test tones vs music

[Chromatic]

I use these downloadable tones (and sweeps) with DMM, .. and also by ear.

Realm of Excursion

Great selection of well recorded tracks.

I set my sub at 79hz on the DMM gains... and mids/highs with a 1Khz tone with DMM.. Then I back down 1v or so from the Voltage=sqrt(ohmsxwattage) for the power RMS power rating I'm after.

Then,.. I tweak crossovers with sweeping test tones, and singular tones looping by ear. Then I play music, set headunit functions/Parametric EQ, and all other functions.. and then tweak everything ever so slightly by ear with my music. I find Dave matthews band to be a rather clean CD/Band to use to tweak things by ear because it's clean, and has so many instruments and good punchy kick pedal bass from Carter Beauford that works well for the range of music I listen to which is 99% Rock/Alternative.

If you are using a DD-1,.. Then you should be able to easily set things till the distortion/clip light pops on then back down. You could read voltage at that point to see where it calculates roughly to what wattage you are putting out on that particular channel/speaker.

Everyone has a slightly different way they do things.. Some are a bit limited with equipment,.. I almost just put out the $149 for a new DD-1,.. but decided against it as this was a "budget" build.. (Ended up being $1000 in parts).. but would have easily cost $2500-$3000 ish in a shop with all the fab work, and components up front, coaxials in back.. custom box, 10" sub.. amp, on carpeted amp rack,.. headunit, sound deadening the car, and on and on.. I'm quite happy with how things turned out, and am happy , yet safe, with the way I "tuned" my amp's gain, crossovers, and Headunit settings to achieve the sound I was after for "my" ears.

 

[bradl79 10+ year member]

do u use -5dB or 0dB

 

[bgowdy 5,000+ posts]

i change amps/ohms/subs to much to rent one lol

 

[FUKAZ28]

Very good info here.

 

[yogegoy]

The oscilloscope will always be 1000 times more accurate than listening for a buzzing sound coming from your amp..lol
I know for a fact that it is a inaccurate way to set your gain, trust me I repair amplifiers for a hobby.

Just listen to what you are saying...How would it be inaccurate when you have an Oscope and a DD1 hooked up to. While you are visually monitoring it at the same time listening to the buzz. So you say with an Oscope and a DD1 it's also inaccurate? If you said without the two visual testers, listening alone would be inaccurate because amps don't behave the same. Yep you do fix amps for a hobby. Let me ask you, where does that buzzing come from and why does it do it?

 

[Chromatic]

Just listen to what you are saying...How would it be inaccurate when you have an Oscope and a DD1 hooked up to. While you are visually monitoring it at the same time listening to the buzz. So you say with an Oscope and a DD1 it's also inaccurate? If you said without the two visual testers, listening alone would be inaccurate because amps don't behave the same. Yep you do fix amps for a hobby. Let me ask you, where does that buzzing come from and why does it do it?

Maybe I misread,.. but I thought he meant that WITHOUT an O-scope and/or DD-1 hooked up.. and just going by ear is not going to be nearly as accurate as using an o-scope and/or DD-1.

I know, and have seen in person,.. clipping (however marginal) occur when things sounded clean.

Now I will say that on mids and highs .. you can generally hear clipping audibly without much problem. But on subs it's a bit more difficult,.. That's where the scopes really come into their own.. dialing in gains for sub(s).. as a bit of clipping on a sub may not manifest itself audibly nearly as identifiable as your mids and tweeters..

But again, maybe I misread what Mass Car Audio wrote.

 

[Mass Car Audio 10+ year member]

Just listen to what you are saying...How would it be inaccurate when you have an Oscope and a DD1 hooked up to. While you are visually monitoring it at the same time listening to the buzz. So you say with an Oscope and a DD1 it's also inaccurate? If you said without the two visual testers, listening alone would be inaccurate because amps don't behave the same. Yep you do fix amps for a hobby. Let me ask you, where does that buzzing come from and why does it do it?

What would be the point of listening to the amp when you have a oscilloscope hooked up to it...... The buzzing sound comes from the output section of the amp, that's all I'm going to say...lol

I'm not going to sit here and argue with you newb, clearly you think you know everything already so whats the point...LOL