Can you choose how much rms you send from your amp with a DMM?

[kabosh 10+ year member]

Ok, so I use the calculator on one of the stickys on this site to set my gains. The amps max watts is 1200 and it tells me reccomended voltage is 34.64. If i put 900 as the max watts and tune it to that recomended voltage, will the amp be pushing out 900 watts?

Also how do people feel about using the Remote bass nob? yes or no? and why.

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[quackhead 10+ year member]

Ok, so I use the calculator on one of the stickys on this site to set my gains. The amps max watts is 1200 and it tells me reccomended voltage is 34.64. If i put 900 as the max watts and tune it to that recomended voltage, will the amp be pushing out 900 watts?

If I may ask, why on earth would you want to do that?

Also how do people feel about using the Remote bass nob? yes or no? and why.

A remote Bass Knob should be discarded due to the drastic amount of gain involved, which in the hands of an inexperienced user, can unknowingly drive the amp into constant clipping. It is advised to use your HU settings for minute adjustments once you have made the proper system tuning.

 

[kabosh 10+ year member]

If I may ask, why on earth would you want to do that?


A remote Bass Knob should be discarded due to the drastic amount of gain involved, which in the hands of an inexperienced user, can unknowingly drive the amp into constant clipping. It is advised to use your HU settings for minute adjustments once you have made the proper system tuning.

First question, just curious really and it might come in handy breaking in my new sub. About the bass knob i would set my gains and everything with the bass knob all the way on, would it still cause clipping?

 

[-01limited- 10+ year member]

If I may ask, why on earth would you want to do that?

I agree here, just set it to right under 1.2k. The full amount wont be going to your sub anyways.

A remote Bass Knob should be discarded due to the drastic amount of gain involved, which in the hands of an inexperienced user, can unknowingly drive the amp into constant clipping. It is advised to use your HU settings for minute adjustments once you have made the proper system tuning.

This can be true for some bass knobs but some work on an attenuating system where you set your gain and then if you have your bass knob hooked up max on the bass knob goes to where you have your gain set, and min on the knob would be as if you turned your gain all the way down, if that makes any sense.

 

[goingdef 10+ year member]

also some knobs boost certain freq. like RF amps are dependent on the x-over setting as to the function of the knob.

 

[goingdef 10+ year member]

also some knobs boost certain freq. like RF amps are dependent on the x-over setting as to the function of the knob.

 

[kabosh 10+ year member]

I agree here, just set it to right under 1.2k. The full amount wont be going to your sub anyways.


This can be true for some bass knobs but some work on an attenuating system where you set your gain and then if you have your bass knob hooked up max on the bass knob goes to where you have your gain set, and min on the knob would be as if you turned your gain all the way down, if that makes any sense.

I appreciate the recommendations, but is my theory correct? if I say the max watts on the amp is 900 on the calculator will the voltage it gives me send out 900 watts? even if the max watts on the amp is 1200? And I have the bass knob that came with my brz1200. if that helps ^_^

 

[-01limited- 10+ year member]

I appreciate the recommendations, but is my theory correct? if I say the max watts on the amp is 900 on the calculator will the voltage it gives me send out 900 watts? even if the max watts on the amp is 1200? And I have the bass knob that came with my brz1200. if that helps ^_^

Yes you're correct in your theory, but it wont hurt to set it a few volts higher if you want to actually see a true 900 watts through most of the frequencies.

 

[Julian 10+ year member]

Yes... And no...

 

[-01limited- 10+ year member]

Yes... And no...

Explain?

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

to answer your initial question, you should set it to match the HU max output voltage. Your amp is overrated enough that it is likely you will very seldom meet, or exceed the 900watt power level you desire to obtain anyways, on music that is. A good rule of thumb for future reference is buy the amp you want that meets your system design goals and then buy subs to match system design goals that also meet your amplifier power requirements. Against popular belief, It does not hurt to power a sub below it's rms, Actually some of the better sounding, moderately priced and well constructed subs have 500 - 1000 watt rms ratings. It does not hurt to exceed a sub's rms, even by half on musical transient peaks, if it is even a halfway decent sub with accurate specs. Some companies do cheat you out of your money though.

here, I will pass this along to you too, very helpful tutorial to help you to get the best quality out what you have ,,

How to Tune and Adjust Amplifier Gains and Bass Boost - Knowledge Base

 

[-01limited- 10+ year member]

to answer your initial question, you should set it to match the HU max output voltage. Your amp is overrated enough that it is likely you will very seldom meet, or exceed the 900watt power level you desire to obtain anyways, on music that is. A good rule of thumb for future reference is buy the amp you want that meets your system design goals and then buy subs to match system design goals that also meet your amplifier power requirements. Against popular belief, It does not hurt to power a sub below it's rms, Actually some of the better sounding, moderately priced and well constructed subs have 500 - 1000 watt rms ratings. It does not hurt to exceed a sub's rms, even by half on musical transient peaks, if it is even a halfway decent sub with accurate specs. Some companies do cheat you out of your money though.
here, I will pass this along to you too, very helpful tutorial to help you to get the best quality out what you have ,,

How to Tune and Adjust Amplifier Gains and Bass Boost - Knowledge Base

A lot of people dont think about increasing enclosure size to increase output with lower power. Its how my setup is and it sounds pretty good for probably only seeing ~500 watts.

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

First question, just curious really and it might come in handy breaking in my new sub. About the bass knob i would set my gains and everything with the bass knob all the way on, would it still cause clipping?

On your amp, I would recommend setting the gain with manually set it at 0 boost and discard the remote knob. Yours is adjustable from 0 to 18 DB gain centered at 45hz.

 

[kabosh 10+ year member]

Ok and next question is how do I properly break in a sub? Do I set the gain at like half the max rms? or do i put at at max and keep the subwoofer option on the head unit 0 out of ten, or even negative?

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

if you play and feel like you need a touch more bottom end, then you can add at touch of boost, but the smart thing to do is design your enclosure to sound good, and purchase a flexible external equalizer for fine tuning instead of relying on a specific boosted frequency to overcome any anomalies.