Just a couple questions here. Two 2003 nissan sentras. Both have indenticle audio systems (his and hers).
Kenwood HU's, (4) 6.5 kenwood 3 ways (front and rear) and a set of tweeters in the front pillars.
Single 12" wild beast in 1.5cu vented box.
cadence txa3004 to run the (4) 6.5 kenwood 3 ways (front and rear) and the set of tweeters (connected in with the fronts).
cadence sqa-1 mono amp to run the sub.
Now, our kenwood HU's have SW filter, SW pre-amp outs, and SW gains within it.
I am not sure i should say "gains" there.
On the HU, is this a gain, a basic volume or what?
Also, on the SQA-1, these silly remote bass knobs, what are they taking place of when plugged in? The gain, the bass eq or the req?
Now for the interference. We get no engine noise untill we turn on our rear defroster (getting cold, burrrr), then we get the engine whine :(
Not really something i am going to let bother me to much, unless its an easy fix.
Oh, in the nissan forums, i read a thread of people putting radios in and grounding the HU to the frame (a clean ground i guess), but i decided to use the factory radios ground. Maybe causing this tiny issue?
All of theses features you are talking about are mostly just filters. Dont use your bass knobs, they just replace bass bost on your amps, and usually when used produce distortion. Use only one of the filters. For example, adjust the subwoofer filter on the headunot to the highest setting probably something around 400hz. ditch the bass knobs complety and then use the filter on the mono amp, set this at 90hz and adjust your gains. This should give you much better bass.
I have them both setup to use the head unit filters. Just because it happens to be, for the moment, a little less confusing. The mono amp filter is a dial and its some guess work and a little hard to dial in while in the trunk, plus, and most importantly, we listen to alot of different types of music. So the filter is actualy set to flat on the amp itself. The gain is set to max and controled from the SW setting on the head unit, which adjusts from -15 to +15. Mostly left at or a little below zero.
Right now, i dont think the kenwood 6.5's can handle the power of the txa300.4 very well, specialy the rears, which i think are less important anyways. But i was considering replacing the front door 3ways and front pillar tweeters with components that will give me a little higher quality rounder sound.
Right now i have everything crossed over via the filters in the head unit. The fronts, rears and the sub are all set to 120.
As i said, the 6.5 kenwoods cant take to high a volume at full range, so i have to filter them to get an acceptable match to the subs (volume wise).
Basicly, having all filters set to 120 on the head unit, i am not getting any over lap, correct?
Which i think stinks. Thats where the components would help, i hope.
I have also been playing with the bass Eq on the mono amp. I think i like it much better set to zero.
As for the bass knob, yeah i agree. I was actualy thinking of running the cable for it, but i am glad i didnt. I guess it was the "more toys factor". But i was just wondering what it interfaces with, the gain, bass eq or internal filter. Since it seemed to control the gain, but is called "bass knob", it was confusing me a little.
I would say it is more like a Eq that boosts the low frequency to the mono amp when hooked up.. Your gain should not be turned all the way up unless thats what is matched to the voltage output of your headunits preouts. The gain is not a volume control, it is used for matching the voltage of your preouts. With all the components set to 120 hz you will have some overlap, more or less depending what decibel slop the crossovers are using. If the rears are distorting more try making their crossover point a little higher. You are right as they arent really need that much. Many people dont use rear speakers at all, they think is messes with their staging and they dont like how it sounds. Components should help with your front staging and will generally play down to a lower frequency. You will also get more volume out of the components assuming they are set up right. As for the bass knob once a system is set up right there is no need for this. Leave it out at all costs it will just create more problems in the future.