setting gains and EQ head units tweak help.

[victor8881]

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp~TID~85479~PN~1 after reading this I had a few questions. I was unclear on this portion "For instance if you have a dedicated sub amp crossed over at 80hz, get a 60hz test tone. For your mains, work with a 120hz tone" the cross over on this sub amp goes from 35hz-250hz how do I know where to deicated this, or should I just use the 60hz test tone and adjust from there? also I have a "phase" knob that says o degree to 180 what is this, and how do I adjust this? My sub sonic knob goes from 15hz to 35hz how work with this? lastly my bass boost, since I'll have my bass boost on max on my HU prior to adjusting the bass boost gain on the amp and i'm not using any external bass knob I just adjust this until I hear clipping and back off until it goes away correct? Pretty much am I just working from left to right here... starting with my level gain and then working my way across, or is there a particular order I must follow? Also, for the four channel amp I just switch amp to high pass filters, and turning off the low pass adjustment right?

Now for the HU. I know I'm going to balance and flatten everything out. Will keep my bass turn to max on the HU only. Once the gains are set, how do I know where to place my mids and highs. Also, the high and low pass filters on the HU after the gains are set were should I place these settings?

Bare with me, on paper this seem far easier than it will end up turning out to be. This is going to be first attempt at setting gains and tweaking settings on the HU.. I let someone that KNOWS what there doing play with mine, I'm going to test this out on my little brothers truck, and his friends cars, see if this reading and forum advise pays off!

[kmalinich]

You can't "hear" clipping. You can hear distortion from clipping, but not clipping itself. When the wave is clipped, the woofer cone is motionless due to the DC voltage applied to it. So it would make no sound at all, but only at that split second.

and dear god keep all the bass boost down! on the HU and the amp?! do you know what kind of horrible EQ curve that's placing on the signal? damn! and the signal is probably clipped all to shit...

And here .. this might help...straight from Sparky's audio calc...

Setting the gain/input sensitivity:

1) Determine the RMS power output of one channel on your amplifier and the rated RMS input of your speakers.

2) Match the ohms you have on one channel of the amp with the ohms above. Note the voltage at the intersect of watts and ohms.

3) Turn the gain/sensitivity all the way down (to the highest number, usually counter clockwise)

4) Unhook all subwoofers from the amplifier at the amplifiers (this is optional as some amplifiers won't allow you to do this, use earplugs!!!)

5) Insert leads of multimeter into one of the channels you'll be using (if you're bridging the amplifier, use the terminals you'll be using)

6) Set multimeter to measure AC volts

7) Turn head unit on, turn off all filters (low-pass and high-pass), set your EQ settings to 0 (i.e. Bass, Treble, Mid) and turn off loudness.

Insert the test tone CD.

9) Set track to 60 Hz and set to repeat track

10) Set to the volume at 75/80% of your max volume on your deck.

11) Slowly turn the gain up until you obtain the voltage from the chart.

12) Turn the HU off, unhook the voltmeter and readjust your filters, EQ and other controls to your liking and you're done.

Thump responsibly…