lol...ok, that'll be next on my list if i experience anything dimming...

got everything hooked up, new headunit w modifry DCI (forgot how much fun the controls to the left were, lol) and new amp rack with that new amp

the 10's don't seem very loud. i didnt check which wires were +/- before hooking to the sub, if they are wired backwards, would it be a lot quieter than it should be? it's either wired backwards there or they may be wired for 2 ohms...hmmm i'll have to check it out...

also, how do you go about 'tuning' the amp? it has a ton of lil knobs on it (gain, xover, phasing, etc.) should i just leave that alone since i'm not an audiophile?

 

listening to it again, i think its the resistance, i think the subs aren't wired to get 1 ohm.... and the amp doesn't have the gain turned up...

 

Check also the xover frequency. Should be around 85-100Hz. Set the subsonic freq to around 40 or 50Hz. Gain should be set with the HU volume at 3/4 max. Adjust the gain to as high as you can stand it/as high as it can go before the woofers begin to distort.

Before all that, set your HU controls as neutral as possible (allows you more adjustability without going to the amp in the future) - i.e. subwoofer/bass boost at 0, mono output, normal phase.

 

do not play with the gain unless you know what you are dealing with, or you might end up with damaged equipment sooner or later... remember, gain is not a volume control and how you set it depends on what you are trying to achieve... SQ all the time or max SPL without cranking the voulme knob?

as far as wiring goes, we can't help you if you can tell us exactly what subs you are running. And reversing +/- would just turn the phase around 90 degrees, which would be bad if the subs are out of phase with each other, but not if they are in-phase. It all depends on the car and the location of the subs.

for subsonic filter, set it between 20Hz ~ 30Hz. The frequency you are setting it to alrady has a -3dB roll off(half the power), gotta remember that

For phasing, again, don't touch it unless you know what you are dealing with. You might end up kill all your mid bass when your bass sounds nicer

back to the original question. if your amps are really drawing 2000+ W RMS, you do need to upgrade your alternator and battery as soon as possible. From what I've read from the other posts, the factory S2k alt can provide a max of 120 Amps(huge for a small car), which is only 1680W RMS. At this point, your power steering would not work at all and you risk damaging the entire electrical system on the car.

Please upgrade the alt and the battery asap, then go with Alumapro if you need to. Alumapro caps are one of the few that actually work

 

both subs are wired the same way, so they are still in phase with each other from reading your post Claus...

i'll change the amp settings to yalls recommended settings on Saturday, unless I can get off work before it gets dark today...

thanks again for all the help

 

Claus: Easy there.


We've already determined what subs he has and that the amp at full gain is not going to overpower them, so adjusting the gain (which is really not that hard) is fine and indeed necessary.

He's working with 10's, thus, his xover and subsonic freq's need to be a bit higher than if he was working with 12's (I'm sure you know why, but I can explain that as well if you'd rather not read the entire thread, and the previous thread wherein we discussed his build).

DFW: See, I'm not the only one that says upgrade the battery/alternator


However, it doesn't matter what the brand of Cap is (most of them are made in the same factory, kind of like wiring - you pay markup for name and in the case of wiring, the jacket/insulation), a cap is unnecessary unless you're going for a single "burp" of sound (i.e. SPL competition). A cap is a band-aid to cover an alternator/battery combo that is too weak (unless you're using a number of them in series to filter your power - battery issues/alternator issues - or you're using them for SPL competitions).

 

lol, yea after your insight, i'm not going to worry about a cap, and alternator/battery will be next on my list...

i think the amp can be used to power regular speakers as well as subs, so with nothing tuned, its not sending the best "signal" or whatever its called (based on Hz and xover, etc.) to the subs. does that sound logical/correct? the previous amp was only designed for subs, so out of the box/untuned it would've been better for subs.

Oh, one more thing. I couldn't find a manual for the amp, so for the RCA wiring, I have a set of pre-outs for the sub from my HU, but there are 4 inputs into the amp, 1 for each channel, never seen this before. 2 of them are black, 2 are red, so the way I did the hook up was i split the + rca from the HU into 2 with a y-connecter and plugged it into both of the red inputs. I'm wondering if this should be different due to the fact that the channels are bridged. I was searching online on wednesday for a manual for the amp and couldn't seem to find one...

 

Ahh, that could be part of the problem. You should split both the red and black of the HU output.

 

yea the black from head unit is split into 2 and plugged into both blacks of the amp, so is the red

 

Ok, that should be fine then.

You have your outputs properly bridged?