setting gain with dmm car on or off?

[audiohz 2]

Ok so with a sundown saz1200d its 12 volt ratting is 1200+ watts an something like 1400+ at 14 volt .. so when setting the gain to be some where safe would it be better to set it with the car running? I have the big 3 done an a hc1400 up front an a hc800 in the back...

[Julian 641]

Personally I would forgo the DMM method and just utilize your ears. I would always set the gains on what you most use Aka while driving or playing with the car off just jamming. For the ear method, turn the head unit to where you normally listen to, adjust the gain until it sounds off or bad, then back it down till it stops sounding bad/audible distortion and that's your gain spot. But you still be vigilant in any scenario, so use your senses and you'll be fine.

[///M5 2,833]

Neither.  As stated, just use your ears.  DMM's make no sense for setting gains.

[Impious 1,476]

Don't use a DMM to set the gain. Set it by ear.

[jcarter1885 995]

  What they said

[audiohz 2]

I've set it both ways an sounds good but the amps Clip light when at high volume stays red showing clipping so how accurate is that?

[///M5 2,833]

I've set it both ways an sounds good but the amps Clip light when at high volume stays red showing clipping so how accurate is that?

None of what you did was accurate not even close

[ncc74656 2]

you always want to set your gains with the car on. to say nothing of voltage drops to your amp when the car is off if you set up everything with the car off and then give another few volts to your amps you are now giving perhaps hundreds of watts extra to your subs/speakers (depending on setup) wich can push them past limits.

as for the DDM stuff... i understand that using a meter to get an output voltage and KNOW that the amp is with in spec or to use a O scope to KNOW that the audio its playing is not clipping and with a amp clamp on the power wires you can see how much power the amp is taking and know if its past its limit - this seems like a PERFECT way to do it but... its not. consider that the music you play is always changing, the music from your ipod or off the radio can easily be pre-clipped. add to that at what point your head unit starts pushing past its limit on pre amp voltage and then factor in your amps ability to reproduce a perfectly clean audio source (which it will hardly ever get) and you come to the realization that regardless of what test tone you play or what song you have going with an oscop, the very next song may put it right into the conditions you JUST tested to keep you out of. on top of all that NONE of this tells you if you are properly driving the speaker, just because the amp, head unit, and processors are all with in "spec" does not mean the speaker can take what its being given. its a hard thing to wrap your head around when there are so many "how to set gains" and products that "detect clipping" out there but they just dont pucking work.

turn stuff up conservatively until you get the audio sound you want out of your favorite song or if you truly want to play a test tone until you can hear the tone change octave - thats your ~5% distortion point (depending on how good your hearing is). then back it down a bit but dont expect to leave it there. as you play your music change your volume as you hear it distorting. the only time you can set it and forget it is when you set volume and gains with a decent head room e.g. not max volume, more like 3/4. given that and some good quality components then even if you do play a horridly clipped song it shouldn't kill everything.

[///M5 2,833]

you always want to set your gains with the car on. to say nothing of voltage drops to your amp when the car is off if you set up everything with the car off and then give another few volts to your amps you are now giving perhaps hundreds of watts extra to your subs/speakers (depending on setup) wich can push them past limits.

Umm, no...again. You have yet again completely missed the point. Gains can be set, but music can't. This means you get to adjust your potential overall output level on every song that is recorded differently. Therefore on or off it doesn't matter as you still have to listen, which of course is the point of a stereo so that shouldn't be so hard.

as for the DDM stuff... i understand that using a meter to get an output voltage and KNOW that the amp is with in spec or to use a O scope to KNOW that the audio its playing is not clipping and with a amp clamp on the power wires you can see how much power the amp is taking and know if its past its limit - this seems like a PERFECT way to do it but... its not. consider that the music you play is always changing, the music from your ipod or off the radio can easily be pre-clipped. add to that at what point your head unit starts pushing past its limit on pre amp voltage and then factor in your amps ability to reproduce a perfectly clean audio source (which it will hardly ever get) and you come to the realization that regardless of what test tone you play or what song you have going with an oscop, the very next song may put it right into the conditions you JUST tested to keep you out of. on top of all that NONE of this tells you if you are properly driving the speaker, just because the amp, head unit, and processors are all with in "spec" does not mean the speaker can take what its being given. its a hard thing to wrap your head around when there are so many "how to set gains" and products that "detect clipping" out there but they just dont fucking work.

