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TonyD'Amore

SMD PARTNER
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Posts posted by TonyD'Amore

  1. 40hz and 1hz light wont come on (update: figured it out)

    in SMD Distortion Detector (DD-1) Topics

    Posted

    Try grabbing the (-) spkr terminal instead of ground.

    well i finally got the hz lights to come on today by sticking the black clamp in the - speaker terminal on the sub amp, but the 300/4 i had to stick it in opposite terminals??? i dont understand why that would be and im not sure this is right, my gains are higher now than before when i used a dmm, spent hour trying to get this dd 1 to work lol

    On many amplifiers that have 2 channels or more, one of the channels (usually the right channel) is out of phase compared to the left. The signal actually come out of the "-" terminal and the "+" terminal is ground. It is done that way so the amplifier can be bridged without pressing any buttons or switches. If you are unsure that your amp is like this, or just curious to see what I'm saying do this: Make sure the amplifier is turned off, disconnect your speaker wires. Get a voltmeter, set it to ohms and probe between the battery ground terminal and all of the speaker outputs. You will see that the Left channel "-" terminal is ground, and the right channel "+" terminal is ground! :drinks:

  2. Am I doing something wrong here?

    in SMD Distortion Detector (DD-1) Topics

    Posted

    If the iPad is your problem, then burning a cd from it will give you the same results. I would do 2 things: find an original disc and try another H/U. See if either of those fixes your problem.

    I am going to try it on the 4 channels in my truck before I take them out today. It works perfectly fine just like it is supposed to on the 40hz track but messes up on the 1000hz tracks.

    Help please this is not making sense to me.

    I may be wrong, but it looked like you had the subwoofer turned off on the HU? Probably has nothing to do w it, but if I turn mine off, it won't pick up the signal.. Hope this helps, or you figure it all out! :drinks:

    Those RCAs are not plugged in so it should not be effecting anything.

    CJ, I watched the videos. I want to help you get to the bottom of whatever is going on. I have some questions for you.

    1.)The amp in the video is a Kicker ZX350.4 ? Is it class D or class A/B? I looked on their website and can't find that info.

    2.)You said you tried two amplifier, what was the other?

    3.)Sometimes amplifiers that have the high/low range input selection switch have input stages that get easily overloaded. Can try switching that button to the other position?

    We'll figure it out.

    Tony

  3. The SMD DD-1 has a brother. His name is CC-1 (ninja pic2)

    in SMD Crossover Callibrator (CC-1) Topics

    Posted

    Awesome info Tony and Steve. I figured that's what it was gonna do when I first read about it. Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Any idea on a street date yet and maybe pricing. Btw Tony I find it funny that when I pulled the cover off my 4 chan and Mono to check out the guts on them your avatar was stamped on the board along with others and I was like well I guess I know who to thank for these now too. I wish I knew who the other avatars belong to though.

    Haha that's awesome! Tell me which ones, I probably know who they are.

    On the 4 ch its the Db symbol, the parrot, the beer mug and the skull on the mono its all of the same minus the beer mug.

    the 'db' is Dave Baker, he is the Engineering Manager at Rockford. The parrot is Richard Dudley, he is a circuit board designer. The beer mug is Mike Myer, he is a mechanical designer. Don't know about the skull.

  4. The SMD DD-1 has a brother. His name is CC-1 (ninja pic2)

    in SMD Crossover Callibrator (CC-1) Topics

    Posted

    Awesome info Tony and Steve. I figured that's what it was gonna do when I first read about it. Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Any idea on a street date yet and maybe pricing. Btw Tony I find it funny that when I pulled the cover off my 4 chan and Mono to check out the guts on them your avatar was stamped on the board along with others and I was like well I guess I know who to thank for these now too. I wish I knew who the other avatars belong to though.

    Haha that's awesome! Tell me which ones, I probably know who they are.

