audiofanaticz

Many headunits will not have distortion when using the rca preouts of the headunit. Usually the only radios that will distort on the rca preouts are the cheaper headunits that are like $150, or if you are using the internal amplifier of a headunit. So being that you have a $400+ marine headunit it's most likely distortion free on the preouts. I just installed a JL Audio MM105 with 12 rca preouts and that is clean all the way up as well.

well this is a fairly old topic that got bumped. Wonder how these build is going.....

In all honesty I would wire the amp up at 2.66 ohms. The Salt 8k will still do around 6000watts rms at that ohm load, and even then you are going to be stressing your electrical system with that amp being wired at 2.66 ohms, but its going to be a hell of a lot safer and way less risk of you popping the amp until you're able to upgrade your electrical system to match the amps needs. Besides those MTX 9500 subs are nothing crazy and only rated for 1,000 watts rms, and I'm more than certain that once you upgrade your electrical and wire that amp to .67 those subs will be blown in the first 10 minutes because for all that size and heft they have they can't really take power that great. Just wire two sets of 3 subs in parallel, then take the 2 sets and run them in series to give you 2.66 ohms.

The amp should handle that impedance just fine, however your electrical system is no where near up to par for it, and you will most likely blow the amp because it will be starved for juice. That amp can do just shy of 12,000watts rms @ 1ohm certified on the SMD Amp Dyno (AD-1) so your looking at 1200+ amps of current full tilt. When I was using my 6 XS Power D3100s in the back and 2 XS Power S3400s and 3 DC Power 390XP alternators under the hood of my Tahoe (before swapping to lithium batteries) with 9 runs of 1/0 positive and 9 runs of 1/0 negative wire from the front batteries to the back batteries I was having massive voltage drop into the low 11's when i cracked the volume up with just 2 Sundown SAZ-4500D amps wired at .35 each. That's less potential power than the Salt 8, with like 5 times more electrical than you have.

Can't say I've seen or heard of anyone using them, let alone anyone talk about Stetsom in general in I don't know how many years. I guess it sucks that it doesn't come with that controller though because those are usually handy to turn the subs up and down (at least on my 2 different DSP's it did). That being said though I'm sure its halfway decent and worth while, plus you will be able to toss that cheap LOC in the garbage since that DSP has high level inputs as well. If it's in your budget you I would say it is worth taking a gamble on just because it will give you a bit more control over your system than you currently have as well as hopefully solving one of your problems with the turn on pop.

It's a particular user thats banned from the forums a long time ago, not worth the energy mentioning his brand and giving him any promotion of any sorts, og forum members from a few years ago will remember said tests and person.

Those look clean as sh!t!

Knukonceptz actually does have some UL listed wire, and can be verified on the UL site. Sadly it's just for in wall use speaker wire but it's more than most companies are doing. As for the China made wire argument, the vast majority of wire coming from there is legit and copper, with some brands being better than others. So as long as you stay with a solid brand name you should be fine and get quality wire without other fillers. There was a bunch of wire brands tested independently by a fellow bass head a few years ago that had access to one of those $20,000 XRF scanners that can tell you everything that is in the wire. From what I recall the Sundown XS Power Knu Kicker SHCA Kicker etc brands where all around the top of the list and pretty much on par with what wire should be. A couple US made welding cable was tested too. One company tested with a lot of silicon and the people selling this wire pretty much blackmailed the guy testing the wire, harassed his employment trying to get him fired, tried to get him kicked out of college, etc until he finally pulled down his information. Oddly enough if you look at the quality brands of welding cable they say silicone free but apparently the stuff they are selling is not.

The boot changes nothing in terms of quality, performance, usability, or anything else. Its purely there for cosmetics and to protect the magnet.

