Is my sub dustorting or clippin or what??

[DbRufus1234 10+ year member]

ok i have a 15" L7 and i know yall all say they have bad SQ and i was wondering if it is clippin or is that just how they sound becasue they dont have good SQ this is what it is doin......ok when i have it up around volume 20 it sounds like it is distortin but i donno casue i have my gain set a little over 1/2 the way up and my bass boast is at about 3 or 4dBs and the bass on my h/u is on +3 and i dont know if it is clippin or distoring or if that is just how L7s sound?

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[WarDrumz 10+ year member]

ok i have a 15" L7 and i know yall all say they have bad SQ and i was wondering if it is clippin or is that just how they sound becasue they dont have good SQ this is what it is doin......ok when i have it up around volume 20 it sounds like it is distortin but i donno casue i have my gain set a little over 1/2 the way up and my bass boast is at about 3 or 4dBs and the bass on my h/u is on +3 and i dont know if it is clippin or distoring or if that is just how L7s sound?

Dammm!

Lol, hell yeah, it's probably distorting.

Man you need to pick what source you want to do the boosting. Don't use both. Even the gain might be too high.

If I were you I'd turn my bass totally off, to zero, on my HU.

And...if you are turning your amp up all the way, then any boosts will more than likely just add distortion.

If your going to turn your amp up all the way, don't boost any frequencies that your sub amp is playing.

Turn your gain all the way down, turn your HU settings for bass back to zero, turn your HU to the level that you'd normally listen to your in-car speakers, OR to the point right before they distort, then turn your gain up until you hear your sub distort, then turn it back just a hair. Finished.

I used to turn my bass up, my HU's 'sub-level' up, AND have my amp at full blast, similar to the way you have yours. That's not the way to go for good sound.

Try the way I told you, and see if it sounds better.

 

[iamamp3pimp 5,000+ posts]

My Bass Is At -7

My Gain Is Maxed Out

My Sub W Is +12 Of 15

My Bass Bost Is Off

Dave Set Mine Up

While Playing But Darts With Tom Brokaw

 

[DbRufus1234 10+ year member]

i thought if u had your gain all the way up it will burn the voice coils?

 

[sungwei 10+ year member]

My gain is on it's highest setting on the amp and I'm at +9 out of 15 on my HU. I have an L5 10". Is this ok for a 10 "?

 

[WarDrumz 10+ year member]

i thought if u had your gain all the way up it will burn the voice coils?

That would be from the distortion.

I did that to my Infinity Perfects. The voice coil burned up. I did them exactly like your doing your subs.

My gain was at half, with all kinds of boosts, and levels turned up.

If someone "needs" their gain turned all the way up, they must have an absolutely HORRIBLE voltage coming from their HU.

 

[WarDrumz 10+ year member]

My gain is on it's highest setting on the amp and I'm at +9 out of 15 on my HU. I have an L5 10". Is this ok for a 10 "?

Nah bruh, It wouldn't even be ok for an 18".

Why would you turn your gain up ALL THE WAY, AND boost the bass?

I bet your system gets loud really early in the volume dial, then it doesn't get any louder about mid-way, and it just sounds distorted after that.

Your volume knob is on your HU, NOT your amp.

If the gains were meant to be all the way up, no amp would have a gain to be adjusted externally. They would all be at max settings internally.

And again, you don't need to boost any bass frequency that your amp is producing when it's already at max output.

How can you boost what you don't have?

You can't give 10 more dollars when you've spent all the money in your wallet.

How can a 500 watt amp put out 500 watts and then someone try to boost bass, and expect it to somehow put out more and/or get louder?

Both of you need to turn your bass to zero on your HU, turn your gain all the way down, turn your volume on the HU were you are comfortable with the sound from the in-car speakers, then turn your gain up until you start to hear distortion, then turn it back just a hair.

I say to listen for distortion, but it doesn't seem like you know how to detect distortion, bcuz your amps have to be clipping the way you describe your settings.

