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It will sound worse than just running the 2 way you have. The whole benefit of having a 3 way is getting to use a single driver optimized for the great majority of the musical range without giving up midbass or top end sparkle. You will gain non of that. The two most important steps in deciding on a logical 3 way setup are 1) driver choice and 2) setting up the crossover appropriately. The 2nd one either requires some serious savvy in making passive crossovers after measuring your speakers in place or a flexible processor with the capability of providing the crossover portion electronically.

Everything is recorded at different levels,your going to be fine on the song you use it on,may clip on the next,or leave power on the table. Unless your burping tones,i don't see the need for it

Instead of thread dumping, why not explain how it will help.....or can't you?

Reading this may help.

Let there be light!

use your ears to set it. using test tones is typically way too conservative and leaves output on the table. if you hear distortion or smell glue melting then turn it down. its that simple. the numbers are irrelevant. I wouldn't rely on some protection circuit to save anything.

If the amp is distorting due to clipping you can easily hear it. If the sub is reaching thermal or mechanical limit, you can easily hear or smell that as well. No need to get out the calculators here.

reread my post, 100 watts of clipped signal is just that, 100 watts. It doesn't matter what the signal looks like, whether its a perfect sine wave or a square wave, if the power received over a period of time exceeds the thermal capability of the woofer then it dies. Setting gain on the amp will always result in some level of distortion unless you're super conservative (which you should never be).

Finally my free time and the crappy weather have allowed me to work on this.

There are several brands that use USA Engineering for amplifier manufacturing. MMats is one.. i could name more but it's not where it comes from, it's how good it is in your application.

I didn't know D'Amore even made amps I know they make amp dyno's and DD1's and all that stuff. I actually learned something on SSA thank you! Ow and it's kind of sad that American bass isn't made in the USA. But what is any more. The Chevy heart beat of America is mostly built in Mexico now. I actually own the number one car for having the most American parts and being built in the US Dodge Avenger R/T.

Measure 3 times and cut once! Lol It's all about attention to detail. Plus, learning from "F" ups. Trust me my first enclosure ever was a train wreck. How I still have all my fingers is unknown.

M5 was 100% correct......A long time ago I thought I was sooooo smart saving money on cheap sound deadening. I should've listened to him and many others when they warned me. Now I have a freakin' mess on my hands ripping out this bullshit asphalt based garbage. Learned this lesson the hard way. Fealing like an idiot on this one.

Thanks for the info as Im currently designing an enclosure myself. Wont look as good yours though.

Basically, I was trying to keep port displacements down. At my last competition when I was running both 15's I had a net of 10 cubes & 129 sq.in. of port area. I got a final 150db with that before a mechanical failure on one coil during a demo at 20hz. Plain stupidity on my part was the only reason for the coil locking up. I couldn't get to the volume quick enough to shut things down. This single 15", during modeling I kept toying with the port size & displacements and finally settled on this.

Nice.

Looking good.

So the headunit always outputs around 4v?

Looking great!

I suggested the Nano because he wanted buy a more expensive tool that just has a blinking light at only two tones. So I suggested this lesser expensive O-scope as a cheaper alternative that will provide more info. Yes, most of the time, I set gains by ear, but this is a cheaper option that a few installers have used and it is handy.

ROFL. Go reread the thread. You change your comments to try to not sound stupid left and right...and again you choose to just thread dump. Since you are so emotionally disturbed by what I typed, focus on your discussion with Lithium. Obviously some audio 101 would be helpful as you are stuck repeating every nonsensical fact that car audio shops have been propagating incorrectly for the past 30 years. As for your guess on my life, you are way off...I won't stoop to your level and return the favor

Even if you are burping tones... Seeing a sine wave isn't helpful, measuring distortion or clipping is. Cheap oscilloscopes aren't capable of doing that. There are plenty that are cheaper than the $30k Lecroix that probably can, but el cheapo's won't. I have an unfair advantage of having a whole company full of exotic test & measurement equipment at my disposal...but I've never once used an o'scope for setting a gain and I never will. This is exactly why I asked what you are going to use it for. Something more specific than "clipping" might net you a different answer. I want to help, but you need to help me help you. And yes, Billy Jack is just constantly butt hurt by whatever I say since he regularly posts nonsensical responses and is always derailing threads without idiotic banter. Sad really. Poor guy is so emotionally unstable he spends 20 minutes every day going back searching for old forum posts just to mark mine with a negative rep.

