Newb wiring question

[TacoSauce 10+ year member]

Sorry guys, i'm very new to all this.. so I have a question.

I have this amp..

http://www.woofersetc.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=4201

Hooked up to a set of Kicker Components (6-75 watts rms)

Now the amp has different Ohm settings.. my question is.. how do I know which one i'm running the speakers at? I wanna run it at the 4 ohm, 2x100 setting.. but I have no idea if i'm doing that or some other setting. How do I tell?

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[mokedaddy 5,000+ posts]

You can not just 'select' what ohms your system is wired at. It all depends on the impedence of the drivers you are running. It also can depend if you are trying to run more than one speaker on a single channel and how they are wired together.

 

[TacoSauce 10+ year member]

Here are the components:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-4F101hneEY4/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=52000&I=2065KS62

 

[brents 10+ year member]

i assume the components are 4ohm each. If so, just put each set of speaker wires in their respective terminals. IE Channel 1: pos to pos, and neg to neg from speaker 1, and the same for speaker two into channel 2. I do not believe those amps are wired parallel across the channels, may be wrong. If you have a volt meter (dmm) measure the impedance across the speaker wires before they enter the amp, 4 ohms is a nominal number, so you will probably see something like 3.8,3.9 ect for each seperate speaker.

 

[vwPanda 10+ year member]

He's got a 50Wx4 HU and an amp running at 2x100W RMS. His speakers are only 6-75W RMS, does that mean the speakers are gonna like blow above 1/2 volume or can he turn it up as loud as he wants no problem?

 

[TacoSauce 10+ year member]

Keep in mind.. I don't have the gain turned ALL the way up. Bout half way turned up.

 

[brents 10+ year member]

Well, turning the gain all the way up isn't necesarrily going to affect the output of the amp, or having it halfway up. That depends on input sensitivity and preout voltage. As a solid matter of fact, there is a good chance that even at half way up, you are feeding the 100wrms to those components. It just depends on your HU's preout voltage, and input sensitivity of that amp. Some speakers are capable of exceeding their RMS, and that is certainly something Kicker is known for.

Also, you should not have speaker wires running to the components from the HU. Your preouts to the amp serve signal purpose, your speaker wires should be coming from the amp alone.

 

[TacoSauce 10+ year member]

Here's my deck..

http://www.woofersetc.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=3499

I only have speaker wire coming from the Amp to the Crossovers.

 

[timvanderet 10+ year member]

Well, turning the gain all the way up isn't necesarrily going to affect the output of the amp, or having it halfway up. That depends on input sensitivity and preout voltage. As a solid matter of fact, there is a good chance that even at half way up, you are feeding the 100wrms to those components. It just depends on your HU's preout voltage, and input sensitivity of that amp.

Is this true?

 

[qtipextra 5,000+ posts]

Yes, it is true.

 

[timvanderet 10+ year member]

I thought that was exactly how you limit your amps, by keeping the gains low?

 

[buildmeabox 10+ year member]

The "gains" are designed to match the output of your HU to the input of the amp. Always start, when setting an amp in a new install, on the lowest setting, usually turning the gain counter clockwise until it stops. Rookies assume the gain is a volume control and tend to set it at max. All you'll get when this happens is "hissing" noise when the CD goes from one track to the next. A 1/4 turn is plenty in most installs.

Don't worry about your 4 ohm load, as long as the drivers installed play at different freq. the amp will see the common resistance between the drivers. For example if you hookup a tweeter 5khz-20khz and a midrange driver 500hz-5khz and both drivers are 4 ohm speakers the amp will see a 4 ohm load. If you hook up a pair of 4 ohm subs running 20hz-500hz for both the amp will see a 2 ohm load.

I would suggest you buy a multimeter and learn how to use it, you'll be amazed how much easier it will be to understand how the laws of resistance work and how the length of cable will effect it. You don't need to buy an expensive one Radio Crap sells some for $19 bucks.