Clipping Indicators

This may be related to my other topic "HOW MANY FARADS" or it may not be.  But anyways,  The A18001DT amplifier I have has a series of five LEDs,  the first 3 are Blue, the final two are red.  Whenever I hit a hard beat,  1 of the blue LEDs  lights up.  (occasionally a second one lights too). 

Does anybody know how I should Read this "CLIPPING" indicator?   Is 2 LEDS bad,  or is it showing me how far I am from clipping?

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~WAYLAND

forget the leds. does it sound muffled, or sounding louder even though it is not? if so then you are having the amp clip

to all those that have car audio shops, you should let people hear an that isnt clipped and then one that is. it is a hard thing to hear if you dont know what it sounds like. i always let people i install for hear what it sounds like before i let them go

No, it's not sounding muffled.  I just want to know how to "read" what they are telling me.  I'm guessing they're just a LEVEL indicator?   Progressively lighting up as the "thumps" get harder?

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~WAYLAND

sorry for that, im just sick of having kids asking me to fix there system when they have either cooked their amp or sub and i take a look at their gains and feel like puking. no offense to the people on here as most of us care a lot, but to the installer that cares more about how many cars they get through in a day than how well they install the sh*t. to me it is just like audiobahn in the car industry or bose in the home audio. i just dont believe in making money off the ignorant, i would rather teach them

then you are probably clipping the amp. ive never installed one with leds to indicate that. but if it is on the harder thumps than it is definately clipping. turn down the gains.

the gains are at no more than 20%....   

I'm guessing that you're not clipping until it reaches the RED zone....

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~WAYLAND

Usually, the red LED's indicate clipping. The blue area should be fine. On alot of amps, the "Level" knob is the same as an "gain" knob

Paul

I see what you're saying..   But by LEVEL i meant the amplitude of the signal going to the speakers.  I can't think of the technical term,  but i'm thinking the sequential LEDs are similar to the Displays on some stereos,  which show how strong the signal is at various Hz.

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~WAYLAND

...VU meter.... That's what I was relating the CLIPPING indicator to.

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~WAYLAND

wayland1985 wrote:

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...VU meter.... That's what I was relating the CLIPPING indicator to.

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You'd be correct. your amp has a VU (volume unit) meter.  The LEDs on those amps are simply output level indicators.  You may be clipping your signal if the red LEDs light.  The blue ones are OK and should light up.

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wayland1985 wrote:

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the gains are at no more than 20%....    

I'm guessing that you're not clipping until it reaches the RED zone....

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YEAH, NOT CLIPPING THE AMP, (MAYBE)! It does not matter WHERE your gain controls are set... If you are driving you head-unit into clipping, it won't matter where the level matching potentiometers are set. (I hate the word "gain control" - an amp is a FIXED GAIN DEVICE - but I don't want to go anywhere NEAR that right now) Also, if you are driving the head-unit into clipping, but you are still below the clipping level of the amplifier, you are still sending high-level DC to your speaker's voice-coils, AND those POS light shows will tell you NOTHING important... Damn Audiobahn garbage! Diagnostics, VU meters, chrome, flames, whatever... just bells and whistles to make a buyer THINK he is getting more than he paid for... Gimme a REAL amplifier with NOTHING on it except power and signal in, and speakers out. Almost always, with VERY few exceptions, the less you buy the more you get.


Sorry. Just had enough with the Audiobahn questions...

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

What's wrong with a few "bells and whistles"? 

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~WAYLAND

And now that I have 2 minutes,  let me ramble on a bit about why I have Audiobahn products....  haemphyst.

About 4 years ago I had paid off my first car (I had it for about a year and a half when i finished paying off the beater).  Immediately I started saving up for the audio components I wanted to put in.  I was still in highschool, so  money was tough to save up,  with all sorts of odds and ends to pay for,  while only working a few hours a week at minimum wage... 

So I saved up what I could, working long hours and busting my "butt" just so I could buy what was (and still is) considered THE BEST OF THE BEST for my car.

When the day came,  I ordered an Eclipse Head unit,  with 4 Boston Acoustics speakers,  and a JL Audio 4 channel amplifier.  The Subwoofers were a little to much for me to buy at the time, so I had to wait to save up.

