I have 2 mtx road thunder 4000 10" subs in a ported box, they have a peek of 400 watts and 200 RMS matched with a pioneer gm-x860 760 watt peak power 2 channel amp which I believe runs at 125x2 RMS or 380x1RMS.
1)Is this a descent match?
2)Does anyone have any setup recomendations?
Any reply would be helpful TNX!!!
Just be careful with the gains and you should be fine. Power ratings on a subwoofer (when correct) are just thermal ratings that give you a general idea of what size amp to buy. But it is the enclosure used that will determine how much power they will actually take. Put them in a smaller enclosure and those subs will take more than their rated power with no problem.
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A gain is designed to be turned down, not up. If once you have your system tuned and playing and you find that you want it louder, get yourself a bigger amp. One of the worst things to do to a sub is to underpower them, this causes the amp to clip (distort from running out of power - similar to running your engine above redline). The speaker will do it's job and reproduce the distortion. Stephen is correct with the smaller enclosure solution, the subs will take more than their rated power, the tradeoff however can be heard in the response of the sub, generally speaking only, the sub will become tighter, hitting harder, but lacking in depth. Conversly a bigger box will cause the power handling to go down on the same sub to the "normal" sustaained capabilities of the sub while increasing depth but sometimes lacking the "impact" that you desire. This impact with the larger box can be gained by using a larger amplifier that is a close match to the subs. If you miss on matching together the sub - box - amplifier, get ready for box experimentation. The box is the final factor in how that sub is going to sound.
A simple way to set your gains is as follows.
(1) turn gain all the way down - set bass / treble on cd player to normal (or eq to defeat)
(2) find yourself a particularily bass heavy track and use this track over and over again when testing.
(3) depending on your cd player, you should be able to turn it up to about 85% of it's volume capability. One thing to watch here is for distortion out of the smaller speakers. If the smaller speakers are distorting, turn the volume down until the speakers are playing nice and clean. This is your maximum volume level for this type of music. You may be able to play up a little bit depending on the cd.
(4) adjust gain upwards on the amp until it is either drowning out the speakers or until distortion is heard from the sub. When you hit this level, back the volume down. Adjust the crossover (if applicable) on the amp to suit the music you are playing and the vehicle. You will find that as you adjust the crossover you can adjust the gain as well.
(5) If it not loud enough, get a bigger amp for the subs, add another sub, amplify the front / rear speakers and enjoy.
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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.
Now that I am semi-familiar with the gain control are there any more suggestions on installation techniques that could help me maximize the efficiency and output of what I have?????
Friends don't let friends buy Sony. If you have a meter, meter the resistance on the ground return of the vehicle. Disconnect the ground wire from the amp. Measure the resistance between that ground wire and the negative post on the battery. If the resistance is above 10ohms (I go with .5ohm) then you may have to ground the amp directly to the battery.
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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.
Hey, my head unit and processor are both Sony. Of course they are old school Sony back when they were good.
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Lately I have been browsing these forum topics, and I found that many people talk about ohms when building a system, I was just wondering what ohms are, do and how they are used in building a system? PLEASE HELP!!
ohms is resistance. you need to match your speakers ohm levels to those of the h/u or the amp that run them, and you need to match the resistance of the sub(s) to that of the amp(s) that will be running them. Most amps give you multipul power ratings at different ohms, the lower the ohm the more power usually, amps are only stable to a certain point then then thermal problems start to become a huge issue.
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