Gain?

[THXdts 10+ year member]

To make sure if I did this right, I am going to tell you what I did. You put in a test tone, turn it up to a volume u want. Put dmm in speaker terminals. Turn gain screw until desired voltage is reached?

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[ctmike 10+ year member]

turn the volume up till you start to hear distortion, then back off a little. and remember to have the bb all the way down and all the loudness and everything at your hu also.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

To make sure if I did this right, I am going to tell you what I did. You put in a test tone, turn it up to a volume u want. Put dmm in speaker terminals. Turn gain screw until desired voltage is reached?

That is the basic idea behind setting with a DMM, yes.

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

turn the volume up till you start to hear distortion, then back off a little. and remember to have the bb all the way down and all the loudness and everything at your hu also.

Distortion at bass frequencies is very hard to hear. Once you start hearing it, you are really clipping the signal, and backing it off will probably still be a clipped signal.

 

[dvrmstrng 5,000+ posts]

make sure the first time you do it to take the spaker wire out of the terminals...and check the gain setting tutorial!

 

[ctmike 10+ year member]

well the way i've always done it is set all the bb, loudness and bb on hu down to 0 and slowly turned it up till i heard some, then back off some. like on my hu i set it with my volume on 43 (out of 62) cause it starts to distort at 46. never had no problems and even after doing it had a couple of shop owners/installers look at it and said they'd have set it the same.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

Assuming your not totally deaf, and aren't hard on your volume knob that'll work fine. I usually end up with something stupid close to a 3:1 gain ratio by ear, I barely moved my gains when I DMM'ed it once. I guess it really depends on your listening habits in terms of whether DMM gain setting is required. If you know your going to push your subs as hard as you can on most songs, then it may be necessary. If you like a more balanced sound, it's not always necessary.

 

[Trey803 5,000+ posts]

The only thing I dont understand is the different db tones. One said only use if you are experienced. What make different levals easier/harder or better/worse to use?

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

Test tones are recorded at different reference levels. Some people prefer to use tones that are recorded at a much higher level than what music is recorded at. This makes sure that no their amps will NEVER see enough input voltage to have a reason to clip. The tone that will cause your HU to clip is of a highe volume than any music. The disadvantage to this is that you'll rarely see anything close to full performance out of your gear. If you can't clip on event the highest peaks of any music, you wont' get much power out of your amp on the more reserved parts of the music either. For music with very low record volumes, this can actually be fairly frustrating, having to crank the hu up to get decent volume.

I usually set gains by ear, but if I had to use tones I'd do a -10db tone at 3/4 hu volume. This will allow put you out of the range of clipping at 3/4 volume for all but the most intense of basslines. If the song isn't that dynamic, you have quite a bit of your volume knob to use as well. The only issue with this, is inexperienced users can often crank it too high on the wrong tracks, and break their equipment.

Think of it as a govenor on a sports car. Some people need them or else they'd die a semi-painless death by crashing into a tree, other's are a bit more conservative. They appreciate the extra power, but don't always use it.