Bass dosent wobble

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

like i said man shoot me a private message and ill tell you everything you need to know as far as setting your gains. to be honest, after you set everything up properly, you are not going to be happy with how quiet your subs are.

^truth, even the most experienced audio gurus should not set gains by ear IMO.

 

[splwj47 10+ year member]

What does a clean bass and clipped bass sound like? Like what is the thing you look for to know? If you sat in my car and heard my subs you could be like, yes they are clipping.. So I know what to listen for tomorrow when i go in my car


The amp has a input button high/low I think it is for the RCA?

So basically I need a DMM and measure everything?

Some people said you can do it all by ear, I turned the gain up to a point where it sounded like a good bang honestly.

if you dont have a digital multimeter go buy one they are cheap. and set them properly dont worry about what it sounds like. lots of times you cant even hear it. its very easy to do. dont do it by ear you do not have any experience to do it that way. and like i said before get a good box design and build a different box.

 

[darron016 10+ year member]

also if you dont want to spend money on a new setup, get one of the designers on here to make a design for you for your subs. it will make a world of a difference. that box you have is a turd. if it was mine i would use it for firewood. do yourself a favor and take peoples advise.

lol and yes, the only one person I know in my area who knows car audio said that everybody on here is crazy..

I tell him the advice you guys tell me, just to see what his response will be, to kind of get a knowing of his knowledge.

He said everything I have now is fine, I should only take your guys advice if Im trying to build competing subs.

lol that gain is to match the voltage from you head unit. depending on the voltage you HU puts out will depend on where the gain is set. 70% gain you are clipping the subs. there is a stickied thread around here somewhere that runs you through the proper ways to set you gain. all you need is a digital multimeter. i would stop arguing that your gain is set low at 70% and are not clipping.

Okay so to prevent damage, should I just set my gain at 0 for right now until I set everything with a DMM

No ur amp puts out max power when the voltage is matched to the output of the amp..for example my hu ha 4v preouts and the gain on my amp to get max power. is only halfway up anything past that and im clipping

When I get the DMM do i use the remote wire to measure my voltage from my HU?

Everybody's gotta start small. The box was most likely designed to be used with the sealed section, like I said before a bandpass is part sealed, part ported. I've never built or even owned one though, so I'm by no means an expert. Basically any sub set-up will sound loud at first, but you'll get used to the Kickers very quickly, they are really not that loud,
You could probably get a new set-up pretty cheaply, a Single SA-15 in the proper box on that Treo @ 2 ohms would definitely slam harder than the comps. And if your local Craigslist is anything like mine, you could get most of the money back out of the comps on there.

Is sa-15 a 15? If so, are they 4 ohms or are 15 2 ohms?

You do need to pick up a Digital Multimeter, it is an essential tool for setting up amps, and even having a proper set-up can't even prevent clipping, you've got to know what you're doing, base rules are never go up past 80% volume on the headunit, and set your amp's gain to slightly under the rated output there.

Your sony headunit is definitely a problem too, don't cheap out on the headunit, it is the base of the system, I've had 500$ systems where 250$ of it was the headunit.

 

[splwj47 10+ year member]

you take the leads from the dmm and stick the positive in the pos speaker output and the neg in neg speaker output. set the ddm for volts ac. then you figure out how many volts you want by this formula: square root of (rms x impedence). so for example your subs are wired are 4ohms and you need 600 rms, you take 600x4= 2400 then you find the square root of 2400. and that number is the volts ac you want you dmm to read when you turn up the gain. you will want to have you head unit set to about 3/4 volume. and you will need a 50hz test tone. and yes turn you gain to zero till you set it properly. oh and btw your friend is a retard.

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

Ok, you are going to unhook the subs from the amp, and zero out the gain.

Once you have finished that, you are going to play a 50Hz test tone through the HU @ ~80% of max volume, everything but the subs should be hooked up to the amp.

Plug the DMM into the amp, just like you would with the subs, and set it to measure AC Voltage.

Using this equation sqrt(Watts x Resistance) you will get ~24.4 sqrt of (300 x 2)

You are going to want to slowly raise the gain until you get to somewhere just below 24.4 on the DMM readout, that is where you are safe at 80% volume, if you max out the HU you will be clipping again.

Your friend doesn't know what he's talking about, I'd strongly advise not taking his opinions.

