Amplifier Trouble Shooting Issues

[Dominique Jacob Redlin]

I appreciate you guys for what your trying to tell me.

The only thing that I can see what I have done wrong is the fact that I have cheap subs and that I haven't put in my 4 gauge wires yet.

I completely agree that cheap equipment will hurt in the long run. In the future I seriously would love to get the spendy stuff and have a better system. The way that my subs sound right now- im content with. I seriously doubt that I will have a fire though. When something goes wrong the first thing to go is your fuses. Two 75 amp fuses and a 100 amp inline fuse block should prevent that for the most part. I'm not overloading my amps and my subs because of how they're tuned. As I've stated before my friend and I tuned the amp so that it didn't surpass 75% we did this because both sets subs are brand new and I wouldn't want to push full power yet. The block was bad, which prevented good power to go to my amps and my cap which cut sound. Simple as that, after the block was replaced the problem was solved. What more can I say? I will seriously consider upgrading amps and eventually my subs but money prevents that at the moment.

That is NOT how you set your amps. You will clip your amplifiers and subwoofers to complete shit. Depending on your vehicle and it's charging system if you're clipping you could just as easily fry your alternator and your battery.

I only stated that it does not exceed 75%, that does not mean that we tuned it to be set at exactly 75%. It is less than that. What does a power cap do in this situation then? When your amp is pulling too much power and drains your battery doesn't a power cap catch that?

[Syphlyn]

I appreciate you guys for what your trying to tell me.

The only thing that I can see what I have done wrong is the fact that I have cheap subs and that I haven't put in my 4 gauge wires yet.

I completely agree that cheap equipment will hurt in the long run. In the future I seriously would love to get the spendy stuff and have a better system. The way that my subs sound right now- im content with. I seriously doubt that I will have a fire though. When something goes wrong the first thing to go is your fuses. Two 75 amp fuses and a 100 amp inline fuse block should prevent that for the most part. I'm not overloading my amps and my subs because of how they're tuned. As I've stated before my friend and I tuned the amp so that it didn't surpass 75% we did this because both sets subs are brand new and I wouldn't want to push full power yet. The block was bad, which prevented good power to go to my amps and my cap which cut sound. Simple as that, after the block was replaced the problem was solved. What more can I say? I will seriously consider upgrading amps and eventually my subs but money prevents that at the moment.

You should never have to turn your gains up past 50% (my rule of thumb) and definately not to 75%.

That is false also. The amount your gain is turned up is determined by your headunits preout voltage. My HU has 2v preouts so my gain is set higher to compensate for the low voltage. All it does is match your amp to the signal your headunit sends via the RCAs.

[Syphlyn]

I appreciate you guys for what your trying to tell me.

The only thing that I can see what I have done wrong is the fact that I have cheap subs and that I haven't put in my 4 gauge wires yet.

I completely agree that cheap equipment will hurt in the long run. In the future I seriously would love to get the spendy stuff and have a better system. The way that my subs sound right now- im content with. I seriously doubt that I will have a fire though. When something goes wrong the first thing to go is your fuses. Two 75 amp fuses and a 100 amp inline fuse block should prevent that for the most part. I'm not overloading my amps and my subs because of how they're tuned. As I've stated before my friend and I tuned the amp so that it didn't surpass 75% we did this because both sets subs are brand new and I wouldn't want to push full power yet. The block was bad, which prevented good power to go to my amps and my cap which cut sound. Simple as that, after the block was replaced the problem was solved. What more can I say? I will seriously consider upgrading amps and eventually my subs but money prevents that at the moment.

That is NOT how you set your amps. You will clip your amplifiers and subwoofers to complete shit. Depending on your vehicle and it's charging system if you're clipping you could just as easily fry your alternator and your battery.

I only stated that it does not exceed 75%, that does not mean that we tuned it to be set at exactly 75%. It is less than that. What does a power cap do in this situation then? When your amp is pulling too much power and drains your battery doesn't a power cap catch that?

Well if you're drawing enough power that your battery and alternator can't keep up, sure the cap will help a bit, but what's going to recharge the cap if everything is so "backed up"? That's why people typically say caps are useless and just add strain to your charging system.

[rockFord_Expedition]

I appreciate you guys for what your trying to tell me.

The only thing that I can see what I have done wrong is the fact that I have cheap subs and that I haven't put in my 4 gauge wires yet.