Awesome shit Neal!

Have you ever measured signal voltage coming out of a head unit?

he alrdy said the answer to this. he said this "You should surely start listening more closely and make sure they aren't set in a way that adds distortion and/or noise. If that is the case then you are fine. "

Yep. Def. assembled in OK and MS.

I run Linear Power. Built in the USA. Yep, they a bit pricey too. Is what it is brother.

D'Amore's aren't made here either. Nor are they worth buying.

FUck yeah! Lighting!

I know during competition & demos at shows a lot of guys will simple feel the heat coming from around the dust cap area. That accompanied with the smell of hot copper can give you an idea if you are needing to cool things down. That being said, I know at shows one tends to go "balls to the wall" on output but if you experience this during daily driving you may be heading toward mechanical failures.

did you watch any youtube videos i just checked and it seems theres quite alot of videos using that specific unit. not sure how helpful most videos are, but might want to check them out? for example and this video around 6:45 into the video he starts to explain the settings

I was just joking above, haha. No American Bass is not made in the USA, honestly no amp is made in the USA. The only one that might be is the D'Amore Engineering amp, it has a hefty price tag on it.

Make a new thread, no need to clutter this one anymore. Thanks

gain alone is half the equation, you need to understand what the input is. high gain is appropriate when the signal voltage is low, for example. It doesn't cause the amp to produce more power (its not a volume knob), the function of gain is to level match to the input voltage.

I am alive, just exhausted

Hell ya! Hint hint Aaron!

The initial question was very generalized and got great generalized answers imo. Was like who makes better cars, Japan, Germany or the US? What is the difference between high voltage brand Y design and normal voltage brand X and Z, Is more akin to whats the diff between a Porsche spider, Nissan Titan and Ford F-150. Depending on perspective all are great answers, and contained good knowledge. Thus the fun of great debates!! If I just want to argue, I would go hang out with my wife. We are all here to learn, and help others learn. More imopantly is we are grow men and enjoy being such here on SSA. I personally show great respect to the people on this site and the SSA site regardless whether I agree with others perspectives and opinions. Is the least I can do to contribute, and show graditude for things I have learned audio and non audio related here on SSA. Everyone here has great knowledge in something and has knowledge to contribute. If there is a misunderstanding I can humbly move on. if someone corrects me(which happens a lot) I am grateful and am humble enough to show gratitude. Let's keep things cool! Please and thank you my friends.

Ok, I am not sure where this topic got so far off track or why. But please keep in mind that I was roughly explaining on the very basics of general design methodology of most amplifiers from those respective countries as that is what I was figuring was the over riding question. There is no one best type of country of origin for a specific need. As the market has really shifted away from just pure SPL burps to more sustained high output on music (read: I only demo bro). I have seen a number of competitors or demo trucks stick with or move back to Korean style amplifiers due to the voltage drops from these long demos, and due to the extreme heat levels with cooling aided by the much larger heat sinks. More research and info is needed past my post, before making an amplifier selection for a certain install need. Two little side notes: 1. My name has two A's 2. Don't ever take anything Meade says seriously, I'll leave it at that. Sean, though he may come across a little harsh to some, is an engineer with a physics background and is always dealing with highly advanced testing equipment. So even if you don't like how he answers your question, he is a valuable resource when it comes to the knowledge base here. Which is saying a lot as SSA and DIYma are the two remaining active forums that are really worth it when it comes to correct and well backed up information in terms of high end audio.

NYC. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. I understand everything now. I don't know if I could live there but I'm going to BEG to come to NYC if work needs it. The trains, the movement.... It was miserable today. My companion for the day is not on the same page as me for site seeing. >91 and incredibly humid. Light breakfast and could only stomach a salad in the evening. Only got about 2.5 liters of water in me and I'm sure I lost a gallon of more so far. Everything was against me and I fell in love with that place. I only got 22,000 steps in today surprisingly. Maybe I'll go for a little walk to bump those numbers. 2 train delays However. Also B&H... Oh yes please. I thought I was going to be intimidated but I felt at home instantly. I didn't expect it to hit me in my heart. I like where civilization meets nature usually. San Diego suburbs and the desert. Puerto Rico I'm the island of Vieques. The twin cities in MN of course... But NYC was as good as Paris. Just incredible to me. So amazing I can't wait to go back.

