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<blockquote data-quote="thch" data-source="post: 4359382" data-attributes="member: 562032">this is one criticism of using a DMM to set gains.&nbsp; the manufacturer may misrate the amp either high or low.&nbsp; further, amps with unregulated power supplies have different power output capabilities as the battery voltage changes.&nbsp; This means that you will likely be off by a bit as well due to your charging system not being the same as the amp was rated with.because minor clipping is largely harmless, especially for large woofers playing music for 5 minutes at a time, you don&#039;t need to worry too much.&nbsp; Further, you are measuring voltage to find power, so even if the amp is clipping slightly, its not putting more power to the speaker then rated, just more distortion.since hearing is logrithmically based -- eg, sounds must have a huge amount of extra power to sound just a bit louder, this does not overly affect most setups.the dmm still doesn&#039;t tell you if the setup sounds good.&nbsp; you still need to have some way to adjust volumes of each speaker stage individually to ensure the system blends together.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="thch, post: 4359382, member: 562032"] this is one criticism of using a DMM to set gains. the manufacturer may misrate the amp either high or low. further, amps with unregulated power supplies have different power output capabilities as the battery voltage changes. This means that you will likely be off by a bit as well due to your charging system not being the same as the amp was rated with. because minor clipping is largely harmless, especially for large woofers playing music for 5 minutes at a time, you don't need to worry too much. Further, you are measuring voltage to find power, so even if the amp is clipping slightly, its not putting more power to the speaker then rated, just more distortion. since hearing is logrithmically based -- eg, sounds must have a huge amount of extra power to sound just a bit louder, this does not overly affect most setups. the dmm still doesn't tell you if the setup sounds good. you still need to have some way to adjust volumes of each speaker stage individually to ensure the system blends together. [/QUOTE]

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