I completely agree that cheap equipment will hurt in the long run. In the future I seriously would love to get the spendy stuff and have a better system. The way that my subs sound right now- im content with. I seriously doubt that I will have a fire though. When something goes wrong the first thing to go is your fuses. Two 75 amp fuses and a 100 amp inline fuse block should prevent that for the most part. I'm not overloading my amps and my subs because of how they're tuned. As I've stated before my friend and I tuned the amp so that it didn't surpass 75% we did this because both sets subs are brand new and I wouldn't want to push full power yet. The block was bad, which prevented good power to go to my amps and my cap which cut sound. Simple as that, after the block was replaced the problem was solved. What more can I say? I will seriously consider upgrading amps and eventually my subs but money prevents that at the moment.

That is NOT how you set your amps. You will clip your amplifiers and subwoofers to complete shit. Depending on your vehicle and it's charging system if you're clipping you could just as easily fry your alternator and your battery.

I only stated that it does not exceed 75%, that does not mean that we tuned it to be set at exactly 75%. It is less than that. What does a power cap do in this situation then? When your amp is pulling too much power and drains your battery doesn't a power cap catch that?

Well if you're drawing enough power that your battery and alternator can't keep up, sure the cap will help a bit, but what's going to recharge the cap if everything is so "backed up"? That's why people typically say caps are useless and just add strain to your charging system.

For the cap to help, first it has to not be a piece of shit. Second, you have to have sufficient electrical.

[Jessica]

your gain at 75% has nothing to do with amplifier output. Your amp puts out a certian wattage and no matter how high the gain is it will not do more. All it will do is clip the output.

Clipped output is like this. your headunit send a signal to the amp, that signal is a small amount of voltage. This varies with music and headunits.

Your amp then increases that voltage by X amount.

If you set the gain and tell it to expect a 2v signal and send it a 2v signal all is good, if you send it a 5v signal all it does is reach its max output, then flattens out at that output. That is clipping

your speakers need a smooth up and down "wave" to work correctly. speakers need the voltage to increase then decrease on a smooth power curve so the move forward and back smoothly.

when you clip (flatten) the curve you are telling the speaker to basically move forward, stop and stay there, then move back. That cause heat to build up in the coils and in the amp.

Amplifiers have small capacitors that store energy so when each wave comes through it can supply the voltage needed to move the speaker.

car amps are run on 12v DC current, but your headunits outputs and speaker outputs are all AC voltage, and amplifier can put out voltages like 100VAC. How do you think a 12v car battery could produce 100VAC?

thats where those little caps in the amplifier come in to support the voltage under short bursts 100's or 1000's of times a second. When you clip you ask the amp to try to sustain that voltage well past what the internal power supply (or power inverter) was intended for.

Now Volts X amps = watts in the simplest of terms. Think about a light bulb, a 5 watt bulb you could touch with your bare hands and never get burned, try that with a 500 watt bulb and you will need a skin graft. Now consider what is going on inside your amp and in your coils.

If you are doing things right the amp and speakers are designed to deal with that energy because it is only for short pulses, clipping is asking them to do it over large amounts of time as far as your equipment is concerned.

Long story short, clipping=heat. heat=melt down. Gain is not a volume knob.

[SIDE SHOW]

also bass knobs suck

[Syphlyn]

also bass knobs suck

Yes typical bass knobs are garbage but if you know what you're doing get a signal level control, such as the PAC-LC1 where it controls the voltage level coming from the HU. It should wire inline with your RCAs. Basically it adjusts your voltage coming from the HU. It's good to be able to adjust your volume for your substage on the spot as every song is different.

[Dominique Jacob Redlin]

Thank you, this helps out tremendously. Before this forum, I have learned everything I know by just doing it with my friends and gathering information on google. I had no idea about clipping your amp because I haven't tried a system like this before. I will have to do more research on all of this (within my system) and play it safe until I can do more upgrades.

[SIDE SHOW]

no...... bass knobs just suck! that's all.

[Syphlyn]

no...... bass knobs just suck! that's all.

One's similar to the PAC-LC1 are good and will cause no harm to your equipment as it just controls the voltage coming from your headunit. The traditional bass knobs that use the phone cable WILL ruin shit.

Assuming you set your amps with the PAC-LC1 all the way up, so you can't go past that "point".