Yeah in that case I would just use a dmm. If you have a powerful amp, that puts out a lot more power than you need, chances are your gain is not turned up very much. And if your gain is not turned up very much, the chances that you have any distortion are slim to none.I see, but then if the amp is more poweful, can you just set the level of the amp with a dmm my calculating the ac volts?
Ok kinda off my topic a bit here, bit I thought setting any amp with a DMM and no load on the amp (ie. only the dmm connected to the amp's output), would give a false AC voltage reading? So does that mean, that I need to have to sub connected to the amp with the dmm as well and set the gain that way?Yeah in that case I would just use a dmm. If you have a powerful amp, that puts out a lot more power than you need, chances are your gain is not turned up very much. And if your gain is not turned up very much, the chances that you have any distortion are slim to none.
But if you want to get the most out of your amp (distortion free) then dd1 is nice to have.
No, it wouldn't show distortion with that waveform because that waveform is not clipped. Distortion happens when the peaks of the waveform are flattened out. That waveform isn't flattened and thus, isn't distorted.Using a DMM alone can be deceiving. You make the assumption that your amps make rated power and your HU is clean at whatever volume level you pick. A scope showed me that my amp puts out only half rated at 12V and my HU clips at 65%.
I've never used a DD1 so I can't comment on that. I wonder if it'd blink at you if your preout signal looked like this: