I read some of the former posts and it said that it's bad to use the bass boost on the amp. So is it best to leave the bass boost off on the amp but ok to turn up the bass on the beck instead? I set my amp myself today, I'm pretty good with doing it by ear. These audio shops around here are either shady or stupid. One of the turned the bass boost up on my amp alot and turned the gain down lol. It didn't sound right to me, so I went to another place and he said it was bad to use the bass boost on the amp and re-adjusted it for me. I thought he was trustworthy until I was banging my system and my Icon 15 smelt funny, so I turned it off and felt the sub and it was pretty warm. I looked at the settings on my amp and the boost was off but the gain on my amp was up 80% wtf. I was in the car when he was setting it and it sounded good, but at the same time I asked if the gain was at a safe level and he said yeah. I feel like going back to the shop and snuffing him lol. Shady motherfvckers. So I turned the gain down myself and set it by ear and now this is how it's set (Below in bold). Do my settings sound about right to you?

My Alpine CDA-9886: Sub level 7, Bass 4

JBL GTO 1200.1 II: Bass Boost off, crossover set at 60hz, Gain set to about 40% - 45%

ooh, that isnt the amp that i think it is... is it?

Do you have your sub in a sealed box?

If that's the amp i'm thinking of. that amp doesn't have a subsonic filter on it so tell me... are you sealed or ported?

ooh, that isnt the amp that i think it is... is it?

Do you have your sub in a sealed box?

If that's the amp i'm thinking of. that amp doesn't have a subsonic filter on it so tell me... are you sealed or ported?

It's ported. 3.5 cubes tuned to 34hz

I checked, your amp DOES have a subsonic filter so make sure it's set properly first. The "smell" could very well be caused from unloading and i havent seen you mention that yet so that's one thing to inspect.

2nd, i'm never a fan of tuning by ear. Sure, you can tune by ear by using a song or whatever you use but different audio tracks are recorded differently, some peak higher than others. If you o-scope an amp with test tones recorded in between 0 - -3db that it would be perfect tracks to use to setup an amp.