speaker, gain, and distortion

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

I max mine up on some songs and still sounds good..... Setting my gains is driving me nuts tho. Thinkiing about taking it to someone to set them for me..

 

[neo_styles 10+ year member]

There's a guide here on setting gains by Digital Multimeter (DMM). Just get a 10-20 dollar DMM and set your gains using that to match the power required by each speaker in your system. Not hard, just need to be decent at math.

 

[butterMilk 10+ year member]

What volume does the avhp8400bh clip at. Tuning my system is becoming a nightmare and im further down the rabbit hole than i planned on being.

I have that HU, using a dd1, distortion happens at 39/40

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

I have that HU, using a dd1, distortion happens at 39/40

I see. Is that distortion or clipping. But ya, sounds great up to 39 and 40, i was wondering. But I gotta figure out where to set my amp. Seems everyday I run into a new problem and im tired of spamming this forum.

And Ill check up on the dmm

 

[butterMilk 10+ year member]

I see. Is that distortion or clipping. But ya, sounds great up to 39 and 40, i was wondering. But I gotta figure out where to set my amp. Seems everyday I run into a new problem and im tired of spamming this forum.
And Ill check up on the dmm

I think the dd1 is suppose to detect any type of distortion or clipping

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

I see.

Well i figured out the source of alot of my problems.... Im overdriving my amp...

I went up on the gain and smelled the coils burning damit... Think the speakers are so good you cant hear distortion or clipping too well, so i kept increasing the gain and overdriving the speakers. That amp had to be clipping like hell to make those fosgates get hot. Think a bigger fosgate amp will give me the loudness and sound quality im looking for without burning up my speeakers.

 

[Kingstroker 10+ year member]

I see. Well i figured out the source of alot of my problems.... Im overdriving my amp...

I went up on the gain and smelled the coils burning damit... Think the speakers are so good you cant hear distortion or clipping too well, so i kept increasing the gain and overdriving the speakers. That amp had to be clipping like hell to make those fosgates get hot. Think a bigger fosgate amp will give me the loudness and sound quality im looking for without burning up my speeakers.

clipping happens before it is audible. I would pay someone $20 to O scope your HU and amp before you buy another. It may perform better once it's tuned.

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

I see. Well i figured out the source of alot of my problems.... Im overdriving my amp...

I went up on the gain and smelled the coils burning damit... Think the speakers are so good you cant hear distortion or clipping too well, so i kept increasing the gain and overdriving the speakers. That amp had to be clipping like hell to make those fosgates get hot. Think a bigger fosgate amp will give me the loudness and sound quality im looking for without burning up my speeakers.

No, you just can't hear distortion too well. Get an o-scope, find someone who has one, or be conservative on the gains.

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

Sounds good. My thinkikng on getting a new amp is that the amp runs warm, but if you push it with heavy metal or somethin it actually runs hot, the amp actually cut out once while playing metal. This is with the gain at 0. I was thinkin the amp wasnt big enough for the speakers.

Im gonna get it oscoped tho. But hell, my thinking is that even tho the amp may not clip at such and such level, what about it runnin hot... Its like its already pushing its max with the gains at 0, like the speakers are drawing too much or something.