DD1+ just helped me out!

[jbeez]

I've been wrestling with my setup for a little while, half of the system is a mystery because of the limited tools I have access to. I have a '14 ford taurus SHO with the ford mytouch system. Some functions of the vehicle happen to be controlled through the factory headunit and no where else, so I can't easily get rid of it. So what I have right now is this,

Factory Sony DSP front door speakers+tweeter outputs to highlevel input of a Helix DSP

Helix DSP 4 chans of RCA out to a rockford fosgate 800a4 for highs

Helix DSP 2 chans of RCA out to zapco c2k 9.0xd

4 kenetik hc800 batteries in trunk

2 PSI Platform 2 HD subs in 4.3cu/ft sealed box tuned to 29hz

system is not completed, I haven't installed any highs, I haven't even ran the factory highs to the RF amp(not sure if i'll do this or swap the speakers first).

Anyway, I was getting some serious issues with the c2k cutting off, obviously gain issues are going on, but where? I was a little concerned with the oem sony DSP output level.

I got my DD1+ about 2hrs ago. Went out to my car and started the procedure, I have soldered all my factory dsp plug wires to some computer molex extension cords so I can easily hook and unhook things, so for this i unhooked all the factory speakers, and then I unscrewed the psi sub speaker wire terminals on the c2k. Playing the test disc I measured the sony output not connected to the helix, I was alittle concerned as max undistorted VOLTAGE was showing 17v for 40hz sine test track 1 at 1 click under the 5th(out of 6) large vol setting line on factory headunit. The helix is specced for highlevel input from 5-11v, I was a little concerned. However after hooking it upto the helix itself and measuring it while it was plugged into the unit(which shows a 30ohm load to the dsp) the output voltage had dropped to 12v, and the light on the helix was still green, so good! Now I got into the helix software and bypassed all the EQ settings(my oem headunit was already set to 0 for everything). When I measured the output RCAs on this, I was a little surprised. The sub channel at 40hz sine was only doing 3.4v, and thats after I cranked the output gain to full +5db in the helix software. Basically my sub out signal was softer than caitlyn jenner.

I was over driving my deck into distortion, as I thought the 5th large vol was safe, obviously not. I had way too low signal coming out of helix, so I was feeding it a distorted signal, then sending out a very soft distorted signal, then my c2k 9.0 was amplifying that trash and.... well you know what happens then. My prior voltage measured on the output of the zapco was around 107-110v and it was still shutting itself off. I just tested it with a 5db overlap on the 40hz i was getting 125v out bridged, and no shutdown when I cranked it =) I'll have to do some more testing of course but seems like I'm in way better shape so far!

Oh, and the highs amp? While I'm not 100% ready to use it yet I decided to set the gains while I was doing all this, I found out one channel is slightly louder than the other, I was able to spot this bc the dd1+ gain overlap showed different readings per channel, so I was able to go in my helix and drop one side -0.25db to even them out after I set the gains. Super handy, and let me finally clean this mess up.

So thanks again SM & D for making my life way easier

Edited July 17, 2015 by jbeez