HOw do you know when your amp is clipping?

I may be wrong but when I'm listening to a bass track and all of the bass, that once was a little distinguished of had a split second between transitions and db's, is suddenly all mashed together. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. O, and my amp has a clipping meter. lol

well if you don't have the ear that trained to know when its clipping then an oscilliscope works great. with those you can visually see when the signal is clipping. but clipping is kind of a dull thud sound in subs or when your hearing any kind of distortion in your subs or speakers

is clipping of the hu clipping before the amp is clipping? cause i run a zapco syblink box and it tells me when my hu is clipping but i dont know when my amp is clipping also will having it turned up on the gain all the way make it clip? Is it bad to have the gain all the way up if your subs can handle it and you have sufficient battery power?

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what amps of theirs are you running? most of them have an input clip light and a output clip light.

If you have your gains set correctly, your amps will never clip unless you play test tones above the reference level that you set your gains at //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

Read the sticky on how to do this.

I don't know.

What I'm saying is, if you have your gains set where they should be, you shouldn't need to worry //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

yeah but if it is not clipping on my syblink box doesnt that mean the amp isnt clipping?

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i just took a look at a transmitter i had sitting here, it is a clipped signal going to the amps. the output clip light on the amp will let you know if your amp is sending a clipped signal to the speakers. the transmitter clip light as well as the input clip light on the amp will let you know if you are sending a clipped signal to the amp.

If you have your gains set correctly, your amps will never clip unless you play test tones above the reference level that you set your gains at //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif
Read the sticky on how to do this.

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doesnt that method hurt some amps though??

so the clipping on the syblink box is the same clipping as the clipping on the amp? Meaning if i see it clip on the box that means it is clipping on the amp also right i just need a yes or no i am confused by all the words lol.

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it is possible to send an amp a clipped signal, that will be indicated by the clip light on the transmitter, or the input clip light on the amp. then on the other hand, it is possible for the amp to receive a clean signal fromt he head unit, then the amp itself clips the signal, which is indicated by the clip light in the output section of the amp.

mine has 1 clip light

mine has 1 clip light

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what amp is it?