  5. The SMD DD-1 has a brother. His name is CC-1 (ninja pic2)

    in SMD Crossover Callibrator (CC-1) Topics

    Posted

    it works like this. You have a frequency dial on the side of the amp. It might have numbers and dots. 30 then a dot, then a 50, then a dot, then 65, then a dot......and then 125 and another dot. You want your frequency to be set to 85hz on your bass amp. Well good luck with that. If you are like me, you put it where you THINK 85 is. Until now. With this, you put the disc in. You play the 85hz track. You turn up the volume on the deck till you see the signal light illuminate...then turn the dial on the amp till the CC-1 shows you are calibrated. Done. Now you are set EXACTLY where you want to be. While it may not be a life and death situation, its still nice to know exactly where you are at. Now if i have MULTIPLE bass amps, it would, IMO be MUCH more critical to get the frequency settings matched up exactly. That goes double if you have two amps on one woofer or a bunch of subs in one chamber. I dont know about you but i want all my amps playing the EXACT same signal, not just "close". Close only counts in hand-grenades and horseshoes.

    Which brings me to the next AWESOME feature of this unit. You hit a few buttons and the LED's start flashing like the Vegas Strip, indicating you are in "gain matching mode". This is for people with multiple subwoofer amplifiers, like me (8 amps, 4 subs)

    From here, you find your reference amp. The one putting out the most power with least distortion (use an SMD-DD-1 to determine that). Then you probe that amp, lock in the settings and move to the next amp. Turn up the gains on the next amp until it lights up the CC-1, indicating it MATCHES the first reference amp. Keep doing that until you are done with your last amp and then you are good to go, fully in sync! You can do that with a DMM, but This thing isnt just measuring voltage, it is measuring DB off of the output signal. Tony can explain exactly why we did it that way, and i hope he jumps in soon because he (as well as Juan) are the main-brains behind the operation as you can imagine :D :D

    This is just another item in a long list of devices we are trying to come out with in the coming years.

    thanks for tuning in to this post and showing interest!! that is what motivates us to keep doing this and we are VERY excited about the future! :popcorn: :popcorn:

    I thought your RF's did this already? Or am I thinking of something else? Isn't it fairly easy to gain match amps? And why would you have to worry about the xovers on the other amps that are your slaves? If you do a "master/slave" setup, don't the slave follow the master amp? Just curious, and maybe it would help others too...

    I know the guy that designed that system on those Rockford amps you speak of. It's pretty sick :peepwall:

  8. The SMD DD-1 has a brother. His name is CC-1 (ninja pic2)

    in SMD Crossover Callibrator (CC-1) Topics

    Posted

    it works like this. You have a frequency dial on the side of the amp. It might have numbers and dots. 30 then a dot, then a 50, then a dot, then 65, then a dot......and then 125 and another dot. You want your frequency to be set to 85hz on your bass amp. Well good luck with that. If you are like me, you put it where you THINK 85 is. Until now. With this, you put the disc in. You play the 85hz track. You turn up the volume on the deck till you see the signal light illuminate...then turn the dial on the amp till the CC-1 shows you are calibrated. Done. Now you are set EXACTLY where you want to be. While it may not be a life and death situation, its still nice to know exactly where you are at. Now if i have MULTIPLE bass amps, it would, IMO be MUCH more critical to get the frequency settings matched up exactly. That goes double if you have two amps on one woofer or a bunch of subs in one chamber. I dont know about you but i want all my amps playing the EXACT same signal, not just "close". Close only counts in hand-grenades and horseshoes.

    Which brings me to the next AWESOME feature of this unit. You hit a few buttons and the LED's start flashing like the Vegas Strip, indicating you are in "gain matching mode". This is for people with multiple subwoofer amplifiers, like me (8 amps, 4 subs)

    From here, you find your reference amp. The one putting out the most power with least distortion (use an SMD-DD-1 to determine that). Then you probe that amp, lock in the settings and move to the next amp. Turn up the gains on the next amp until it lights up the CC-1, indicating it MATCHES the first reference amp. Keep doing that until you are done with your last amp and then you are good to go, fully in sync! You can do that with a DMM, but This thing isnt just measuring voltage, it is measuring DB off of the output signal. Tony can explain exactly why we did it that way, and i hope he jumps in soon because he (as well as Juan) are the main-brains behind the operation as you can imagine :D :D

