I need some help.

[Bruizer 10+ year member]

So first let me give yall the run down of my setup: I have a Stinger HO 220 alt up front with the big 3 done in 0g with 4g running from my front battery to my rear Stinger SPV44 and then 4g running from it to my Kicker SX1250.1 (roughly 3ft SPV44 to SX). My kicker is wired in at 1ohm to power 2 Polk SR124DVCs in a sealed enlosure. And my HU is an Alpine CDA-9886.

Here is my problem: Even with my subwoofer option turned to 15 on the HU, they aren't that loud. I can turn the Bass control (-7 to 7, usually keep it at 0) on the HU up and they will get louder, but I don't like to do that seeing as how it boost the frequencies around a certain frequency (60 is the lowest CF my HU will allow me to choose), like Bass Boost on the amp. The HU has 4v preouts and right now on my SX I have the bass boost set to flat (0), HPF set to 20hz, LPF set to 80, Gain Range set to 2v, and Gain set to 8.0. The HU volume goes up to 35, but I never have turned it past 20. When I got my HU (upgraded from a CDA-9884) I set the gain range to 4v and kept the gain at 8.0 but it didn't get louder, so I turned it back to a 2v range and it was a little louder than my CDA-9884 had been at the same gain settings. When I set the gain range to 1v the subs will get loud like one would expect, but I am leary of leaving it at that because I know gain isn't suppose to be used as volume, but then again as I said, I've never turned the volume up to 20 or above on my HU and I know gain is usually set at 3/4 volume.

Any ideas what could be wrong?.

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[Rashaddd 5,000+ posts]

Set gains with your HU as high as you'll ever have it, and turn gains up either until just before clipping or use a dmm to set them to match the rms rating of your subs (if your subs can't handle as much as your amp can cleanly put out)

 

[Bruizer 10+ year member]

Anyone else with any suggestions? Here is how my local audio shop wired it all up:

 

[skittlesRgood 10+ year member]

well that diagram doesnt show much of anything.

with the volume at 20 or lower your not putting out 4v so its ok to turn the gains past 4v. find a testing tone at 60hz. turn the gain up untill you can hear cliping.

did you wire the subs or did the shop? might not be wired at 1ohm.

 

[Bruizer 10+ year member]

IThe diagram was just to give you a visual of how everything is wired and to see if anything seemed wrong with it (wrong gauge, etc). I wired them up and am pretty positive they are wired correctly for 1ohm operation, but I'll check them again.

 

[skittlesRgood 10+ year member]

ya but just showing a + wire isnt telling us much.