why does my gain always have to be so high?

[jsluss17 10+ year member]

on all of my amps my gain has had to be at least halfway up to get decent output out of my sub and on every amp i've had it should be overpowering my subs so i'm not sure why it has to be so high. i just got an audioque 1200d powering a skar vvx12 at 2 ohm and i have to have the gain a little more than halfway to get decent output. my deck is pioneer deh 4200ub which says it has 4 volt outputs. so i'm not sure how people only have their gain like 25% when mine has to be more than halfway

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[splwj47 10+ year member]

how did u set ur gain

 

[jsluss17 10+ year member]

how did u set ur gain

by ear i don't have a dmm

 

[bhsdriller 10+ year member]

that's how I set mine...if the subs start to smell or I can tell they're getting too much power, turn it down. If not, turn it up more lol

 

[jsluss17 10+ year member]

that's how I set mine...if the subs start to smell or I can tell they're getting too much power, turn it down. If not, turn it up more lol

yeah thats pretty much how i did it. i want to try to turn it up more but the clipping light flashes on my gain knob sometimes so i'm trying to not have it clip that bad lol

 

[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

that's how I set mine...if the subs start to smell or I can tell they're getting too much power, turn it down. If not, turn it up more lol

Terrible advice. Op go out an buy a dmm. They are like 25 bucks.

 

[bhsdriller 10+ year member]

Terrible advice. Op go out an buy a dmm. They are like 25 bucks.

meh....and when I compete I'll crank it just a little more

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

Think of the markings for the gain knob as a valid reference for that amplifier only. You're wasting time worrying about how the knob position compares with other amplifiers. Unless you've used a repeatable, measured method of setting the gain in the past you have no idea what was going on with the input voltage. This is one positive aspect of using the DMM method to set the gain.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

It just means you aren't giving the amps a strong input signal. That all gain is doing, matching the HU output voltage.

 

[TrlcKed_OuT 10+ year member]

Could be you dont have your headunit up high enough....When I set my system up, I checked the headunit with an o-scope to see where it started clipping...34-36. So that was the MAX volume before the unit itself would start to clip..But at 34-36 it was WAY too loud and so I play it around 15-20,25 max!...Therefor when I set my amplifier I would have to set the gains higher when listening to it at 20 than if I had set it with the headunit at 35....Either way is not bad,right, or wrong. The knob being a quater way half or 3/4's is not right or wrong...As long as everything sounds good and is not clipping I dont give 2 shits where the knob is set.

 

[JoshC 10+ year member]

on all of my amps my gain has had to be at least halfway up to get decent output out of my sub and on every amp i've had it should be overpowering my subs so i'm not sure why it has to be so high. i just got an audioque 1200d powering a skar vvx12 at 2 ohm and i have to have the gain a little more than halfway to get decent output. my deck is pioneer deh 4200ub which says it has 4 volt outputs. so i'm not sure how people only have their gain like 25% when mine has to be more than halfway

Make sure your sub lvl is at max on your headunit, that aq1200 gain goes from 5v-.1v. Half is like 2.5v

 

[jsluss17 10+ year member]

Make sure your sub lvl is at max on your headunit, that aq1200 gain goes from 5v-.1v. Half is like 2.5v

yeah that's where it is i would think. i read somewhere that 4v headunits don't exactly put out 4v to the amp because of loss over distance or something so that 4v decks actually put out like 2 volts at the amp. is that true then? because if it is i'd be a little less worried

 

[bhsdriller 10+ year member]

you can test it with a dmm

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

x2 on what bhs said...I'll slowly turn up the gain over the course of a week or so until I find a spot where the sub will heat up and start to smell after a while. Once I hit that point I back off on the gain a tiny bit.

 

[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

yeah thats pretty much how i did it. i want to try to turn it up more but the clipping light flashes on my gain knob sometimes so i'm trying to not have it clip that bad lol

Don't let some flickering scare you, just avoid solid red for long periods of time and you should be fine. Run a 1200 in the wife's van and clipping light blinks now and then on low stuff...