay...

 

[C1500martin 10+ year member]

2 sas on 2200 should def be doing something no matter how crappy your box is. i set gains with a dmm and dd1 and the clipping light lit up almost simultaneously with dd1 and dmm voltage

 

[Badseed]

Sounds like your pushing the amps and exceeding expectations, hence your saying my mirror isn't moving.
You gotta be careful pushing amps to their limits. This is why people blow things. Amps. Subs, etc

That aq2200 is a good amp....so Ive read with no complaints whatsoever and this is the only one I've seen disappointed by one.

What is your current electrical like right now?

Currently running a kinetik 1800 up front and 2 2000's in the trunk. Big 3, 110 amp stock Alt. All knu konceptz ofc 0 guage throughout

 

[bgowdy 5,000+ posts]

Currently running a kinetik 1800 up front and 2 2000's in the trunk. Big 3, 110 amp stock Alt. All knu konceptz ofc 0 guage throughout

whats your bass boost on? if its on at all turn it off and dont use it

 

[Badseed]

whats your bass boost on? if its on at all turn it off and dont use it

Bass boost on amp is never on. No bass boost on stock deck eiter

 

[bgowdy 5,000+ posts]

Bass boost on amp is never on. No bass boost on stock deck eiter

well smashes my theory lol

 

[Badseed]

well smashes my theory lol

Haha. I have a general idea of what I'm doing. Know the basics, but that's about it. My box is prefab, 3.5 cubic feet @35hz. The subs got plenty loud on the hifonics and those amps are generally overrated. I'm not sure why the MOSFETs fried on it. The amp never got more than lukewarm and I checked it frequently after putting it through some abuse.

The aq2200 wasn't even warm to the touch after 25 minutes of beating on it in an empty parking lot. It was still cool with no signs of heat.

 

[adulbrich 5,000+ posts]

dont have the knob with clipping indicator for the aq? its actually pretty accurate surprisingly

Have you checked it with an O-scope? That's what I was going to do when I got my amps installed, so I could see how bad it was when the light started to flicker.

Interested to see exactly how accurate they are

 

[Badseed]

Have you checked it with an O-scope? That's what I was going to do when I got my amps installed, so I could see how bad it was when the light started to flicker.
Interested to see exactly how accurate they are

No, I called around to my local shops and none of them have one (which seems crazy). I also don't know anyone with a scope as none of my friends are really into car audio, so I'm kinda out of luck on that one. I'll buy one eventually, but not in the cards right now

 

[adulbrich 5,000+ posts]

No, I called around to my local shops and none of them have one (which seems crazy). I also don't know anyone with a scope as none of my friends are really into car audio, so I'm kinda out of luck on that one. I'll buy one eventually, but not in the cards right now

I was actually asking Martin if he tested the 2200's clipping light.

I'm not surprised that your local shops don't have a scope. "Benchmark" in town just uses the DMM method, which I despise, because it "assumes" a lot of things.

My Scope was $70 on ebay //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[Badseed]

I was actually asking Martin if he tested the 2200's clipping light.
I'm not surprised that your local shops don't have a scope. "Benchmark" in town just uses the DMM method, which I despise, because it "assumes" a lot of things.

My Scope was $70 on ebay //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

Whoops, didn't see the quote in your post. My bad