    This is just another item in a long list of devices we are trying to come out with in the coming years.

    thanks for tuning in to this post and showing interest!! that is what motivates us to keep doing this and we are VERY excited about the future! :popcorn: :popcorn:

    History lesson:

    The gain matching mode of the CC-1 is in dBV. If you haven't heard of that terminology before, dBV stands for decibel volts. "d" lower case, stands for "deci" which is just a term meaning 10, in this case base 10. Base 10 means every 10dB is 10 times the power. (If you hit a 135dB with 200 watts, it will take 2000 watts to hit 145dB). Upper case "B" for the unit "Bel" named after Alexander Graham Bell. Upper case V for Volts named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta.

    In the audio world when someone says dB they are usually referring to sound pressure. The fact is dB is just a unit of measure, like an inch. But it is a logarithmic unit of measure, like the Richter scale for measuring earthquakes. So as such it can be used to measure many things besides sound pressure. In the case of the CC-1 it is used to measure volts.

    When gain matching with the CC-1, you can match your gains within 0.1dBV. So you ask why would you do it this way and not just in Volts like a voltmeter? Look at it this way: What is the difference between 1V and 1.1V? It's huge! It's a 10% difference! Ok how about the difference between 100V and 100.1V? It's so small it is insignificant, it's a 0.1% difference. So see you can't match your gains within 0.1V on your Fluke and expect the same results on any size amplifier. HOWEVER, matching using dBV it doesn't matter if your amp is 1 watt or 1,000,000 watts; 0.1dB is always the same percentage of error!

    Trying my best to explain this in simple terms. Please ask questions if you don't fully understand it, I can try to explain it from a different angle.

    For the Love of Audio

  15. D'Amore Engineering

    in SMD Distortion Detector (DD-1) Topics

    Posted

    TonyD.....this thing is badazz. I love it and can't wait to get my hands on one. I've followed you since your Fosgate days and have always been impressed with everything you've touched.

    Thanks for making car audio better........also Juan and Steve......Steve if it wasn't for you dude we'd might not have ever seen or heard of these devices. Your web prescence has a great following and putting all these things together, that all 3 of ya'll bring to the table, will allow you all to go far. Best Wishes to you all!!

    Thanks man!!

  17. Another DD1 question

    in SMD Distortion Detector (DD-1) Topics

    Posted

    The first time turned both crossovers all the way up/down 10hz/250hz. I then turned them back up to my usual settings of 30hz/75hz. When I reset the crossovers my power output dropped to about 80v from 97v.

    That 30Hz infrasonic filter is probably reducing your output at 40Hz by a little bit. The difference between 97V and 80V isn't much though.

    20* Log(97V) - 20* Log(80V) = (39.74 - 38.06) = 1.68dB. So if you are setting with the 10dB overlap track you are ending up with 8.32dB of overlap instead.

    As you can see it's not really a problem. If you would like those 1.68dB of overlap back you could readjust with your filters set where you are going to have them. The thing is though, all of this has already been considered when we designed it. As you are setting the gains with no load on the amplifier, this will build in an extra 1 - 2 dB of overlap. So it will all work out in the end just by using the procedure in the instructions.

    Hope this helps

    Tony

  19. Another DD1 question

    in SMD Distortion Detector (DD-1) Topics

    Posted

    When I am setting my sub amp I turned the crossovers on the amp all the way up/down like the instructions say. When i set the gain I get 97v of undistorted power. When I reset my lpf and hpf on my amp the output voltage drops down to about 80v and I have to reset the gain again after setting my filters. Is this correct or am I doing something wrong?

    What frequency are you setting these filters at?

  25. D'Amore Engineering

    in SMD Distortion Detector (DD-1) Topics

    Posted

    hey tony. I want a t shirt and the asphalt shirt says for slim fit, one size up or not....what does that mean?

    Thanks man!

    The asphalt shirt runs a little small, so if you normally wear a XL you may want to buy a 2X. Depends on your body shape, it is more of a "fitted" style. I would compare it to Hurley's "slim fit" t-shirts. Nice material too, light weight and soft.

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