Quick Gain Setting Tutorial

[Harrison486 10+ year member]

NOTE BEFORE YOU READ: im half asleep while writing this and after posting I realized that for some reason I made the title "Quick Gain Setting Tutorial"... Obviously Im an idiot... This is a question, NOT A TUTORIAL

Hey guys! What's up?

I have a quick question about setting the gain on an amplifier using a multimeter. First, let me note that I did, in fact, attempt to ask that a few times in the stickied thread, but I never got a response.

The original post talks about performing the described method using a test tone at 0dB. Later in the thread, people begin talking about using tones that are -3dB or -6dB.

My question: What would be different about using a -3dB vs the originally suggested 0dB tone? Would the the advantages/disadvantages be?

Thank you.

Click to read more...

 

[dkguitarist 5,000+ posts]

they're quieter, so in reality you'll be setting the gains higher than you want and will clip the amp/subs.

 

[amartin_72]

IF your equipment is decent quality (amp is at least rated power or more), then you can probably set the gains to the RMS of the amp wiht a -3db tone and it wont hurt anything.

 

[Harrison486 10+ year member]

they're quieter, so in reality you'll be setting the gains higher than you want and will clip the amp/subs.

So why would anyone suggest that?

 

[dkguitarist 5,000+ posts]

maybe if they play at lower volumes??

 

[Harrison486 10+ year member]

Heres an example of what im talking about..

From the stickied thread:

IF YOU'RE REALLY CAUTIOUS OF YOUR EQUIPMENT, THEN USE THE 0dB METHOD.
If you want the MOST out of your equipment, then use the -10dB method.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Now hes talking about -10dB, which seems like a far extreme from 0dB... Thats why Im asking about something like -3dB

 

[thch 10+ year member]

there are some conflicting factors.

1.) not all music is recorded @ 0dB.

2.) clipping gives a compressing effect. basically things tend to sound equally loud even if they aren't. this gets more extreme as you increase the amount of clipping (as does the distortion).

3.) most people will tolerate a bit of distortion if it means louder music. thus the clipping at some "low" level seems good.

4.) so long as the music you listen is not a sine wave, or sine wave with lyrics, the power the speaker receives should be less then or equivilent to the power the speaker would get from a sine wave with less gain.