You are mixing things up even we tell you. I don't see how you came to the conclusion in the first quote when stating the dynamic portion of music and different recordings. At least you are listening here a bit Of course the focus on "taking it" or "properly driving a speaker" though is confusing. The whole purpose of setting up ANY stereo is to make it sound good. When it starts to sound bad something is wrong. That really is what is important here. Who cares about clipping if you can't hear it? And yes, there is really no such thing as no clipping. At some level it is happening and at some level it is not discernible. From a damage perspective it can raise the average power, but there is no real method for ensuring you don't overpower a speaker without listening, smelling, and watching.

turn stuff up conservatively until you get the audio sound you want out of your favorite song or if you truly want to play a test tone until you can hear the tone change octave - thats your ~5% distortion point (depending on how good your hearing is). then back it down a bit but dont expect to leave it there. as you play your music change your volume as you hear it distorting. the only time you can set it and forget it is when you set volume and gains with a decent head room e.g. not max volume, more like 3/4. given that and some good quality components then even if you do play a horridly clipped song it shouldn't kill everything.

What the?? Tone change octave? You want the first harmonic to be larger than the fundamental? 5%, ROFL!!

Seriously, where the hell do you come up with this nonsense? I know you work at a confused store, but do they not know anything??

3/4 is also pointless. See my post above. If your headunit is clean at any certain level it is fine.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

I hope all the DD-1 emails I have to deal with read more topics like this.

[ncc74656 2]

i was told to play a 1Khz test tone and turn things up until you hear it change pitch. when it does you are clipping the signal. this same principle was explained on BCAE1.com so i assumed it was accurate.

the first part about audio being pre clipped came from BCAE1 and from the techs at Fi while discussing and researching distortion. thus there are many songs that are bass boosted so they over drive things right from the head unit. i checked a few MP3's i had on my own computer here in an audio processing program and found the songs to be distorted in their raw wave form.

[///M5 2,833]

Please share how you measured distortion on songs you have.

[///M5 2,833]

As for the pitch, do yourself a favor and listen to a sine wave of 1kHz and a square wave. That will become self evident. What you read on BCAE you are misapplying.

[Sencheezy 689]

Ok so with a sundown saz1200d its 12 volt ratting is 1200+ watts an something like 1400+ at 14 volt .. so when setting the gain to be some where safe would it be better to set it with the car running? I have the big 3 done an a hc1400 up front an a hc800 in the back...

 

For me, I've always set my settings at their "maximum" listening state. Because, the state of listening, can always change. And you always want to be able to turn down, not up. 

 

To give an example, you would set your gain level on your amplifier while the bass level on your headunit is set to zero (car on).That way, when you're driving under normal conditions, you can set the sub level on your headunit to -3 in this example. So when a buddy gets in for a demo, all you have to do is set your sub level on your radio back up to 0.

[///M5 2,833]

Ok so with a sundown saz1200d its 12 volt ratting is 1200+ watts an something like 1400+ at 14 volt .. so when setting the gain to be some where safe would it be better to set it with the car running? I have the big 3 done an a hc1400 up front an a hc800 in the back...

 

For me, I've always set my settings at their "maximum" listening state. Because, the state of listening, can always change. And you always want to be able to turn down, not up. 

 

To give an example, you would set your gain level on your amplifier while the bass level on your headunit is set to zero (car on).That way, when you're driving under normal conditions, you can set the sub level on your headunit to -3 in this example. So when a buddy gets in for a demo, all you have to do is set your sub level on your radio back up to 0.

Why leave something on the table? You can set so that at full tilt you are clipped like hell. Just use the volume control to compensate.

[Sencheezy 689]

Ok so with a sundown saz1200d its 12 volt ratting is 1200+ watts an something like 1400+ at 14 volt .. so when setting the gain to be some where safe would it be better to set it with the car running? I have the big 3 done an a hc1400 up front an a hc800 in the back...

For me, I've always set my settings at their "maximum" listening state. Because, the state of listening, can always change. And you always want to be able to turn down, not up.

