Help with setting new amp setting? Please help!

[TheCandyMan 10+ year member]

I come here for the BEST help. You guys are just argueing with one another instead of helping me out like usual. This truely ***** balls. Guess i'm screwed...

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Your advice is to not to use a feature that the manufacturer put in there. Is it just for shits and giggles? Why did you not chime in when dude was asking for help in the morning? I saw how you handled that other post, it was quite good. Enlighten us as to why using bass boost is a bad idea.

The bass signal is flat, what you are doing is forcing bass into the signal that was not there in the first place which can and will severely distort and clip the signal to hell especially if you already set your gains to max clean output and no, you cannot hear the distortion or clipping unless you have an extremely trained ear but its indeed there. You definitely never ever want to touch bass boost on anything if you plan on keeping your system healthy for years to come. Manufacturers do that to attract noobs making them think their amp is louder than it actually is but its literally just a clipped signal which makes subs sound louder than they are with a clean signal.

 

[Clifff150 10+ year member]

What was your last amp? Hifonics overrates their amps so very likely not getting 2500rms out of it. Don’t touch the bass boost as others have said.

 

[Clifff150 10+ year member]

Just try setting the dials at 12oclock (not bass boost) and go from there. Adjust it to your liking with your music.

 

[OldFartAudio]

Here is a picture of what those 3 knobs will do. They can be useful if you have a hole in your frequency response but it should be uncommon in the low frequency range in a vehicle. I personally don’t like to use bass boost on an amp and would keep them all turned all the way counterclockwise. To really properly use it you should start by looking at frequency response inside the vehicle using a real time analyzer.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Here is a picture of what those 3 knobs will do. They can be useful if you have a hole in your frequency response but it should be uncommon in the low frequency range in a vehicle. I personally don’t like to use bass boost on an amp and would keep them all turned all the way counterclockwise. To really properly use it you should start by looking at frequency response inside the vehicle using a real time analyzer.View attachment 22676

Its better to figure out phase cancellation issues or address enclosure design flaws, box location/orientation over using boosts for a dip in their frequency response which usually leads to blown equipment most of the times.

 

[Lasherž]

Your advice is to not to use a feature that the manufacturer put in there. Is it just for shits and giggles? Why did you not chime in when dude was asking for help in the morning? I saw how you handled that other post, it was quite good. Enlighten us as to why using bass boost is a bad idea.

I'm partial to bass boost. Obviously if your setup is good you won't need it because the enclosure will fill in that dead spot. The input signal isn't what's clipping, it will be the output channel. Like in other scenarios you can check for output signal clipping with a multimeter and various 0db sine wave tones. It's true that it "stretches" the signal, which is always a negative thing for clarity, but I'd rather have a slightly stretched previously clean signal than an overly boomy midbass followed by an underwhelming low bass in enclosures that offer no resonance in the low end. By using the bass boost knob you're sacrificing volume in more efficient ranges and signal clarity for equal volume between high and low in an over-dampened enclosure scenarios. That is if you correctly set it up to avoid clipping. The clip lights make it much easier since you can tune for flat response through sweeps while being mindful of clips.

Distortion is a whole other beast, but provided your signal actually contained audible bass in that frequency before you modified it I don't believe the boost knob will distort it to the point of harm so long as you don't clip it. The worst case scenario for distortion would be if you use an lc2i to boost bass signal that was all but missing from the head unit source for those two speakers and then further bass boost it using the amp. Alternative if your head unit has a very weak pre-out voltage. You can't expand on a signal that's not there and expect it to be clean still. In that scenario the primary quality loss would be from the LOC resurrecting a signal that was hardly there, not the bass boost further stretching the undead signal, but they both contribute to the issue.

 

[Lasherž]

Its better to figure out phase cancellation issues or address enclosure design flaws, box location/orientation over using boosts for a dip in their frequency response which usually leads to blown equipment most of the times.

True, that pretty much gets to the heart of it.

 

[YourNameHere 10+ year member]

Like in other scenarios you can check for output signal clipping with a multimeter and various 0db sine wave tones.

please explain to me how to use a dmm to see a clipped signal?? LOL

 

[Lasherž]

please explain to me how to use a dmm to see a clipped signal?? LOL

Ohm's law to match the rating and avoid it altogether. Voltage goes higher than RMS rating allows, lower gain or boost. Pretty easy, I'm sure you and Google can figure it out.

 

[YourNameHere 10+ year member]

still not an accurate way to see if the signal is clipping....every amps rms rating is different even from same make and model....thats the dumbest **** i have seen haha....only way to know if your clipping is with an o-scope or lighted indicator (and even those arent accurate) your just pretty much guessing with your method

 

[Lasherž]

still not an accurate way to see if the signal is clipping....every amps rms rating is different even from same make and model....thats the dumbest **** i have seen haha....only way to know if your clipping is with an o-scope or lighted indicator (and even those arent accurate)

Okay bro, show me an amp that's clipping under its RMS voltage for a given ohm value and I'll show you a piece of **** amp. There's overhead before clip, but that doesn't mean it's rated for it. If you want to actually find the exact line of clip sure you'll want an o-scope, I just want to run my amps within their ratings and instruct others to do the same. I didn't know it would offend you so deeply if I didn't include a contrarian clause.

 

[YourNameHere 10+ year member]

your method is still just a guess....just admit you were wrong

 

[Lasherž]

your method is still just a guess....just admit you were wrong

It's the limitation of what someone would want to set it at to avoid clipping and cooking the amp, so you can take your own advice.

go **** yourself

 

[YourNameHere 10+ year member]

LOL....typical democrat sore loser....how is clipping gonna cook an amp?