Dialing it all in

[BoxingBuffalo]

I'm trying to get everything dialed in and so far it sounds amazing. My question to you all is should I have my subwoofer gain on my deck (Kenwood KDC X-993) set all the way down and should it stay down? The range is -15db to +15db. My amp is a T1500-1bd and I have a bass knob.

Eventually I'd like to hook up an o-scope to my set up and get it dialed in that way, but I'm having a tough time telling what's what with an amp that is way too overpowered for my sub.

I would assume it's whatever sounds right with no distortion, but I guess I'm curious what you all have your stuff set at as far as gain directly at the head unit.

[Guest]

i set my sub level on my kenwood at +15 when i tuned my gains. though i usually stay at +5 for daily driving. that headroom is there just incase i have a song with very low bass then i can turn the level up.

[Loudcav]

I always put the sub output all the way up then I use the gain knob that comes with the amp or something like the PAC LC1 to control how loud it is much easier to control the volume that way

[mikey634]

Turn off all head unit equalizer, bass boost, etc then use a 40hz tone recorded at -5db to set your gain with an oscope. That's how the instruction manual for the 3sixty.2 says anyway!

I'm sure if your sub amp comes with a bass boost you could turn it up all the way when setting your gains that would probably work just fine. Be careful about using your head unit's EQ though as it may cause clipping up there, which would make everything else behind it clip as well

[Nirvalica]

I just set my 993 with the bass at 0.... I don't know if the +15 means boost or if 0 means it's cut 15 steps from regular output.

[Boon]

Ive always kept my Apline 9887 on +15 and my gains on the amp at like 20%. I like to have the most power to my amps as possible at all times so they dont have to "work" as hard.

Just my theory.

High input voltage is nice, lowers the noise floor... but by the same token I would rather have the enormous $1000 amplifier in the back of the car do the majority of the amplifying, rather than the $3 preamp IC in the headunit. Making the big amp do a little more amplification while making the tiny one do a whole lot less makes sense to me

[BoxingBuffalo]

High input voltage is nice, lowers the noise floor... but by the same token I would rather have the enormous $1000 amplifier in the back of the car do the majority of the amplifying, rather than the $3 preamp IC in the headunit. Making the big amp do a little more amplification while making the tiny one do a whole lot less makes sense to me

That is what makes sense to me.

Regarding my eq, I'm using my crossover on the amp, not the Kenwood. Even though that Kenwood eq/crossover set up is legit. It's super clean.

Regarding the -15 to +15 setting, all I know is that on my deck is says it's in decibels. So it's -15db to +15db. And yes I have the bass boost off, and on the eq, not the crossover, it's 5 band or 7 band, can't remember, but the two that affect the sub, the first two, are both at -2.

I'm not trying to be a dick but I wish people would thoroughly read my posts before responding. I mention I have a bass knob and that's what I use to primarily change the bass as each song has different bass, and I like to be able to kill it when I'm near cops. But, my specific question is, what do you have your sub gain set to on your deck.

The majority of the people I know set it as low as possible and let the amp do all the work. I'm pretty surprised you guys all run your sub gains on your decks so high. Oh, and to illustrate, think of the sub gain on my Kenwood 993 acting as a bass knob. It's not a bass boost, it's just a bass knob sans a knob. A gain increase is all. I just assumed that since I have a bass knob that I use I'd want to set the one on the deck all the way down. Looks like I chalk another one up to /shrug and see what clips and what doesn't clip.

[brewer_brewer]

i have an alpine 9886. mine goes from 0-15 for subwoofer level

i set it at 5, everything else on headunit flat

and i don't use bass knobs. i use a pac lc1. it controls preout voltage and is essentially a volume knob for your rca voltage

i have my headunit set at 5 so that if i listen to songs with weak bass then i can turn it up to 10 or so and it will bring the bass out more and i can then fine tune it with my rca knob

hope that helps