Electrical Question

[BumpThat93 10+ year member]

OK heres my problem. I have the Alpine 9813, Alpine components, JL 500/1 hooked up to a pair of 12W3V2s. I am also running 4 gauge wire. Keep in mind I am only running the one amp. I have a Tsunami 1.0 farad cap hooked up too, but I am still getting a good amount of headlights etc. dimming when I turn the volume up past like 20. Sometimes I even blow the in-line fuse, I have gone through about 6 of them since I had everything professionally installed over the summer. Should I get one of those Optima yellow tops, do I need a new alternator too? Will any of those things stop the dimming? On top of that, the subs seem to not hit as hard after I have been listening to my system loud for over an hour. By the way, I have this all in a 1993 Buick Riviera, not exactly the common car to have a system in. Anyway I am open to everyone's input. Also feel free to comment on my system and/or car. Peace.

Drew

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[SPLNOMA 10+ year member]

what size is ur fuse you may need a bigger one

 

[badM3 10+ year member]

Check your grounds. Sand metal, star washers and nuts/bolts.

Another idea is to upgrade your ground lead to the chassis. (4 gauge from negative post to factory chassis point, sand area/remove paint)

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Do you have the MX on your head unit enabled? If so turn it off.

Where do you have the EQ on the head unit set? What about the bass boost on the amp?

 

[badM3 10+ year member]

Possible your gains are way to high.

 

[BumpThat93 10+ year member]

i have the MX all the way up to 3, the subs dont sound as good with it off. on my head unit, i turned the sub settings down to about 5, from 11, but obviously my subs dont hit as hard now. i am running a 60 amp fuse. all my ground connections are good. any ideas on amp settings to get the most out of my subs without having to use to sub volume to control most of the bass? also i forgot to say last time, i havent blown a fuse since i changed the sub equalizer in the head unit to 63 hz. thanks for the input so far.

drew

 

[badM3 10+ year member]

Sounds like the amp is begging for more power.

Bigger fuse.

 

[BumpThat93 10+ year member]

u are right i do have my gains up pretty high, this was the only way i could get the sound i wanted though. i messed with the settings for a good 5 months, but the gains are set lower than what they were originally. i listen mostly to hip hop and r&b, and i like to accentuate the low notes. i just cant seem to get the settings on the JL amp quite right. i have a feeling i am close, but i know i can still do better. any ideas? thanks again.

drew

 

[BumpThat93 10+ year member]

Sounds like the amp is begging for more power.
Bigger fuse.

M3, will i need to do anything else to compensate for the bigger fuse. also, how big of a fuse should i go? thanks man.

 

[morris85 10+ year member]

I'd think a 60 amp would be enough, hmm.

Do an 80. If it still blows, something's up.

And no you don't need to do anything else, just pop in a bigger fuse.

 

[BumpThat93 10+ year member]

thanks for the info mo

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

i have the MX all the way up to 3, the subs dont sound as good with it off. on my head unit, i turned the sub settings down to about 5, from 11, but obviously my subs dont hit as hard now. i am running a 60 amp fuse. all my ground connections are good. any ideas on amp settings to get the most out of my subs without having to use to sub volume to control most of the bass? also i forgot to say last time, i havent blown a fuse since i changed the sub equalizer in the head unit to 63 hz. thanks for the input so far.drew

Do you mean the crossover on the sub output? Set the crossover a bit higher if you just want to bump. Also, try setting the sub crossover to FLAT on the h/u and using the amp crossover instead. Also IIRC the sub level on the 9813 (I have one but I haven't gotten my amps installed yet so I haven't played with the sub section yet) goes from 0dB to -15dB, meaning that the smaller the number the higher the relative volume of the subs. It just seems to me that you are trying to get more out of your setup than it is able to give you. By adding all that boost from the MX you are causing the output to clip sooner than it would normally and effectively sending the amp a square wave to try to reproduce. It tries, but it draws a ton of current doing so and blows the fuse. You are lucky that you haven't toasted on of the subs yet. Also remember that the gain is a level matching device and not a volume control. It's not something you should be adjusting once it is set. Get everything set CORRECTLY. Get help if you need it. If you still aren't getting what you want, you need either bigger subs or a second amp. If you run a bigger fuse than the 50 amp recommended by JL you are setting yourself up to cook something. The fact that you are blowing the fuse regularly to begin with should tell you something isn't right with your setup.

 

[BumpThat93 10+ year member]

helotaxi, keep in touch about the settings for the 9813...and yes i did get some help in adjusting the setup, and i havent had the problem with blowing fuses. i am just the kind of person always looking for ways to get more out of something. the system sounds good the way it is now, but i just want to set it and forget it. i switched to 80 hz thru my head unit and i am getting a bit more bump. but u said sumthin about setting the crossover in the amp rather than the head unit? is that better? should i do both? hit me up on aim if u have it my screen name is Biggie210. peace.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I don't have AIM at work and thats the only computer I have access to for the next few months.

The JL amp has a really good crossover from all that I have heard. It is also infinitely adjustable unlike the 1/3rd octave choices on the HU. It's really easy to adjust the amp crossover with the system playing and you can just set it where it sounds good and leave it. I had an old system that had an in dash crossover that I was always playing with to get the sound right for a given song. Dial it up higher for getting stupid loud. Crank it down to around 50Hz for sound quality. If you use both crossovers you will likely have some phasing problems.