alright i been trying to set my amp gain correctly and sub tools website says i should be at 31.6 volts at the speaker outputs. i have unlimited access to scopes, dmm's, signal generators, pretty much any tester for electrical components. and i still cant seem to get it i did everything the site says to do but adjusting the gain doesnt change the voltage. is it suppose to be ac or dc voltage? i tried both. also when i did an ohms check it looks like my amp is seein 2 ohms instead of 1. im confused as hell ill check the wiring 2morrow to make sure a speaker wire didnt come off, but settin the gain is reall bein a pain in the ash. please help i could get the local shop to help but i wont ever learn to do it myself if i always get them to do erything, thanx
you should be checking ac voltage at the amps speaker terminals. turn the HU up to your max setting, unhook the sub first, then probe for the voltage. It will flucuate all over the place, but you should see where it tops out consistantly. Another way is to get the amps (current) reading of the amp at full throttle, and multiply by your voltage. So if your subs rated for 350wrms, 14.4 X say 25 amps = 360 wrms. So if you know what rms your subs are, then turn the gain till you reach the desired amp load for wrms. 14.4 x 25 = 360 wrms 14.4 x 30 = 432 wrms 14.4 x 35 = 504 wrms and so on. As far as ohm readings on your subs, If they are duel voice coil, say duel 2's, then each coil should read ~1.8-2.1 ohms each. If its a duel 4 ohm sub, then 2 ohms is correct.
If you have unlimited access to an o-scope....just forget about using a DMM.
hook the o-scopes probes to you speaker wires (w/ subs hooked up) and play a 50-60hz tone. Set your HU volume to 75% w/ all EQ settings on 'flat'.
slowly turn the gain up and watch the o-scope till you see the wave is clipped. When you see the wave is clipped, turn the gain back down alil.
The go thru and set your EQ so the mids/highs sound good to you.
You may want to then run a tone to the sub-amp again w/ the scope still hooked to it. Slowly turn the HU's volume up till you see wave is clipped. What ever volume the HU is at when you see clipping, just below that is your highest volume you should run the sub.
If you mids/highs are not loud enough (bass over powers them)when you set your system up like this, you can lower the gain on your sub-amp to compensate.