 

[Bavarian3 10+ year member]

i should post a thread of this and have it made a sticky.

To tune and amp....

1. Tune HU setting how u like them and how u would listen to them.

2. Make sure gain and bass boost is all the way down.

3. Turn the volume up on ur HU as high as u would listen to it

4. Start turning up the gain until u hear the subs distort or when u know its too much and theyr not getting any louder and turn it back down a tiny bit.

5. Set ur Xover (LowPass for subwoofers High Pass for Mids) how u like it generally 80-160hz for mids/highs and 90-120hz for subwoofers.. Only use ONE Xover, whether it be the head unit, external, or internal amp one, only use one.

Dont use Bass boost it causes uneeded distortion but if u want to use a little bit if u feel it makes them sound better then use only 2+-4+db and ull need to turn the gain down a bit more.

that should yeild u the best sound out of the sub. good luck

 

[Bavarian3 10+ year member]

My gain is on it's highest setting on the amp and I'm at +9 out of 15 on my HU. I have an L5 10". Is this ok for a 10 "?

no it is not. expect ur sub to go bye bye in the near future. depending on how loud u listen to it. tune amp how i said.

 

[WarDrumz 10+ year member]

Dont use Bass boost it causes uneeded distortion but if u want to use a little bit if u feel it makes them sound better then use only 2+-4+db and ull need to turn the gain down a bit more.

Exactly.

When your amp is over 1/2 way up the boost doesn't do much of anything GOOD for your sound.

You still want good SQ with the boost on?

Go ahead, do exactly like he said. Turn your bass UP, BUT, turn your gain DOWN.

I don't see the point myself. If you turn one up the other needs to go down. If your going to use 3/4 or more of your amps power, just leave the bass flat. The songs the are supposed to bump will, and the ones that are not supposed to won't. Simple.

We aren't clowning you guyz, bcuz it's likely we were almost all like you guyz in the begining. I know I was.

 

[DbRufus1234 10+ year member]

iight im bout to go tune my amp like yall said thanks for all the help

 

[DbRufus1234 10+ year member]

ok i got one more "?" how should i set the phase on my amp?

 

[sungwei 10+ year member]

Ok, I knew something was up. Sorry guys, new at all this car audio stuff. Well the sub is not distorting and neither are the speakers. I can keep cranking the sound and it still sounds clear. I'm sure if I approached max volume it may distort but I don't wanna sacrifice my ears for that test. At 20-24 volume it sounds clear and loud.

My amp is a bit different in the respect that it has two gain adjustments. One is a jumper style gain where you pull out this little plastic/metal thing (jumper) out of a strip of pins and place it to the location where you want your gain. The amp is set stock at +10. The next area is +20. I moved it to +20 cause before I had to turn my HU up to like 28 to get the same volume I am now. The second switch is a rotary style adjuster. I left this in the same position the amp came in, but you can further increase gain by twisting this knob.

Right now I'm using both the HPF and LPF supplied by xtant. But at the same time I have the crossovers set at 0 4 125 for sub and -2 2 63 for the speakers. I always wondered if I should use both or just one. What do you guys recommend? Filters on amp or crossovers on HU? I have the Alpine CDA-9813 and it's crossovers are pretty nice.

I know that's a lot of info, but I need it cause I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

 

[sungwei 10+ year member]

New discovery! I was mistaking the input gain as the output gain. The xtant 403a has an adjustable input gain which "effectively acts as a line driver" according to the manual. This combined with the fact that you can turn on a balanced line input ciruity with the amp makes for awesome sound! The sub sounds the way I want it too now with this discovery. Now I am adjusting the output gain to the way you guys described. Turns out the gain was down all the way. That's why my sub output was so high on the HU. Now with the balanced line inputs I can run my HU sub level at 0 with the gain turned up a little and it sounds real nice. I'm going to adjust though from square one the way you guys suggested so I get it right. Thanks for all the help!