Help with setting gains on amp

[Astyl 10+ year member]

yeah, but thats the highest that i listen too, so do i still set it at my listening volume, or some high number that the headunit will never see

 

[Slaugh 10+ year member]

well i thought i knew how to adjust the gains on my amplifiers till i read Sage's post... i didn't know you had to calculate the maximum output of your amplifiers... i thought some amps were overated and others underated, thus putting out different wattages than announced, so what i always did was to put the DMM to my speaker outputs with the test tone at volume 26 (out of 35 from my 9815) and slowly increased the gains till the voltaged wouldnt climb any higher.. than go back a touch and that was it

anyone confirms if what i did was right or wrong plz?

 

[Astyl 10+ year member]

if i really wanted to ghetto it i guess i could just play a tone and crank away till i hear it obviously distorting, then set it back a notch and call it good

 

[Astyl 10+ year member]

bump

 

[SAG3 5,000+ posts]

why are you bumping this?

just set it correctly.

 

[Astyl 10+ year member]

This is why im bumping it

As for where you set it at, around 75-80% of max volume is recommendable. I wouldn't do something as low as 20 out of 35. That's around.. what.. 60%?

The highest i listen to is 20, so do i set it at 20, or to something higher even though ill never play it that loud, meaning ill never see full output at my target volume

 

[Slaugh 10+ year member]

if i really wanted to ghetto it i guess i could just play a tone and crank away till i hear it obviously distorting, then set it back a notch and call it good

what you mean by ghetto? many people use this method to adjust gains and it's written on my alpine amplifier manual aswel...

i don't believe they would like people to "ghetto" their amplifiers, do you?

 

[Astyl 10+ year member]

i run alpine everything, ive got some type r cabin speakers in the mixs, hell, if alpine made the wiring, ide probobly buy that too, it seems like a crude method compared to these "special" ways of doing it

 

[Slaugh 10+ year member]

or it may be just "less accurate"...

whatever, just as long as your speakers dont distort and you get a clean and powerful sound until 75-80% of the total hu volume, i think that's fine

 

[Astyl 10+ year member]

so do i tune the amp at my maximum listening volume ( 60% ) , or do higher on the headunit and tune it from a higher spot ( 75 - 80% ) , even though ill never play it that loud, someone said 60% was pretty low to tune the amp too, but its the max that i ever listen too

 

[Blunt 10+ year member]

No matter the number on your head unit the speakers will only play so loud with 40w if you set the gain at 20 or 30 as long as the amp puts out the right voltage the speakers will be the same volume

lower volume the higher you haveot have th gain because the pre-out voltage is lower