plugger 10+ year member
Member
so how do you tell how many watts your putting out? what kind of amp meter do i get? what do you have the amp gain set at to test this? and what do you turn the HU volume to?
Any kind of AC clamp meter will do. Here is the Harbor Freight model.so how do you tell how many watts your putting out? what kind of amp meter do i get? what do you have the amp gain set at to test this? and what do you turn the HU volume to?
This is good advice if the person knows what they are looking for but unfortunately many won't know the difference between a clipped signal and a clean one. When starting out its hard to differentiate between what clean bass sounds like and just bass, especially in a car environment where you can have rattles from the trunk, doors, etc. Someone may try this and not differentiate between bottoming out and trunk rattles and have not idea something is wrong until the VC burns up or suspension gives out.In theory you can use a dmm to set output. i.e. acv x aca = watts. What people arent stating is that by doing this and using the manafacturers rating you are most definately putting it in full clip.
Just do it old skool. Set hu volume to 3/4 and slowly bring gain up on amp. Set lowpass to 80ish and ssf 5hz below your box tuning. I never and I repeat never run my sub output above half. Hell most of the time I barely touch it i.e. +1 or 2. Let the amp do the work.