I would like to ask a couple questions about my system in my car.
Edit-I have a kenwood headunit with 4volt preouts if it helps the following below
I have a 12" L5 in the specified ported box. I have a Total 500/1 amp (Made by Jl, if anyone knows about them) I run 4 guage into a dist.block and run out 8 gauge ( about a foot) What I'd like to know is how to set the gain to the proper spot. Ive heard you turn it up till you hear distortion then adjust down from there. How is that universal? There are alot of variabls in that like bass boost, sub control on your head unit,and Hz. The amp has gain control, freq control and bass boost. Gain control on my amp goes from 4 volts to .500 volts.
Im just a little confused about all of it. Currently I have my gain half way, freq at 85hz and bass boost 3/4 up. What should I start at in the begining of tunin the sub? Headunit subcontrol at half? Bass Boost at half? I just need help to where to start tuning at mainly. Also is it bad for the amp to have the gain all the way at min or all the way ta max. From my understanding minimum gain is more volts and max gain is less volts. Ive also heard your suppose to tune your gain to the preout volts on the headunit.
Can some one help me out with all the above? Id greatly appreciate it.( Ive looked through alot of stickies and havent found all I need.)
This sounds like more of a tuning issue, if I'm reading this correctly. What I've done (aside from getting out a scope and getting flat response from everything) was to remove any bass "enhancement" from the system. This means "zeroing out" your bass, treble, etc... from the deck as well as from the amp. Then, get the source unit up to about 3/4 volume (or until you barely reach the threshold of distortion). Back off the volume just a hair, then, make your gain adjustments at the amp until you again reach the bare threshold of distortion. Back off the gain just a hair again. You should then be able to safely make any fine-tuning adjustments from the deck in regards to crossover frequencies, gain, etc..
This is just a rough way of doing it, but tuning is more of an art IMO.
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G. Rick (aka; Tha "R")
**Peter North is my idol***
MECP-Certified 1st Class Installer