Gain setting question

[shufflingmadness]

Every gains setting post on the internet says to set the tone controls and eq flat and turn the loudness off, when setting gains. This is not the way i listen to my system, so why would i want to set my gains this way. Why not turn the tone controls up full and the loudness on, then set the gain. this would be like a worst case scenario i would think.

Then when you use the loudness control or adjust your tone controls you won't be clipping because the gain was already set with these maxed out.

[RCP Audio]

If you turn everything up you will get crazy amounts of clipping, so when you turn it down again the gains are going to be set to low and you will lose output. I recomend setting them how you like, then tune it.

are you using a dd1 to tune? or the earometer?

Also I think loudness increases clipping alot and shouldnt be used if helped. thats just what ive read anyway

[fox_racin4]

almost of times, those settings will clip the preouts which then goes to your amps.. and you basically amplify clipped signals

[kickass audio]

The point to having the eq to flat is because then the frequency that the dd-1 reads at (1khz & 40Hz) will not be way higher or boosted compared to the rest of the spectrum. This is why 90% of the people on here that know what they are doing and have no desire to burn up their gear NEVER use bass-boost, loudness or crank up the living hell of their eq settings. To better explain this for you think of it like this... If you set your system with it all flat and the loudness off you will have a pretty flat equalizer response curve. This means that throughout the entire frequency spectrum that your headunit and amp can play they are all at the same level. Now lets turn up the loudness setting on your radio. Loudness will take the low end (usually around 30-60Hz) and boost their responses as well as the high end (usually around 1khz-3000khz) and boost their response as well. The problem with this is that all the frequencies that lie in the middle (lets say 60-1khz) are not boosted and they will not play as loud as the ones that were boosted. If you set your gains with the dd-1 with loudness and all your other crap turned way the hell up which is wrong then it will make the other frequencies that are not boosted get drowned out because the dd-1 will care more about making the specific tone you selected to set the gains with as perfect as it can be.

So to end this, set your radio to flat and turn off that loudness. Set your system with the dd-1 and leave all bass-boost settings, loudness to OFF and keep the eq settings flat. Take it from me, i used to love how my system sounded with the loudness up and just a bit of an eq tweak. Then i got the dd-1 and cc-1 and since then i have kept the loudness and eq to flat and i love the response i get in my music because of it.