TheBKG

Thx for sharing Bro. I've seen that before, I'm just wondering if he has a video or write up explaining how they work?

TRUTH. Mark of Caraudiofabrication went over that in his video, and includes it in his measurement instructions for ordering a design. That's why I stressed reading all of it. 😉

@marxxclearly something isn't right with your install. I would start systematically taking it apart and checking Everything. You have 2 Legs to an Amp Install. Electrical and Signal (the music). The Best way to do this is to start at the beginning of each Leg and work back to the Amp. So for Electrical start at the battery and work back, Signal starts at the Head Unit. Follow the path of the electrons thru each of those Legs and Question Everything. Also you stated that you 'Tried' multiple ground points in your trunk. Did you actually run a Continuity Test on them??

Does your friend have the same amp? If so you might ask if you can try swapping the two to see if yours is defective.

Then my next suggestion is to test your Grounds. I'm out of time to do a detailed explanation of how, but you can Google how to find a good grounding point for audio amplifiers. That should get you some good examples of how to go about testing the quality of your grounds. Mark on his Caraudiofabrication YouTube channel did an excellent video on this if you can find it. Though it might have only been a portion of the video so not in the title.

Caraudiofabrication.com Mark sells extremely well designed box schematics, with every single piece to be cut detailed out. He also has a YouTube channel running for 6+ years on every aspect of system installation and fabrication including multiple videos on sub box building. Just be Very detailed when measuring the trunk space for how much total space available that you want the box to fit into. Also, read his entire instructions before you go to measure your trunk space. He actually has a video on that too if you want to search for it.

Correct. What we want is to see how strong the actual music audio signal is coming from your Head Unit at the point it connects with the Amp. If the Head Unit outputs are defective or the RCA cable is defective or got damaged during installation then your amp might not be getting enough signal for it to make its rated power.

Check Knukoncepts, SMD, and Crutchfield for Battery Terminals. Also, there are adapters on the market that slide into the Power Cable 1/0 input on your amp and give you 2x 1/0 cable inputs if you need to feed it more than one cable. Obviously you'd also do the same for the Ground plugs. I've seen them used so I know they exist but I don't know offhand where to buy em.

DOH! Sorry, not enough sleep. Pull either the Right or Left plug. The Center Post is the Positive Signal, the Outer Ring is the Negative. So touch your leads on those and let it play and see how strong your signal is.

I can think of 2 areas you can check. First, test the Voltage level of your audio source. Source meaning your Head Unit RCA's, or Bluetooth device if using one. Whatever feeds music to your amplifier is referred to as the Source. Play some loud music and leave it running, then unplug the positive RCA from the Amp and put your Multimeter on it and test the Voltage RMS. What is it averaging. Second, test the Voltage of your Positive and Negative Power Cables connected to your Amp with the car running and system On. Same thing, what is the average RMS Voltage. Just be careful doing it, don't touch the cables with your hands. Remember, even at 1/4 power draw there's more than enough electricity flowing in those cables to fry you into a dark crispy french fry in seconds. Start with those two and let us know what your getting.

About to crash, but my only immediate thought is how does he volume of your system Sound to you? Does it sound like it's significantly lower volume than your friends, who I'm assuming is using the same size/quality speakers?

OP, give us your full Equipment List. Head Unit: Front Speakers: Rear Speakers: Sub(s): Amplifier: Processors if any: Also, do you know what size wire guage is run to each speaker (assuming/hoping the Sub is larger than the rest). Are you using Factory speaker wire or all new runs? If Factory how and where are you tying into them? Be Specific with the model numbers. Everyone is making guesses at what might be happening because we don't have enough information to go by. Can't troubleshoot correctly if we don't know Exactly what it is we're troubleshooting.

The answer is actually simple. You Double up on each 1/0. Meaning you run TWO Ground/Charging 1/0 Cables for each of the Big 3, and if you were running that much power to the trunk you would run 2x 1/0 power cables to the trunk. Whenever you double cables like that it's the equivalent of going 3 steps down in Wire Guage. So 2x 12Ga = 9Ga. And in your case 2x 1/0 = 3/0.

To expand on this solid explanation of what an Epicenter does, the proper way to Tune an Epicenter, as with the rest of the system, is Not to use Music. You need use a laptop (or drag a PC out to the car), a measurement microphone, and REW (or other measurement software) and measure what your Subs are producing Without the Epicenter and other Bass processor. The reason one processor is working for one music type but not another is because those music styles are using different frequency ranges for their Bass. And those processors only work in narrow ranges. So to get the best result you first need measurements of where your system actually lacks bass output, then use the Epicenter (because it IS the better of the two) and set it for that area where your system is weaker. If you don't have the knowledge and tools to do that then shop around your local install shops and find one you believe knows what they're doing and isn't going to over charge to give your system a Tuneup. On top of that if your playing radically different styles of music what you Really need is a Parametric EQ, or at least a Multi-band EQ for Bass, to boost the right range of Bass for that specific style of music. If your Headunit only has a 2 or 3 way tone control then I'd recommend either upgrading that Headunit or get a good In-dash EQ to be able to customize your Bass for each style of music. Of course if you have a DSP in your system then you should have 3 or 4 saved settings available where you can switch between different EQ curves for music styles. Using both Bass Processors could possibly work, but it's more likely that together they're going to create a lot of Distortion that will blow your Subs after a short time. Not the fix your looking for.