No more than a month after having them professionally installed at a reputable car shop here in Boston,  the Eclipse head unit suddenly stopped sending out a signal to the amplifier.  After digging up the receipts, I went to the shop where I got new eclipse head unit under warranty.   Unfortunately,  another 7 weeks later, it died again.    I then just told them to give me a new one,  and sold it on Ebay....used the money I made and bought an Alpine head unit, which hasn't failed me to date....  So I am currently biased against Eclipse at this point.

The JL failed me soon after.  2 channels went progressively mute, until one day they ceased to work.  THis was about a year after purchase. 

I then scrapped the amplifier, and did research on other brands.  I had many personal references to brands Like Audiobahn for Amplifiers,  Infinity to speakers,  and, of course,  Alpine for the head unit.  Seeing as I already had the alpine head unit,  i went out and bought a 4 channel audiobahn amplifier, and kept my boston acoustics...

THe audiobahn has been running without a problem for almost 3 years now.  So when it came to buying a Subwoofer setup last year,  I went the route that has been working for me.  I bought an Audiobahn 18001D amplifier on clearance, and two audiobahn woofers.  That amp was a model several years old, and had problems, but with one call to audiobahn, they walked me through some troubleshooting tips, and determined the amp was at fault.  They mailed me a form to fill out,  with an Return authorization number, and i sent it to them with a nine dollar check to cover return handling.  In a little over a month (this is during christmas holiday mind you)  I got back a brand new audiobahn 18001DT amplifier ( I got it back last week, which is why I'm trying to figure out what this CLIPPING LED thing is trying to tell me....the older model never had one).

So teh moral of my story is,  sometimes JL Audio and Eclipse break too.  Unfortunately,  in my case,  both have broken from my presence.  I replaced them with Audiobahn because of the price,  because of personal references,  because of the availability (JL and Eclipse can only be bought at specialized shops, as you know), and most of all,  BECAUSE OF THE APPLICATION!!  The audiobahn amplifiers had the specifications I needed for my system.  So far,  the company has done an excellent job standing by their product.  Call anytime during their business hours,  and you get a REAL LIVE person answering the phones,   not some,  "DIAL 1 FOR..."  crap.  They didn't hassle me about my broken amplifier, and sent me a new one under warranty. 

And after busting my butt trying to buy JL audio and Eclipse,  I ecpected at least for them to last.  I paid a good amount of money for them,  sacrificing my time,  and in the end they failed me.  After spending that much money I expected more,  but didn't get what I thought I did.  Obviously I'm quite biased here,  given my situation,  and many people have never had a problem with their JL or Eclipse.  I give myself the right to persuade people away from buying JL and Eclipse because of my experience, but when people who have never used a product such as Audiobahn,  and talk about it like it truly is crap (and I understand most of you who do downtalk it are just heckling the owners,  as I heckle those with SONY products)  I get a bit irritated.  Afterall,  my "CRAP" has outlived and outperformed that overpriced stuff out there... 

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~WAYLAND

wayland1985 wrote:

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And now that I have 2 minutes,  let me ramble on a bit about why I have Audiobahn products....  haemphyst.

About 4 years ago I had paid off my first car (I had it for about a year and a half when i finished paying off the beater).  Immediately I started saving up for the audio components I wanted to put in.  I was still in highschool, so  money was tough to save up,  with all sorts of odds and ends to pay for,  while only working a few hours a week at minimum wage... 

So I saved up what I could, working long hours and busting my "butt" just so I could buy what was (and still is) considered THE BEST OF THE BEST for my car.

When the day came,  I ordered an Eclipse Head unit,  with 4 Boston Acoustics speakers,  and a JL Audio 4 channel amplifier.  The Subwoofers were a little to much for me to buy at the time, so I had to wait to save up.

No more than a month after having them professionally installed at a reputable car shop here in Boston,  the Eclipse head unit suddenly stopped sending out a signal to the amplifier.  After digging up the receipts, I went to the shop where I got new eclipse head unit under warranty.   Unfortunately,  another 7 weeks later, it died again.    I then just told them to give me a new one,  and sold it on Ebay....used the money I made and bought an Alpine head unit, which hasn't failed me to date....  So I am currently biased against Eclipse at this point.

