*Sigh* :(

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

Try not using your gains like a volume knob, grounding your rcas, and getting a decent deck

what's the most i should turn my gains up? 50%?

and grounding the RCAs will probably solve the engine whine problem, correct?

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

by the way a big thank you for all the input everybody. keep it coming.

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

Try not using your gains like a volume knob, grounding your rcas, and getting a decent deck

however, i ask: what exactly is the difference between gain and volume? A couple months ago, after reading some thread in this forum, i asked my father (electrical engineer, who used to focus on acoustics) what the difference was. his short answer was, there is no difference between the gain knob on your amp and any other volume knob on your stereo, tv, whatever. however, when i was having problems with my amp, he also recommended not turning gain on amp up more than 50%, otherwise i should get a more powerful amp. unfortunately, i haven't seen too many amps rated at 48493265watts RMS which is seemingly what i need... :-\

 

[nateberrier 10+ year member]

having more watts isnt necessarily going to make your speakers *** loads louder. and a gain isnt meant to be used like a volume knob. youre supposed to adjust it in conjunction with your preout voltage. too much gain makes it sound like piss, clips your output and could potentially damage your drivers. this isnt dads am radio. clean power at half the wattage you have is going to sound more impressive than what youre dealing with now. With that said I keep my gains off because i have high enough preout voltages. i use cheap kicker amps for my highs and have no noise. you should invest in a multimeter and work at setting your gains properly. also note that grounding your RCAs really can do wonders for eliminating distortion. be sure to ground them to the HU chassis and not the car though.

PS you were def gettin mad at the beginning of this thread but I admire you for the constructive criticism.

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

having more watts isnt necessarily going to make your speakers *** loads louder. and a gain isnt meant to be used like a volume knob. youre supposed to adjust it in conjunction with your preout voltage. too much gain makes it sound like piss, clips your output and could potentially damage your drivers. this isnt dads am radio. clean power at half the wattage you have is going to sound more impressive than what youre dealing with now. With that said I keep my gains off because i have high enough preout voltages. i use cheap kicker amps for my highs and have no noise. you should invest in a multimeter and work at setting your gains properly. also note that grounding your RCAs really can do wonders for eliminating distortion. be sure to ground them to the HU chassis and not the car though.
PS you were def gettin mad at the beginning of this thread but I admire you for the constructive criticism.

yeah i'm going to go through all the steps in the sticky in the electrical thread to try to get rid of engine whine

so i was thinking... the noise that i'm hearing when i turn music all the way down... is that what the spec "signal to noise ratio" is referring to? if not, is there any way to know/guess how bad this problem would be on an amp before you buy it?

i'm thinking of just saying "screw it" and buying this to power my fronts. maybe i can find it used? i saw somebody on here a few weeks ago selling a human reign 4 channel

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

Car Audio For Sale Diamond Audio D9800.4 BNIB - DIYMA.com

that diamond amp looks nice, but doesn't have preouts, does it?

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

bump

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

Forget about amping your rear speakers. Get a nice 4 channel amp and bridge it to a pair of beefy components up front. You're not going to get loud and crystal clear sound out of basic Alpine speakers...sorry, just not going to happen.

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

Forget about amping your rear speakers. Get a nice 4 channel amp and bridge it to a pair of beefy components up front. You're not going to get loud and crystal clear sound out of basic Alpine speakers...sorry, just not going to happen.

my type R's were pretty decent to my ears. the difference between them and the type S was night and day, now i listen to the type S and i feel like i'd rather not listen to music at all. i actually have another thread in speakers... deciding between polk and rockford components.

i'm trying to think if i bridged the hifonics...how would i separate left and right -- rotate the RCAs by 90 degrees?

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

Forget about amping your rear speakers. Get a nice 4 channel amp and bridge it to a pair of beefy components up front. You're not going to get loud and crystal clear sound out of basic Alpine speakers...sorry, just not going to happen.

oh and do you have any recommendations for beefy comps? my original plan was getting JBL c608 comps which i hear can take 200watts no problem.

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

oh and do you have any recommendations for beefy comps? my original plan was getting JBL c608 comps which i hear can take 200watts no problem.

What's your budget?

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

What's your budget?

for a pair of frontstage speakers, at this point, i couldn't see myself spending more than $400. anything over $275ish i'd need some good convincing

 

[emilimo701 10+ year member]

for a new amp, those numbers turn into $700 and $450, respectively

 

[corrie32 10+ year member]

So I got my new amp today, Hifonics ZXi150.4. it's 150w per channel at 4 ohms, 300 at 2 ohms. Sadly, it does not seem sufficiently louder than my Infinity 475a. Also, the noise floor seems even higher; i have the gains at about 6/10 and the white noise is audible (when music turned off) even when the engine is running. Speakers are alpine type R for the front and type S for the back. So it's not like the speakers are watt hogs or anything. And i'm using all 14 gauge speaker wire.
What the hell am I going to have to do? Run 5 speakers in each door with a Kicker Warhorse powering each speaker?

Is there anybody on this forum that has the same insatiable need for loudness as me that has had any luck solving this problem?

it sounds like something is wrong with your install, you should double check your speaker wiring, RCA's and grounds to radio and amp, you shouldn't have any noise coming through the amp when the music is off. And if there is something wrong with the amp, send it back to sonic, you have a warranty. but i would say something is wrong somewhere else down the line.

 

[nateberrier 10+ year member]

Look into the crescendo component sets. they have beefy crossovers and dont take tons of power to get loud. very satisfied for 100 bucks man.