Shop said they dont use DD1 or Oscope to tune. they do it by ear. Should i trust them?

[soundstream15]

Setting by ear is a no no! Sure a lot of ppl get away with it. Smell something? Turn it down but by that time it could be to late.

I used to turn my decks to 25. And have my gain all the way up. 2v decks. It worked for me but I knew they wasn't right.

The dd-1 or Oscope is the best thing ever. I love my dd-1 and I got a few friends that tune by ear and luckily they never have issues. They don't want a dd-1 bc they don't like bc Steve Meades name is on it. I think it's funny bc Steve Meade made "car audio settings" easier on us.

If you have a amp that has a gain knob with a clipping light on it and that's what you go by. That's fine. Still a lot safer then the ear

[noobslayer77]

I have a kenwood excelon kdc - 997. I hope mine doesnt clip at 25. but fuck it, im gonna get a dd1 in a few months after my dub7s go in and just go real easy on em and the speakers until then. Whats the point in buying a dope system and blowing it up because you couldnt spend an extra 150 dollars to tune it right?

[Smurfboy]

This thread is very useful information. A lot of things I didn't know about.

[Travis Retrum]

Never tune by ear. I bet that shop has a lot

of people coming back with blown subs

[kirill007]

I can understand that using equipment may be best for gain matching two amps that do not strap. But other than that ear and senses has always been the way I have set all gains. I bought a DD-1 and used it twice. The first time was using it to set the gains on my 5500's and my PWX 150.4. The 5500's ended up exactly where I had had them set previously by ear. The 4 channel had to be backed down because if I used the settings it told me to I would have smoked the tweeters because the amp was rated at much more power than the tweeters would allow. The second time was used on a seperate install that the gains had to be backed down or it would have over powered the subs the person had so after that I sold it because I didnt see the need for the DD1. Maybe for setting the headunit max volume but I have always used the 80% rule when doing that. Head unit maxes out at say volume 62, well I would set gains with it at the 52-55 mark.

For the guys that preach these devices what do you all do in that case? You have a component set rated at 75rms, but you have a 150rms 4 channel, are you still taking the gains to full potential based on your DD1 or are you using a true rms clamp meter to set voltage?

The old 80 percent rule, LULZ... I have a Kenwood Excelon deck starts clipping at 25 out of 35. Guess what happened to one of my mids and later tweet, when I used the same idea and used 80% deck max, yepper blown. Retune with the DD1 no more blown mids, and they are a hellva alot louder. Less clicks on the deck, but I was being a pussy with the gain on the amp. Not realizing it was the decks dirty power when I would turn it to 28 not the amps gain being too high.

So you didn't hear that they were getting too much power, smell anything weird? Offcourse you did, probably just ignored it.

Setting gains by ear(+eyes+nose) is a very good way. The only difficulty is that it requires brains and common sense to work properly.

Using a device only makes people work like a robot, do 1 thing that is asked of it to do correctly, but it can oversee so many other things.

[Travis Retrum]

I can understand that using equipment may be best for gain matching two amps that do not strap. But other than that ear and senses has always been the way I have set all gains. I bought a DD-1 and used it twice. The first time was using it to set the gains on my 5500's and my PWX 150.4. The 5500's ended up exactly where I had had them set previously by ear. The 4 channel had to be backed down because if I used the settings it told me to I would have smoked the tweeters because the amp was rated at much more power than the tweeters would allow. The second time was used on a seperate install that the gains had to be backed down or it would have over powered the subs the person had so after that I sold it because I didnt see the need for the DD1. Maybe for setting the headunit max volume but I have always used the 80% rule when doing that. Head unit maxes out at say volume 62, well I would set gains with it at the 52-55 mark.

For the guys that preach these devices what do you all do in that case? You have a component set rated at 75rms, but you have a 150rms 4 channel, are you still taking the gains to full potential based on your DD1 or are you using a true rms clamp meter to set voltage?

The old 80 percent rule, LULZ... I have a Kenwood Excelon deck starts clipping at 25 out of 35. Guess what happened to one of my mids and later tweet, when I used the same idea and used 80% deck max, yepper blown. Retune with the DD1 no more blown mids, and they are a hellva alot louder. Less clicks on the deck, but I was being a pussy with the gain on the amp. Not realizing it was the decks dirty power when I would turn it to 28 not the amps gain being too high.

So you didn't hear that they were getting too much power, smell anything weird? Offcourse you did, probably just ignored it.

Setting gains by ear(+eyes+nose) is a very good way. The only difficulty is that it requires brains and common sense to work properly.

Using a device only makes people work like a robot, do 1 thing that is asked of it to do correctly, but it can oversee so many other things.

No u can't always hear it and it's not about hearing if they are getting too much power it's about a clean signal. And no one can hear that and that's a fact

[kirill007]

I can understand that using equipment may be best for gain matching two amps that do not strap. But other than that ear and senses has always been the way I have set all gains. I bought a DD-1 and used it twice. The first time was using it to set the gains on my 5500's and my PWX 150.4. The 5500's ended up exactly where I had had them set previously by ear. The 4 channel had to be backed down because if I used the settings it told me to I would have smoked the tweeters because the amp was rated at much more power than the tweeters would allow. The second time was used on a seperate install that the gains had to be backed down or it would have over powered the subs the person had so after that I sold it because I didnt see the need for the DD1. Maybe for setting the headunit max volume but I have always used the 80% rule when doing that. Head unit maxes out at say volume 62, well I would set gains with it at the 52-55 mark.

For the guys that preach these devices what do you all do in that case? You have a component set rated at 75rms, but you have a 150rms 4 channel, are you still taking the gains to full potential based on your DD1 or are you using a true rms clamp meter to set voltage?

The old 80 percent rule, LULZ... I have a Kenwood Excelon deck starts clipping at 25 out of 35. Guess what happened to one of my mids and later tweet, when I used the same idea and used 80% deck max, yepper blown. Retune with the DD1 no more blown mids, and they are a hellva alot louder. Less clicks on the deck, but I was being a pussy with the gain on the amp. Not realizing it was the decks dirty power when I would turn it to 28 not the amps gain being too high.

So you didn't hear that they were getting too much power, smell anything weird? Offcourse you did, probably just ignored it.

Setting gains by ear(+eyes+nose) is a very good way. The only difficulty is that it requires brains and common sense to work properly.

Using a device only makes people work like a robot, do 1 thing that is asked of it to do correctly, but it can oversee so many other things.

No u can't always hear it and it's not about hearing if they are getting too much power it's about a clean signal. And no one can hear that and that's a fact

See how I said : "Setting gains by ear(+eyes+nose)"

Your eyes will tell you if there is too much excursion, your nose will tell you if you go beyond the thermal limit and the ears will tell you if it sounds bad or if something is stressed.(like the suspension,....)

Clean signal isn't that important since no signal is clean unless you only play test tones.

[kingsuv]

Reading peoples "theory" in this thread makes me sad.

[OrionStang]

Reading peoples "theory" in this thread makes me sad.

Just went through and read some random posts, I agree.

[Travis Retrum]

It is very sad. Where do people get these ideas?