HU EQ or Amps EQ??? set-up question

[ssleefl 10+ year member]

I have a Kenwood Excelon KDC-X890 HU which has all the set-up bells & whistles including incl Bass center freq, Bass Q factor High pass & low pass filters for the sub, front & rear pre outs. Pretty cool. Except my amps have the same thing. I'm running a JL 450/4 and a 500/1. What do I use to set up and trim out the system. The HU or the amps?

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[Plutoman 10+ year member]

Set up the system based on the amplifiers - then, if needed, you can change settings on the go with the HU.

That's the route I'd take, at least.

 

[ssleefl 10+ year member]

Why wouldn't I run everything from my head unit and just turn the amp EQ's off. That way everything would be at my fingertips.

I am obviously thinking in error as you are the second person to tell me to use the amp EQ's. I just can't figure out why?

Could someone please explain.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, I personally enjoy the little time to myself that I get when walking from the driver's seat to the trunk, in order to adjust my EQ settings. Its a time you can use organizing your thoughts, getting fresh air, exercising, writing your autobiography, dodging traffic, and best of all... I find the acoustics of my system are easiest to read and adjust while leaning over my rear bumper and ducking my head into the trunk. I dont know why anyone would want to set up their system any other way. So when you look at it that way, isn't the answer obvious?

 

[energizedsbs 10+ year member]

Yeah, I personally enjoy the little time to myself that I get when walking from the driver's seat to the trunk, in order to adjust my EQ settings. Its a time you can use organizing your thoughts, getting fresh air, exercising, writing your autobiography, dodging traffic, and best of all... I find the acoustics of my system are easiest to read and adjust while leaning over my rear bumper and ducking my head into the trunk. I dont know why anyone would want to set up their system any other way. So when you look at it that way, isn't the answer obvious?

lol....//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

 

[Plutoman 10+ year member]

Why wouldn't I run everything from my head unit and just turn the amp EQ's off. That way everything would be at my fingertips.
I am obviously thinking in error as you are the second person to tell me to use the amp EQ's. I just can't figure out why?

Could someone please explain.

Oic. Well, I don't own the amps - I didn't know you could turn them off. If so, then do that. Much easier.

I was going off the assumption that it had the different settings for that and couldn't be disabled - as then you would want to set all those correctly, and then balance it off as needed on the HU.

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

Without having good off the top of the head knowledge of that equipment, my only opinion would be that the amps will give you a finer, more detailed control over some of that stuff, such as crossover settings and boost (if you use it) than the head unit will. And if you use boost it will give you better control over the exact amount of boost and which speakers get the boosted frequencies and which do not. If your amps are set right from the beginning than you probably won't need to mess with the head unit as much to get what you want.

So if you're going for the most precise tune possible to fit your needs start with the amp. If you just prefer to tune amps text book style, 80 HZ high pass/low pass, zero boost, and whatever the other common recommendations are, then do that and use the EQ to fine tune.

Personally, my boosts are zeroed out at the HU and Amp. I use the amp's crossover settings and turned them off at the HU, as I feel I get the up front mid-bass kick Im looking for without sacrificing undistorted volume at 70HZ. If I go to 80 I start to loose my sense of the drum attack coming from up front. If I go to 65 HZ or below my mids give in a little too early when I play anything with a real strong bass line. My Alpine CDA 9883 doesn't give me this flexibility. You have better filter adjustments at your head unit than mine though so you may find it more convenient to tweak those at the head unit. It really all depends on how good your head unit's adjustments are vs. your amps and exactly how precise of a starting point you're lookin for before you equalize.

 

[ssleefl 10+ year member]

That's the f'in answer I was lookin' for.

THANKS!