Note: this equation is for 300 RMS, that's kicker's rating, I do not recommend going much higher you will risk blowing the subs.

 

[Jes 42 10+ year member]

Your friend should come on here and give his audio expertise against some of the champion sq members.Then you'll see how much he actually knows!

 

[darron016 10+ year member]

Ok, you are going to unhook the subs from the amp, and zero out the gain.
Once you have finished that, you are going to play a 50Hz test tone through the HU @ ~80% of max volume, everything but the subs should be hooked up to the amp.

Plug the DMM into the amp, just like you would with the subs, and set it to measure AC Voltage.

Using this equation sqrt(Watts x Resistance) you will get ~24.4 sqrt of (300 x 2)

You are going to want to slowly raise the gain until you get to somewhere just below 24.4 on the DMM readout, that is where you are safe at 80% volume, if you max out the HU you will be clipping again.

Your friend doesn't know what he's talking about, I'd strongly advise not taking his opinions.

Note: this equation is for 300 RMS, that's kicker's rating, I do not recommend going much higher you will risk blowing the subs.

So if I set it at 80% volume, I should never turn my volume up past 80% while listening to music, correct?

Since you know the amp, should the high/low button be on high or low, 0db or 18db? Should the lpf on the amp be 80hz?

 

[PapaGeno21 10+ year member]

A DMM won't sense clipping.

If his head unit is clipping and then he sets the amp off that at a level that its clipping hes just going to make it worse.

BUT I have used the DMM in the past and for what hes doing now I can agree it is 10 times better than what hes is doing currently.

Truth is what everyone here said. Once you set your setup to what it SHOULD be set too, you will hate it. It is going to be very quiet and just not anything to talk about. 300-400 bucks you could get a sweet 1K used amp and a decent 15 and run it and it would blow you away. Build a quality box and just toss your current stuff on craigslist.

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

So if I set it at 80% volume, I should never turn my volume up past 80% while listening to music, correct?Since you know the amp, should the high/low button be on high or low, 0db or 18db? Should the lpf on the amp be 80hz?

Start on low and if you can't get to 24.4 on there, switch to high. Start at 0db, 80hz is fine. As a rule of thumb, never turn up past 80% ever, the HU will send a clipped signal and the internal HU amp will clip as well.

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

A DMM won't sense clipping.
If his head unit is clipping and then he sets the amp off that at a level that its clipping hes just going to make it worse.

BUT I have used the DMM in the past and for what hes doing now I can agree it is 10 times better than what hes is doing currently.

Truth is what everyone here said. Once you set your setup to what it SHOULD be set too, you will hate it. It is going to be very quiet and just not anything to talk about. 300-400 bucks you could get a sweet 1K used amp and a decent 15 and run it and it would blow you away. Build a quality box and just toss your current stuff on craigslist.

All of this is very true, but being careful while setting with the DMM is much better than guessing. Most important thing is not to try to milk that last power out of the amp, set @ 300W @ 2 ohms he is far under the amp's capability, so if he doesn't clip the headunit's signal, he should be fine.

 

[darron016 10+ year member]

Papa geno, what is a 1k amp?

Does anyone have a 50 hz signal?

 

[darron016 10+ year member]

All of this is very true, but being careful while setting with the DMM is much better than guessing. Most important thing is not to try to milk that last power out of the amp, set @ 300W @ 2 ohms he is far under the amp's capability, so if he doesn't clip the headunit's signal, he should be fine.

Far under the capability? The amp can do more than 300rms?

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

Far under the capability? The amp can do more than 300rms?

@ 2 ohms bridged it should be capable of around 500.

 

---------- Post added at 09:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 PM ----------

 

Papa geno, what is a 1k amp?
Does anyone have a 50 hz signal?

1000 RMS, do you have a smartphone, or do you need an MP3 to burn onto a CD or an iPod?

 

[darron016 10+ year member]

I have smart phone, I can play a mp3 through phone and or ipod.

I thought the amp was capable of 300 rms per sub because that is what audioban told me when he looked it up

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

I have smart phone, I can play a mp3 through phone and or ipod. I thought the amp was capable of 300 rms per sub because that is what audioban told me when he looked it up

Signal Generator on an iPhone or TrueTone on the Android will work. The Amp is capable of about 300RMS per sub, but the subs can only handle 150RMS each.