Bass knob functionality

[Stoneylowe]

Hey guys, I’m trying to understand how bass knobs work to decide if i wanna use one. Do they entirely bypass the amplifiers gain so that you control the gain 100% by the knob? Or do they work in concert with the gain setting, so that the highest setting on the bass knob would be whatever your gain is already set to? I’ve searched but i can’t get a concrete answer.

 

Id love to have some song by song adjustability because i listen to so much different music, but not if I’m gonna end up cranking my gain way outta wack every time i touch the thing. Running way too much power to accidentally do that lol.
 

Thanks y’all 

[1point21gigawatts]

They do not control the gain. A gain has nothing to do with the bass or volume or whatever. It’s just for match the voltage output coming from your stereo via rca wire. The only reason it sound louder when you turn the gain too high is because there’s a high pitch frequency along with the bass note making it sound louder but it not putting out anymore rms, it’s just putting out distortion. A bass knob at full tilt will be the same as not having a bass knob and turning it down just turns whatever bass that amp is connected to. They have their perks to some people, but I don’t use bass knobs. But if you have your bass boost on your amp on then it controls that but for daily applications nobody every uses bass boost. Keep bass boost at “0” always!

[Bluetegjoe]

Agree with 1.21 gigs on function of the bass knob. I would recommend using it if you listen to very different types of music. I find it useful in toning down instruments like overbearing string basses and electric basses in some songs.

[Stoneylowe]

Yeah i don’t touch bass boost, i have 3500rms in a minitruck it’s already plenty boosted for my taste 😂, I’ve always heard people talk about them as being related to gain so i just wanted to make sure i wasn’t gonna blow my sub to fuckin Jupiter. 
 

Thanks for the answers guys! Knowing that I’ll probably snag one, love my system but it’s a bit overbearing when i wanna play something chill.

[blammo585]

2 hours ago, Stoneylowe said:

Yeah i don’t touch bass boost, i have 3500rms in a minitruck it’s already plenty boosted for my taste <img src=">, I’ve always heard people talk about them as being related to gain so i just wanted to make sure i wasn’t gonna blow my sub to fuckin Jupiter. 
 

Thanks for the answers guys! Knowing that I’ll probably snag one, love my system but it’s a bit overbearing when i wanna play something chill.

I watched people on YouTube set the gains when using a bass knob, and the knob should be set to max when you set your gain. So doing it that way, the bass knob will never be for increasing bass, but only to decrease it. Makes sense I guess. I was always under the impression to set the gain with the knob at center. That way you could go up or down. But if you did it that way then you'd be getting into clipping assuming you had properly set your gain to the proper level to begin with.

[AaronT]

There are 2 types of knobs.

 

Bass boost type that connect to the amps bass boost circuit and gain knobs that connect to the amps gain circuit. The gain version only attenuates what you set on board with the gain on amp.

 

There are universal gain knobs that connect upstream before the amp in the RCA going to it. It manipulates the voltage going to amp and basically controls gain.

 

If you set gain on board with the amps gain with knob all the way up, the knob will only attenuate the gain and at all the way up will be right where you set it on amp.

 

If you set or not set but turn gain all the way up on amp and knob, the knob now will have full control of the gain basically. You'll just give yourself remote capability to set gain from cab. But this isn't a good idea as you won't know where your clip point is unless you put a scope or dd1 on the amp and turn the knob till you see distortion and make a very precise mark on knob where that max setting is

 

when I use knobs for my punch amplifiers they were the gain type and they were proprietary Rockford Fosgate, is set the gain on amp with the knob just slightly back from all the way up, that way I could over ride the onboard gain with the knob a bit if I wanted to. But those knobs had a clip light that was very very accurate.

 

The universal ones that are inline with rcas don't have a clip light so doing the setup I just mentioned is not a wise idea

[MrSkippyJ]

1 hour ago, AaronT said:

There are 2 types of knobs.

 

Bass boost type that connect to the amps bass boost circuit and gain knobs that connect to the amps gain circuit. The gain version only attenuates what you set on board with the gain on amp.

 

There are universal gain knobs that connect upstream before the amp in the RCA going to it. It manipulates the voltage going to amp and basically controls gain.

 

If you set gain on board with the amps gain with knob all the way up, the knob will only attenuate the gain and at all the way up will be right where you set it on amp.

 

If you set or not set but turn gain all the way up on amp and knob, the knob now will have full control of the gain basically. You'll just give yourself remote capability to set gain from cab. But this isn't a good idea as you won't know where your clip point is unless you put a scope or dd1 on the amp and turn the knob till you see distortion and make a very precise mark on knob where that max setting is

 

when I use knobs for my punch amplifiers they were the gain type and they were proprietary Rockford Fosgate, is set the gain on amp with the knob just slightly back from all the way up, that way I could over ride the onboard gain with the knob a bit if I wanted to. But those knobs had a clip light that was very very accurate.

 

The universal ones that are inline with rcas don't have a clip light so doing the setup I just mentioned is not a wise idea

agreed. Lots of different kinds of bass knobs out there. Bass boost knobs are generally not great, but anything that can attenuate the signal can be useful if you want to be able to lower the subwoofer volume. I always have a one of the attenuating types because I don’t always want my subs playing full tilt.