Setting amp and HU settings

[scotchnsoda 10+ year member]

I've heard people say crank the sub setting on the HU, but not the bass level. Or turn both of those up, and leave the bass boost off. Basically, I've heard a bunch of different ways to set them up best.

I can change the sub level and bass level on the head unit. I can change the gain and bass boost on the amp itself, and I can change the bass level on the remote knob.

Which ones do I mess with?

By the way, I have a JL audio 10w3v2 that can handle 300 rms, and a Profile AP700M that puts out 350 rms.

Any help would be great.

Oh, also, one more little quick question. I heard profile amps are overrated, so if it puts out close to or a little over 300 rms, does that mean the gain should be near full? Or does it depend on the other settings?

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[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

Anyone who tells you to "crank it all the way up" is an idiot and don't listen to them.

Your amp is 350 watts, that's what it is, (yes it's probably slightly over rated, which means that you will never get 350 watts RMS, closer to 300 probably). "Cranking" the head unit or setting the gains too high will not change that. A 350 RMS amp can produce 700 watts peak power. Subs that are rated at 300 watts RMS can handle 600 watts peak power. If you overdrive the amp into clipping it will try to produce 700 watts continuously. This sounds terrible (because clipping is pure distortion) and will lead to premature amp and speaker failure.

The idea of setting gains and ADJUSTING sub outputs is to correctly match the output of the head units signal to the amps input. All head units put out a slightly differnt amount of signal. The gain adjustment is just to let you correctly match the output of the head unit.

You can also make minor adjustments from your head unit, to adjust a little more or a little less of sub or highs or mids, etc; depending on the song. A LITTLE adjustment up or down.

If you "crank it up" your simply cliping the head unit, and sending a distorted signal to the amp, and/or overdriving the input of the amp, which distorts and clips the amplifier.

There are lots of theads here on setting gains. You can get maximum sub power with the sub setting at nominal (+/- 0) and the bass boost at zero if you set the gains correctly.