Is turning gain all the way up necessarily a bad thing?

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

Yupp Anthony Toone Class of '09

Shit, I thought so. Parker Hatley, class of '09 here. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wave.gif.002382ce7d7c19757ab945cc69819de1.gif

your amp has a gain that goes all the way up for a reason.. if you use it correctly, you can turn it all the way up, or else they would not make them so you can turn them all the way up
its there for a reason... to be used how its meant to be used in the specific application

I was kinda thinking that yesterday, it wouldn't make sense for it to go down to 0.2V, unless there was a HU that goes down to that. Can you go deeper into this?

I always turn the gains up to max on my amps. After the input sensitivity button for my amp is at 2v-8v instead of 100mv-2v and I have 5v ouputs //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif. I moderate them with the volume on the HU though, keeping it around half or so. And also using quieter songs. What kind of "funny sound" do the subs make? It could potentially I suppose be a really crappy head unit.

I really can't explain it.

My HU is a Clarion, which isn't poor quality.

Just so you guys know, here's how I have everything set up on my HU. Head unit is simple, bass and treble, as far as EQ goes. My bass is at 0, and treble at +7. Head unit volume goes 1-33. I turn up the volume up to about 28-30 at the maximum. At this level the front stage does not distort (running off HU), so it is perfect; any higher and they do.

Turns all gains up to the max and keep the volume high on the HU... Will make equipment last longer as long as it sounds good to you, don't listen to all these idiots saying that u need to set it w/ a DMM or O Scope.

I feel like this is what I should do, rather listen to it sound good for a little while (saying that it will fail earlier) than listen to it sound mediocre for a long time...

But either way, I'm going to get some new boxes made, and see if that helps, first.

You can turn your gain all the way up if you have a low voltage input. There's nothing wrong with having a high gain, what matters is the signal coming out of the amp.

You mean if my head unit has a low voltage input? Mine is 1.8V, that seems pretty low. What do you think?

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

F*ck it guys. It's my car and my gear, so I'm running it the way I think is right. I know my decision won't be popular with everyone, and I know you guys know a lot more than I do, but there's one thing I know that you guys don't: how my shit sounds in my car. I'm going to run the ***** wiiide, because I'd rather listen to my system the way it should sound. And what if I blow something up? Well, I can at least say I learned something, rather than saying that my car doesn't have the top end volume it should because "I just listened to a bunch of guys on some car audio forum". Call it what you want, this is my decision and I'm sticking to it.

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

fap fap fap?

all night long

You mean if my head unit has a low voltage input? Mine is 1.8V, that seems pretty low. What do you think?

yea that is low. But you're better off trying to match the gain to the output rather than just turning that shit all the way up.

F*ck it guys. It's my car and my gear, so I'm running it the way I think is right. I know my decision won't be popular with everyone, and I know you guys know a lot more than I do, but there's one thing I know that you guys don't: how my shit sounds in my car. I'm going to run the ***** wiiide, because I'd rather listen to my system the way it should sound. And what if I blow something up? Well, I can at least say I learned something, rather than saying that my car doesn't have the top end volume it should because "I just listened to a bunch of guys on some car audio forum". Call it what you want, this is my decision and I'm sticking to it.

then why make a thread and ask for our suggestions if you're just going to act ignorant about it?

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

then why make a thread and ask for our suggestions if you're just going to act ignorant about it?

Because I'm glad I got feedback from another source, and I've learned some as well. How am I being ignorant about it if there are people telling me to do it, and people telling me not to?

 

[jpexpc 10+ year member]

Because I'm glad I got feedback from another source, and I've learned some as well. How am I being ignorant about it if there are people telling me to do it, and people telling me not to?

The people telling you to do it are being sarcastic. But it's your stereo, not ours.

 

[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

One reason that the gain input section probably has far more sensitivity than you will ever need is to match to a very low level input; for example; a HU with low output than has it's output split several times. If you took a pair of 1 volt output RCA's and split them to 3 or 4 amps each amp would see as little as .25 volts. Although all amp inputs sensitivies are slightly different, most amps could compensate for this extremely low input and still be driven at full power or even overdriven.

Since all HU have slightly different outputs and users may need to split the audio several times before it gets to the amps is why amps have an ability to match to such wildly different gain inputs.

Really, 1.8 volts is plenty of output. You could probably split that output 3 or 4 times before it became an issue. I have driven 150,000 watt concert systems with a handheld CD player with less than 1 volt output. No problem.

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

Because I'm glad I got feedback from another source, and I've learned some as well. How am I being ignorant about it if there are people telling me to do it, and people telling me not to?

like stated above my post, the people telling you to do it are not being serious. Like i said, nothing wrong with turning the gain up. Just make sure that it's not producing a clipped signal and sends more power than it should to the subs.

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

Just make sure that it's not producing a clipped signal and sends more power than it should to the subs.

Is there a tool I can use to check?

 

[AVSTANG02]

I lean back and turn my gains all the way back.

 

like whoa.

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

Is there a tool I can use to check?

DMM is the best budget minded way to do it. Oscope if you're baller

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

Googling now. Thank you //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

Well, I found where to buy a cheap multimeter, but can't figure out how to do all this. Everything I read is saying that you use it to measure the voltage, and that there is some formula to calculate RMS. Can anyone put this together for me, I'm a newb here.

 

[AVSTANG02]

do it by ear and stfu before I piss in your mouth.

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

Well, I found where to buy a cheap multimeter, but can't figure out how to do all this. Everything I read is saying that you use it to measure the voltage, and that there is some formula to calculate RMS. Can anyone put this together for me, I'm a newb here.

search button "setting gain using DMM" will yield some results. There's a math formula to do it but i don't know it right now.

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

I'll look into this more tomorrow I guess. Off to the grad parties