Bernie cared about human beings. Trump might... I can't tell. Hillary, well I'm almost certain that she hates her fellow man.

Some pictures from the Jeep trip this weekend We climbed up to a 6000 ft summit, did almost 150 miles of off-roading in the first day, saw some 2000-odd year old fortifications, did some more technical tracks on the third, and finally visited a medieval castle on the fourth day. This is the sacred area of an 2000 year old "city", before the Romans conquered what was then called Dacia and is now called Romania. Much of it, like the road in the first picture, is still buried because it's too expensive to dig it up and preserve everything. Treasure hunters also did a lot of damage.

Crest Factor Before we can discuss amplifier headroom, we first need to discuss the music we are listening to. And the concept we need to understand is that of crest factor. Sine waves are the simplest tone. Sine waves are the "test tones" that many people use in this hobby for various reasons, although most likely familiar to everyone as the source used in the typical SPL competition. Sine waves are a periodic waveform. That is, these sine waves or test tones are quite simply a repeating waveform with equal intervals and amplitude in time. Music, in contrast, is very dynamic and transient. Music is a nonperiodic wave form. Meaning music is composed of sounds that frequently vary amplitude, vary in tone and last for varying periods of time. Most sounds and peaks in music last for very brief periods of time, many times only for a fraction of a second. Both sine waves and music have an "average level" and a "peak level". The peak level is the highest output level achieved by the tone or music. What we are concerned about is the difference between that average level and the peak level. And that difference is known as crest factor. Sine waves have a crest factor of 3db. Meaning the peak of the signal is 3db higher than the average level of the signal. Music on the other hand has a crest factor of 10db - 20db (or more) depending on the dynamics of the music and the amount of compression. On newer music, the compression is (unfortunately) typically higher reducing the dynamics and thus reducing the crest factor to the lower end of that spectrum. Higher quality recordings with less compression will be on the upper end of the crest factor spectrum with a crest factor of around 20db or more. The System Now that we understand a little bit about the music we're listening to, let's discuss how it relates to your system. So what does a crest factor of 10db or 20db mean? Well, we can use the formula 10*log(X/Y) to determine how much of a power increase is required to increase output by 10db and 20db. 10*log(10/1) = 10db 10*log(100/1) = 20db This means the amplifier must increase power by a factor of 10 to increase output by 10db and a factor of 100 to increase output by 20db. In other words, that dynamic peak of 10db will require your amplifier provide 10x the power over the average level. And to meet a 20db dynamic peak, it would require the amplifier output 100x the power over the average level. Sounds like a lot, eh? It is! So if you are using an amplifier with an unclipped power output capability of 100w, and you are listening to music with a crest factor of 20db then the average output you would be able to obtain from the amplifier and avoid clipping the dynamic peaks is 1w. The same amplifier with a crest factor of 10db, the average output would be 10w. What happens if we want to listen to our 20db crest factor music at a higher average level than just 1w of output on our 100w amplifier? Well, you certainly can.....but you will end up clipping the dynamic peaks. Going back to what we said before about the nature of music, it's very transient. Those large peaks will occur over very short durations of time and change rapidly. Due to various reasons our brain can handle some amount of clipping without negative audible effects. But it is also possible, depending on the amount of clipping, original crest factor of the music and frequency regions involved, etc, that this clipping could result in harsh or compressed sounding dynamics at higher output listening levels. This is because of the increase in distortion as a result of clipping, and due to the forced reduction of the level of the dynamic peak compared to the average level of the music. An undesirable result indeed. There are, of course, other issues involved with clipping such as potential damage to components such as speakers, but that's best left to another thread as it can be quite involved in-and-of itself. Headroom This leads us to the utility of amplifier headroom. And also the reason I'm a huge advocate of purchasing the most power your budget will allow. What is meant by the term "headroom"? It means having excess power reserves or capabilities available from the amplifier for use during those dynamic peaks to avoid clipping the amplifier and the resultant negative effects it can have on the sound of the system. The two ways of obtaining this headroom are as follows; The first is "headroom" inherent to the amplifier itself, the second is headroom allowed by purchasing an amplifier with higher power capabilities. For headroom inherent to the amplifier itself, we need to consider the way amplifiers are measured. Amplifiers power rating can be done in several ways. The first, and most commonly cited, is continuous average power (incorrectly called "RMS" power). This should be the output capabilities of the amplifier measured over extended periods of time at some distortion figure, generally 1% or less, at some supply voltage, generally 12V-14.4V. It is, however, possible to measure an amplifiers output on very short periods of time, typically fractions of a second. This is referred to as music power or dynamic power. For most typical amplifier designs, this will not change significantly enough from the continuous power output capabilities to really matter in the grand scheme of things. It is, however, possible to design an amplifier that has considerably higher dynamic power than it does continuous power output capabilities. One more extreme example of this is Rockford's 15kw amplifier with it's enormous bank of internal capacitors that can't sustain long term output support but can greatly increase power output for short term "bursts". Other companies have designed more practical applications of increasing dynamic power, but these are the exception and not the rule. Do not confuse the real measure of dynamic or music power with the fictional marketing term used by many low end companies, which in their lingo is essentially an ILS rating. That leaves use with the second consideration to increasing headroom; Buying an amplifier with higher power capabilities than we may think we need. Looking back at how power increases with regard to dynamic peaks, it's easy to see how this could be beneficial. Compare, for example, a 50w amplifier and a 200w amplifier. Let's just say, to keep things simple, that we are listening to music with a crest factor of 10db and we are listening at an average level that requires 10w of output from the amplifier. When those 10db dynamic peaks occur, they will require a 10x increase in power, to 100w. If we are using a 50w amplifier, then these peaks would require the 50w amplifier to output twice it's unclipped output capabilities.....which means we will be clipping the amplifier during those peaks, potentially leading to the ill effects previously listed. In this particular scenario, you reduced your unclipped dynamic headroom capabilities from the necessary 10db to 7db. On the other hand, if we are using the 200w amplifier and that 10db dynamic peak occurs, we are still well under the amplifier's capabilities....removing the worry about clipping and the resultant increase in distortion and compressed dynamics. Does everyone need a 200+ watt-per-channel amplifier? Certainly not. But it does explain why it makes sense to look for the amplifier with the highest power capabilities out of the viable options within your budget. All else equal (build quality, features, aesthetic value, etc) it's generally advisable to go with the higher powered amplifier. Where it can be avoided, there's no reason to make available power the limiting factor to the performance of your system. Allow yourself the necessary headroom when choosing amplification for your system. If that's a 50wpc amplifier or a 300wpc amplifier is a decision for you to make. Now, you may be thinking; But wait! My speakers are only rated at 50w, what in the heck will happen when they receive that 100w dynamic peak?! Well, the short answer here is that a speaker's power rating is typically a thermal rating based on it's ability to sustain that power level over an extended period of time. Again, due to the transient nature of music, those dynamic peaks are occurring over very short periods of time. Due to the short time frame of that dynamic peak, the speaker will quickly dissipate the heat. Speakers can handle much more power over very short periods of time than they can over longer periods of time.

