Getting new R1200-1D Monoblock amp tomorrow, not sure how to safely pair ohms withsub

[The_Quiet_One 10+ year member]

Ok, good you should be able to smell if voice coil gets stinky, but sounds like you should be good to go. Those P3's are pretty sturdy. Don't know about the prime amps, but RF in general makes good stuff. Bump away man.

 

[The_Quiet_One 10+ year member]

The 50-200 knob is your low pass filter, cuts off any frequencies higher than what you have it set at. Going to be difficult to be spot on , but try and eyeball it around the 80-100 mark. The infrasonic set at whatever your box is tuned at. It's to stop the subs form playing frequencies that may damage them. The punch boost will just boost your signal around 45 Hz. I'll generally never use it except for very rare occasions. It's like boosting the bass at the HU.

*This is the quick and dirty answer that should get you close to where you need to be for a rough tune.

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

[quote name='Souldrop']Lol, misleading information? Ok, I'll bow out and let the "experts" help you out with your further questions. @n2audio @fatboytyler[/QUOTE]

Apologies for being a bit harsh.
I just don't think an Engineering Physics I lesson in wave theory is going to help someone that just wants to get their gain set at a safe level.

[quote name='Souldrop']Square waves are what we would call distortion or clipping. Good way to blow up dem woofers or any speaker for that matter. Square waves can be introduced through HU or from overdriving the amp. That's why most guides and poeple suggest using a lower HU volume to set gains; you don't want to amplify an already clipped signal.[/QUOTE]

Ugh. C'mon man.
This is the stuff that I can't resist responding to. You throw crap like that out there and newbs run off to their newber friends babbling about these speaker killing square waves -- and it's bunk.
Square waves are NOT what "we" would call distortion or clipping.
A SEVERELY clipped sine wave may take on the SHAPE of a square wave, but with a music signal even a fully clipped amp doesn't output a square wave -- and the at that point, the sound would no longer be recognizable as music.
A little clipping is far from detrimental to a speaker. Some, maybe most music is recorded at a level that includes some degree of clipping.

MOST people, at least those that can hear, will have turned it down long before a clipped signal becomes more of a square wave than a sine wave.

 

[The_Quiet_One 10+ year member]

By square wave I was segueing into clipped waves which I should have clarified better. No, clipped music won't be a perfectly square wave. It was just an example to show that voltage a dmm reads is not representative of a sine wave (which ideally most reproduced music will be some variation of a combination of sine waves). Sure its fine to clip a bit especially for subwoofer duty, but I know for a fact not everyone will hear(or choose to hear) distortion or a clipped signal. I've seen too many setups where the owner just views the gain as a volume knob and just cranks it all the way up and blasts it full volume even when the speakers are clearly no longer producing music. It sounds like OP has a good head on his/her shoulders, so I'm not really worried about this particular incident; I wouldn't be surprised if he is being a bit too conservative with the gain.

As far as going more into the Physics side of it I do so because I love this hobby and would love if everyone knew at least the basic concepts. One more new person who may chance upon this thread is one more person who can be introduced to the very complex and rewarding world of car audio. I know I wish I had come across someone who could describe the "why?" behind some stuff far sooner than I had. I sadly didn't have the luxury of car audio forums back then. I agree that my approach was a tad too technical even though I was trying to cover basic AC and DC differences. I try to err on making my posts more comprehensive in case the person I'm responding to wants to pursue the topic more fully. I know 90% of the time that it will be more technical than the reader is pursuing, but I'm aiming at the 10%. Information given can be ignored, but information withheld never has the opportunity to be pursued. I'll get off my soapbox now and I apologize for cluttering OPs thread with useless discourse.

 

[Kadenj]

The 50-200 knob is your low pass filter, cuts off any frequencies higher than what you have it set at. Going to be difficult to be spot on , but try and eyeball it around the 80-100 mark. The infrasonic set at whatever your box is tuned at. It's to stop the subs form playing frequencies that may damage them. The punch boost will just boost your signal around 45 Hz. I'll generally never use it except for very rare occasions. It's like boosting the bass at the HU.
*This is the quick and dirty answer that should get you close to where you need to be for a rough tune.

Thanks soul! So i did the 80-100hz on my low pass, then my infrasonic is at about 20 now. But i have to ask,,, this is my second amp now and i know these subs hit way harder than this. I need to make it clear I don't want these things to go harder or hotter than they are supposed to, but i beat the **** out of em, and they took it like champs. Is having my gain at 3/11 being a bit too conservative on this amp? I mean it is a recommended RF pairing, and i know they can handle more, like maybe 3.5? 4? earlier you said if i kind of turn up the gain and start feeling for heat and seeing smoke i should turn it down, so maybe i'll try that first. This is my last one I swear haha! Thanks so much for everyone's help thus far!!