DEH-P6500 optimal sub settings?

[tobz 10+ year member]

If you turn the head unit's EQ LOW setting to a +4, you are sending more bass to all of your speakers. If you keep that down and rather set your subwoofer setting (the -6 to +6) higher, or keep it down and adjust your gain accordingly, you will have a better control of keeping the bass out of your mids and highs, and sending them only to your sub. That will allow you to play your mids and highs at a louder volume without ruining your drivers, or distorting the sound.

Hope that helped a bit.

T.J.

 

[Darwin 10+ year member]

thanks that does make sense. right now i do have the sub setting at +6 AND the low at +2 (and 125hz crossover). boom is still not quite where i want it. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[slick rick 10+ year member]

well on my 8500 i have it set at +3. that way i can easily take bass out( i never do) and if i want more bass i can put it up. id recommend setting at it +3 or higher. that way your gains are lower which means cleaner signal. ok, for the hum thing, if im understanding what you said it sounds like my old system would make a constant rumble if the gains were too high. so if you hear that its too loud. what volume do you have you gains set at? the 40's?

 

[Darwin 10+ year member]

what do you mean by what volume? you mean what volume do i set the head unit at to tweak gain? yeah, i guess 40 or 45. like i said i rarely listen at over 45, so that seems like a natural place to set it at in order to play with gain. note that this is 45 ON CD! the SLA reference is FM tuner, but thats weaker than cd... and someone on here said not to go over 50 on the volume dial if i was powering my interior speakers with the head unit, which i am. aux level is even weaker than FM, even with SLA maxed at +4. needless to say i'm scared to go over 50, so i just dont listen to the radio much because its too quiet to blast.

and as for the constant rumble thing.. it really depends on the song (as well as the input device: cd, radio, aux), which is why it's so hard to test. if distortion is that constant rumble, then throw on something like Miracle's "Bounce" or Daz Dillinger's "My System" and you'll get a rumble throughout the whole song. is that "bad" for the amp? also, even with conservatively mixed songs with sharp bass, there is no cutoff point for rumble vs. no rumble. if you set it so there is no rumble ever, you're going to have some horribly weak output. on the other hand, when i tweak with a song with sharp bass, i'm tempted to set the gain so it will boom nicely, but then when i change songs it may rumble excessively.

oh well. i guess there is no easy solution to this dilemma. =) i'm going to try the sine-wave cd thing, mattj on these forums is selling them for $7 shipped i think. i like the idea of matching absolute numbers.

 

[slick rick 10+ year member]

hmm. well if y ou dont play it over 45 then set it at 45. get a song like ying yang salt shaker ot test it with. anything with alot of constant bass. because if your amp can play it how you like it with that song, then lighter bass songs can be boosted with the h/u sub control if need be. now that song is not the absolute best bass, but it gives you an idea. so if you hear that "rumbling" then turn it down until you dont hear it. then you should be set.

http://www.snapbug.ws/sinewaves/

those are some sinwaves. if you have any questions feel free to keep asking. lets get this system sounding tight! just to make sure, you have your bass boost off right?

 

[Darwin 10+ year member]

Thanks. =) yeah i have my amp bass boost off. the first year i had this system i didn't know shit and i blew the amp by cranking that instead of the HU bass boost. hooray for warranty.

i'm gonna try these sine waves through an aux input (ipod) when i get a chance. right now i have my sub setting on the HU at 125hz +6, so that i only have to boost the global low end by +2 for CD (+4 for aux and radio). should i drop the sub to 0 instead of +6 for testing? the only reason i opened it up all the way was because that other dude said to.

and if you're wondering, i'm not trying to get some reasonably loud boom or something out of this system. my kappa components are in no danger of being drowned out by the subs.

 

[slick rick 10+ year member]

good. well the higher the sub control is, the higher the voltage the h/u is sending. so +6 is fine. what subs do you have? i keep my sub control at 80 because imo if you set it at 125 it starts to sound ,uddy.

 

[Darwin 10+ year member]

my subs are jl audio 10w3 10" 250w. sealed box.

i've tried 80 for some songs, but in my experience it usually just ends up making everything quieter, but if the song has muddy bass its going to stay muddy no matter the crossover.

i tried using salt shaker to tune this afternoon before i went to work... set it at 45, turned all eq and everything to 0 (including sub output level), and played with the amp gain until it had a nice lingering boom but wasn't excessive. then i knocked my volume back down to standard 40 listening level and bumped the sub output to +6 and the global low end to +2. sounds good, though i was listening to a crystal method cd on the way home and noticed a couple songs that had a bass drone throughout most of the song, punctuated by the thumps of course. it sounded good, didnt drown out anything, didnt hurt my ears, but is that bad for any of the equipment? should i turn down the crossover and/or sub output when songs like that come on? just wondering.

havent gotten around to the sine wave thing yet.

btw correction in my last post: reasonable should be UNreasonable.

 

[slick rick 10+ year member]

try setting it with the bass control on +3 at 45. that drone could be because you have it on 125, try putting it to 80 and see what happenes. is the global thing ur talking about the source level adjustment?

 

[Darwin 10+ year member]

no i mean the custom EQ. low/mid/high.

like i said, for the most part i still get the drone when i put the crossover down, its just that everything is quieter... weaker bass. i LIKE the drone, but is it bad for the amp was my main worry. =)

 

[slick rick 10+ year member]

what exactly is this drone again? is it constant?

 

[Darwin 10+ year member]

on songs with a constant low bass line, sure. drone is absent on most songs.

 

[Darwin 10+ year member]

okay! i tried the 50hz sine wave through an ipod with exciting results, however, i need to get opinions here if this is a good idea before i burn the sines to a CD.

http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/Input_Sensitivity/Input_Sensitivity.html

this is a very easy to understand flash tutorial on JL audio's site, but i wanna know if this procedure applies to all amp brands, as long as i follow that math. i have JL subs, but a phoenix gold amp. my amp documentation says "@ 14.4 Vdc" for pretty much all settings (i have them bridged of course). so i double that and get 28.8. this is what i should try to match, right? problem is the only ac meter i have is analog, so i'm gonna borrow or pick up a digital soon.

i tested today at 45 volume (46.5 is 3/4 of max on my HU, close enough). i had all EQ and stuff off, 80hz crossover (110 on the amp to cover for what the HU misses), and aux SLA at +4 (for some reason aux input is pretty weak-- this issue will be moot when i config with the burned CD, since i have my CD SLA at 0). i also had amp output at +6. this is what im wondering about. if i set the gain with the HU sub output at 0, and then decide i want more bass for some song, arent i going to end up knocking the speaker output to over the 28.8 safe mark? wouldnt it be better to set gain with sub output at max (+6) and then knock it down for the thunderous songs?

interested to hear ideas. =) thanks.

EDIT: i have a sound studio program that can create sine waves at 0dB, which i can then save and burn. making a 5 minute sine wave track is preferable to looping one of those mp3s over and over.

is this a good way to set gain? i've never heard of it on these forums but yet isnt this more or less what you do in pro audio installation? if you don't have a wave meter thing? let me know if it's a huge waste of time. ;D

 

[slick rick 10+ year member]

i think the jl thing applies if you have a jl amp. like i said before. set the gain on the amp by putting it on volume 45 and sub control on at least =3. that way it sending a higher signal and should be less noise in your system.

 

[delvryboy 5,000+ posts]

just something to remember

the 'low' adjustment is a bass boost/cut, it adjusts the center freq you choose at the desired Q...you can change the center freq by pressing and holding the 'audio' button when on the low adjustment screen

the +6/-6 adjustment on the non-fade/SW-2 screen just attentuates the preout voltage