Correctly Setting Crossover & Amp Gains

I disagree. Set the subs first, unless you --really-- know what you're doing. Here's the common problem: (a) User sets the gain on the mids and highs speakers. User may not be experienced enough to know when distortion is starting. The mids and highs speakers are generally much more sensitive than the subwoofer. As a result, the mids and highs speakers get very loud prior to distorting. (b) User now goes to set the gain on the lows. Instead of setting the gain correctly, he now just -turns up the subwoofer gain- to match the mids and highs gain. This is a mistake. What's worse, most people like a slight rise in their bass, so they turn the gain up even higher! (c) Now, the speakers on the interior are correctly set, but it seems that 9/10 times using the "speakers first" method, the subwoofer's gain is set far too high. (d) Soon, one day showing off his system to a friend, User clips his subwoofer amp and breaks his subwoofer. (e) User wonders what in the world happened! ---------- Anyway. If subwoofer gain is set first, and correctly, User may TURN DOWN THE GAIN ON THE MIDS/HIGHS AMP, rather than turn up the gain on the subwoofer amp to obtain balanced sound. This way, the User will rarely be tempted to increase the gain on the subwoofer amplifier, because the sound is already balanced. New Project: 2003 Pathfinder