To give an example, you would set your gain level on your amplifier while the bass level on your headunit is set to zero (car on).That way, when you're driving under normal conditions, you can set the sub level on your headunit to -3 in this example. So when a buddy gets in for a demo, all you have to do is set your sub level on your radio back up to 0.

Why leave something on the table? You can set so that at full tilt you are clipped like hell. Just use the volume control to compensate.

I'm not sure I'm following? Lol.

My advice for the OP is to simply set his gains to where they will be set at his maximum listening levels. That way during day to day listening, if he doesn't want to go balls to the walls with bass in particular, he can simply turn down the bass level on the radio up front, rather than parking on the side of the road, run to the back, and adjust gain levels.

When you say use the volume control to compensate, I'm "assuming" that you're under the impression that if you wan less bass, then simply turn down the volume. The problem with this, if this is indeed what you meant to convey, is that, the volume knob in this example would be the master volume, in which case, not all users want a to turn down all sound at the same db level. I know many people that would simply listen to a good output level for the mids and highs, and only want enough bass to perform as simply as an subwoofer fill (enough bass to just know it's there), rather than drowning out the rest of the system. It's really hard to explain via text via mobile lol. Basically, some ppl just want moderate mids and highs with just a tad of bass added.

[///M5 2,833]

Ok so with a sundown saz1200d its 12 volt ratting is 1200+ watts an something like 1400+ at 14 volt .. so when setting the gain to be some where safe would it be better to set it with the car running? I have the big 3 done an a hc1400 up front an a hc800 in the back...

For me, I've always set my settings at their "maximum" listening state. Because, the state of listening, can always change. And you always want to be able to turn down, not up.

To give an example, you would set your gain level on your amplifier while the bass level on your headunit is set to zero (car on).That way, when you're driving under normal conditions, you can set the sub level on your headunit to -3 in this example. So when a buddy gets in for a demo, all you have to do is set your sub level on your radio back up to 0.

Why leave something on the table? You can set so that at full tilt you are clipped like hell. Just use the volume control to compensate.

I'm not sure I'm following? Lol.

My advice for the OP is to simply set his gains to where they will be set at his maximum listening levels. That way during day to day listening, if he doesn't want to go balls to the walls with bass in particular, he can simply turn down the bass level on the radio up front, rather than parking on the side of the road, run to the back, and adjust gain levels.

When you say use the volume control to compensate, I'm "assuming" that you're under the impression that if you wan less bass, then simply turn down the volume. The problem with this, if this is indeed what you meant to convey, is that, the volume knob in this example would be the master volume, in which case, not all users want a to turn down all sound at the same db level. I know many people that would simply listen to a good output level for the mids and highs, and only want enough bass to perform as simply as an subwoofer fill (enough bass to just know it's there), rather than drowning out the rest of the system. It's really hard to explain via text via mobile lol. Basically, some ppl just want moderate mids and highs with just a tad of bass added.

I wouldn't ever separate gain setting on the sub from the front stage.

My comment was you want headroom on the knob, so not your maximum but in a state that would be able to exceed it. Just have to beware.

[Sencheezy 689]

Ok so with a sundown saz1200d its 12 volt ratting is 1200+ watts an something like 1400+ at 14 volt .. so when setting the gain to be some where safe would it be better to set it with the car running? I have the big 3 done an a hc1400 up front an a hc800 in the back...

For me, I've always set my settings at their "maximum" listening state. Because, the state of listening, can always change. And you always want to be able to turn down, not up.

To give an example, you would set your gain level on your amplifier while the bass level on your headunit is set to zero (car on).That way, when you're driving under normal conditions, you can set the sub level on your headunit to -3 in this example. So when a buddy gets in for a demo, all you have to do is set your sub level on your radio back up to 0.

Why leave something on the table? You can set so that at full tilt you are clipped like hell. Just use the volume control to compensate.

I'm not sure I'm following? Lol.

My advice for the OP is to simply set his gains to where they will be set at his maximum listening levels. That way during day to day listening, if he doesn't want to go balls to the walls with bass in particular, he can simply turn down the bass level on the radio up front, rather than parking on the side of the road, run to the back, and adjust gain levels.