The JL failed me soon after.  2 channels went progressively mute, until one day they ceased to work.  THis was about a year after purchase. 

I then scrapped the amplifier, and did research on other brands.  I had many personal references to brands Like Audiobahn for Amplifiers,  Infinity to speakers,  and, of course,  Alpine for the head unit.  Seeing as I already had the alpine head unit,  i went out and bought a 4 channel audiobahn amplifier, and kept my boston acoustics...

THe audiobahn has been running without a problem for almost 3 years now.  So when it came to buying a Subwoofer setup last year,  I went the route that has been working for me.  I bought an Audiobahn 18001D amplifier on clearance, and two audiobahn woofers.  That amp was a model several years old, and had problems, but with one call to audiobahn, they walked me through some troubleshooting tips, and determined the amp was at fault.  They mailed me a form to fill out,  with an Return authorization number, and i sent it to them with a nine dollar check to cover return handling.  In a little over a month (this is during christmas holiday mind you)  I got back a brand new audiobahn 18001DT amplifier ( I got it back last week, which is why I'm trying to figure out what this CLIPPING LED thing is trying to tell me....the older model never had one).

So teh moral of my story is,  sometimes JL Audio and Eclipse break too.  Unfortunately,  in my case,  both have broken from my presence.  I replaced them with Audiobahn because of the price,  because of personal references,  because of the availability (JL and Eclipse can only be bought at specialized shops, as you know), and most of all,  BECAUSE OF THE APPLICATION!!  The audiobahn amplifiers had the specifications I needed for my system.  So far,  the company has done an excellent job standing by their product.  Call anytime during their business hours,  and you get a REAL LIVE person answering the phones,   not some,  "DIAL 1 FOR..."  crap.  They didn't hassle me about my broken amplifier, and sent me a new one under warranty. 

And after busting my butt trying to buy JL audio and Eclipse,  I ecpected at least for them to last.  I paid a good amount of money for them,  sacrificing my time,  and in the end they failed me.  After spending that much money I expected more,  but didn't get what I thought I did.  Obviously I'm quite biased here,  given my situation,  and many people have never had a problem with their JL or Eclipse.  I give myself the right to persuade people away from buying JL and Eclipse because of my experience, but when people who have never used a product such as Audiobahn,  and talk about it like it truly is crap (and I understand most of you who do downtalk it are just heckling the owners,  as I heckle those with SONY products)  I get a bit irritated.  Afterall,  my "CRAP" has outlived and outperformed that overpriced stuff out there... 

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Maybe you should have gotten a custom install or just had bad luck because I have never heard of either JL or Eclipse products fail like that. That, or you could have had it installed wrong...

I'm beginning to hate how the car audio market is massively moving towards bling over performance...*cough Audiobahn*. I'm sorry but I think you should have gave JL and Eclipse one more chance because Audiobahn just can't compare to them. If you look at the features on an Audiobahn amp you might realize they are all pretty much useless except for the basics. I don't think all that chrome helps the heatsink at all and who knows what their amps look like inside...

Ok im done

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customsuburb wrote:

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 I don't think all that chrome helps the heatsink at all and who knows what their amps look like inside...

Ok im done

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The last time I checked,  they had a circuit board and various other components  (looks like any other amp I've ever seen)..... Sorry for those of you who though there were little Mice in wheels powering them....

And while Chrome or flames may not improve performance....it sure as heck doesn't hurt performance.  Besides, I wasn't looking for a pretty amp when I was shopping (The thing is concealed half the time anyways).  The Audiobahn stuff had what I needed,  and in my experience was a reliable brand.

And yes it is VERY VERY odd that my Eclipse head unit broke twice in a few months,  but I assure you it was Installed Professionally at Richard Inferrera's shop in Boston ( www.richscartunes.com ), and it cost a pretty penny as well (I bought the Boston Acoustics from another store, and installed those myself).  As a matter of fact, I'm told that Rich actually dropped the Eclipse line because of problems he had with them.  (I'm sure if you call, he'll give you the story as to why he dropped Eclipse). 

When it came to my JL amp,  I wasn't going to deal with it.  After I lost sound to the channels, I scrapped the whole amp.  I wasn't going to deal with an amplifier I paid several hundred dollars on that was acting up like that... I was out of patience at taht point.

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~WAYLAND