Doesn't work. Music won't be recorded at the same level as the test tone. Perhaps one random song or a few, but a bunch will be lower and some higher. Then your setting is wrong. Exactly the reason using an Oscope or other measurement device is completely pointless. Won't tell you anything about what the driver will receive with music. You NEED to train your ear and listen EVERY day. Once you do, you can surely turn the gain up high enough to compensate for any situation and never have a risk to your equipment. Any time high power is involved you can destroy anything. The only real cure is to listen all the time.

Not even close, you said this which is COMPLETELY different and untrue:

You mean assembled in the USA don't you?

Stop guessing. You have no faith in NVX but I have one and it is fine at 100% gain. Absolutely no big deal to it and it won't go poof. Amusingly it is actually designed to do that. Bit of thermal noise at 100%, but no ill effect otherwise. If you have no thermal noise at a gain level there is no reason to run the amp at a lower level. There can surely be reasons why it makes more sense to run it at a lower level, but as long as the input level is matched to the actual input so that the amplifier stays within its specification and doesn't add noise you are golden. Your perfect scenario isn't relevant either, but if you slightly modify what you said it would be fine. A perfect scenario is having enough power to make your subs do what you need without distorting and/or creating thermal noise.

Wow. Rofl. Only two things kill subs. Average power or Instantaneous power. It is completely irrelevant whether the signal is "clipped' or not. Absolutely no bearing whatsoever except of course that by the nature of clipping the power is increased. Plenty of modern music sounds like clipping anyway...boo