When you say use the volume control to compensate, I'm "assuming" that you're under the impression that if you wan less bass, then simply turn down the volume. The problem with this, if this is indeed what you meant to convey, is that, the volume knob in this example would be the master volume, in which case, not all users want a to turn down all sound at the same db level. I know many people that would simply listen to a good output level for the mids and highs, and only want enough bass to perform as simply as an subwoofer fill (enough bass to just know it's there), rather than drowning out the rest of the system. It's really hard to explain via text via mobile lol. Basically, some ppl just want moderate mids and highs with just a tad of bass added.

I wouldn't ever separate gain setting on the sub from the front stage.

My comment was you want headroom on the knob, so not your maximum but in a state that would be able to exceed it. Just have to beware.

Ah ok, makes sense now for your comments. People whom I communicate wouldn't want 155db every time they wanted to hear some music. That is why most people, again, local to me, separate their bass from their front stage.

[///M5 2,833]

By separate I meant it doesnt matter what, not separate output. That is a no brainer. Just irregardless of what gain they shouldn't be treated in a similar manner....with of course the capability to blend.

[neo_styles 43]

M5, any suggestions on preferred dynamic material for setting gains? I'm sure there's a few Sean fan favorites out there

[///M5 2,833]

What I do won't make you happy, best hint though is to use something you know well. Tuning you can surely argue new well recorded music can help, but gains are easy and instant while tuning, not so much...

[neo_styles 43]

What I do won't make you happy, best hint though is to use something you know well. Tuning you can surely argue new well recorded music can help, but gains are easy and instant while tuning, not so much...

Regardless, I'm still all ears. What would make me really happy is tune the amps to just below known distortion and control levels with a remote knob for staging

[THX_Elite 26]

eyes, nose, ears....eyes, nose, ears...the best way to see, smell, and hear a driver and monitor/maximize it's activity, hands down. 

[nadcicle 77]

 

 

 

Ok so with a sundown saz1200d its 12 volt ratting is 1200+ watts an something like 1400+ at 14 volt .. so when setting the gain to be some where safe would it be better to set it with the car running? I have the big 3 done an a hc1400 up front an a hc800 in the back...

For me, I've always set my settings at their "maximum" listening state. Because, the state of listening, can always change. And you always want to be able to turn down, not up.

To give an example, you would set your gain level on your amplifier while the bass level on your headunit is set to zero (car on).That way, when you're driving under normal conditions, you can set the sub level on your headunit to -3 in this example. So when a buddy gets in for a demo, all you have to do is set your sub level on your radio back up to 0.

Why leave something on the table? You can set so that at full tilt you are clipped like hell. Just use the volume control to compensate.

I'm not sure I'm following? Lol.

My advice for the OP is to simply set his gains to where they will be set at his maximum listening levels. That way during day to day listening, if he doesn't want to go balls to the walls with bass in particular, he can simply turn down the bass level on the radio up front, rather than parking on the side of the road, run to the back, and adjust gain levels.

When you say use the volume control to compensate, I'm "assuming" that you're under the impression that if you wan less bass, then simply turn down the volume. The problem with this, if this is indeed what you meant to convey, is that, the volume knob in this example would be the master volume, in which case, not all users want a to turn down all sound at the same db level. I know many people that would simply listen to a good output level for the mids and highs, and only want enough bass to perform as simply as an subwoofer fill (enough bass to just know it's there), rather than drowning out the rest of the system. It's really hard to explain via text via mobile lol. Basically, some ppl just want moderate mids and highs with just a tad of bass added.

 

 

You have to remember that SQ guys hate the fact we tend to try and fit in sometimes with our overzealous bass usage. M5, we don't always go around sounding like thunderclaps and dynamite. I only turn up my bass amps at competition and mix in my substage to my frontstage just for audible mixing sake. 

 

Op, for daily, I would definitely take M5's advice as to not go fiddling with things too much as you're already at the point of asking for help. When you're ready and feel more comfortable your ears will lead you in to the more fine tuning. 

[///M5 2,833]

M5, we don't always go around sounding like thunderclaps and dynamite.

Never expected differently, if so I'd feel sorry for you.