can this be right?

i have a rockford 801s amp and i have been searching this forum and others on setting the gains w/ a dmm for quite some time .my reading from 80 to40hz (played for about a munite each) was at 44.?? .could this be right for each channel in stereo @ 2 ohms.thats like 1000 watts per channel and that was 1/2 way up with no distoration. example 400 watts x 2 ohm subs = 800 .square root is 28.28.am i correct?i put my dmm to volts and each wire pos to pos and neg to neg outputs.how could my amp put out that much and still have more power to push out.?or did i do something wrong?the birthsheet the amp came with stated both channels ran at full power @ 2 ohms was only 950 watts.

I take it you are using two P312 D4's?  So you have each D4 sub wired in parallel to make 2 ohms, and you are running the subs in stereo?  If that much is true then what you think you should get...28.3 AC volts on each set of terminals...is correct.  State what you are using as the test tone source (something you made, or bought?), and also did you find the exact spot on the deck first that you felt was the highest clean signal without breaking up?  (...this is done with the amps gain all the way down.)  And is your digital multimeter known and tested to be true and accurate?

If that is all good, turn the gains on the 801S until you read a steady 28.3 volts on each pair of the amp's output terminals.  A clipped signal may not be heard as distorted sound.  Sometimes our ears fool us when we subject them to very loud sounds.  An amplifier will always seem to have "more power to push out", but when you achieve proper gain setting the amplifier will produce 100%  output when you have the deck volume at its highest useable (clean) level.  The amplifier output will be matched to the deck's volume control and you will have the correct amp power output at whatever point on the deck's volume that you want to listen to.

One other suggestion:  I would wire those subs together and bridge the amplifier.  Your gain setting test will be the same as you are doing now with 28.3 volts on each set of terminals.  When you use the Ohm's Law formulas you will see that the 4 ohm bridged load results in the same power output as a 2 ohm stereo load.

...no difference in amp power output but the overall impact may be greater with this mono arrangement.