I use to have a similar Pioneer headunit a long time ago in my supercharged Thunderbird but it had the larger volume button on the bottom that matched the Deq-7600, at least I think that was the model number (it was prior to the autoeq Pioneer released), Still wish I kind of had both of them because the headunit had a small animated spectrum analyzer as well as the eq which took up the whole screen. So I totally understand with keeping those old gems! Headunits just ain't made like they use to be in terms of screen candy on the displays granted they have more features now even though they are plain to look at!!! Now when you say your gain knob to 100% do you mean the physical gain on the amp itself, or a remote gain knob that plugs into the amp? You'll have 2 drastically different outcomes depending on which way you went or what you did. I can guarantee that the headunit nor the eq is not the problem and is something with how you tuned your amp. Chances are high that the Epicenter is also not the problem since the problem seems to happen even when you're not using it but it just takes longer. It really sounds like you are over driving the amp and reaching either thermal protect, too much input voltage on the rca side of things, or a improperly set gain from possibly not following the instructions of the DD-1 and using a -5db through -10db track when setting the amplifier gain.

Really it doesn't matter too much since its not going to change anything else in your system so its more on your preference. If you tuned your amp with the 8db overlap and you want the vu-din to light up red when you start to clip your amp then use a 8db track. Some people may not want to see the red light up at all and will back off the adjustment just a little bit so it only lights up red when you are going in to hard clipping. Where as others will set it up so that it hits the red mark a little before you go in to clipping. Play with it a little and see how you like it for yourself.

Wrong, I still cant understand how people think this or maybe you worded it wrong but the DD-1 will NEVER measure clipping. You will have distortion long before clipping is ever seen on an oscilloscope. Once the red light on the DD-1 lights up you hit 1% THD so by the time the wave is becoming deformed on an oscilloscope you are so far beyond that 1% THD that the DD-1 is looking for.

Yes, you can and should use the DD-1 on your DSP as well. Treat your DSP as a headunit, use the 0db tone and the appropriate tone for the appropriate channel outputs (IE, 1khz for front/rear dedicated dsp outputs, and 40hz for dedicated sub outputs on your dsp), this way you have the maximum clean a/c voltage output from your DSP. Also make sure all EQs on the DSP are flat when doing this as well! Now the one thing to be careful of is the a/c voltage output, you don't want to set it higher than your amps inputs can handle, so after tuning with the DD-1 you may want to check the rca a/c voltage output of the DSP because the DSP can and will take your 4v rca signal and turn it into 6-9+ volts output. So if your amps can only handle a 5volt input then you will want to back the voltage down some on the DSP, and then go and match voltage for each output. Then use the DD-1 on your amplifiers using the appropriate tones with your desired gain overlap setting (-5db, -10db, etc). I think my Audison Bitone DSP was putting out 11.7 volts clean when tuned with my DD-1 but I backed all the levels down to 4.5volts that I verified with my multimeter and then I have my amp gains up about 1/8, its very very little.

This is a under seat box I built last summer for a guy with a pair of the newest X-8's on a Sundown SFB-2000 in a 05 GMC Sierra without doing a seat lift. I built the box a tad larger than spec (cant remember exact size I would need to find my box plans if I still have them) for increased efficiency and to get tuning a little lower than due to limitations on the port length. No issues what so ever. Granted going larger then recommended can turn to a nightmare fast if you don't know what you're doing or know what to listen for mechanically wise on the sub(s). So for the SA-8s if they are the V3 series I probably wouldn't go anything larger than 0.4 - 0.7 cubic feet larger for both subs together. So ideally 1.9 - 2.2 cubic feet after sub/port/bracing displacement is subtracted for your 940ish watts you have. If you go too much larger than that you could potentially run into unloading issues but its hard to say since your not giving the subs their full rms wattage.

One is most likely older than the other. Sundown is known to have small revisions in their lineups from time to time to improve on small things that are not large enough to call it a whole new version.

So much beauty in one vehicle from under the hood to the cargo area, that escalade has got it going on!

Is the sub wired in series or parallel for the test?

Cant wait to see those meter all lit up!!!!

Oh yea that is looking so sexy all in there!!

Love how you can still simply add the color to them. Mass produced but still have that customizable touch!

Yea, it was a costly mistake we made on our vehicles that wherent being driven, thats for damn sure! No one to blame but our selfs though!

You better check that intelli charger periodicly. Had 3 different vehicle's worth of batteries go to shit because they randomly faulted out and took the battery banks out on my tahoe. my buddies yukon, and his charger. 6+ grand in batteries down the tubes.

ehhh