Phoenix Gold Phorum

okay. i noticed some noise coming from my brand new 12" sounded like a rattle almost. hoping its teh speaker wire on the inside of b ox.

anyway, how can i set gains with dmm? i cant figure out how to sq rt the voltage or whatever.

my set up is.....

PG xenon 1200.1
PG rsdC 12" DVC 4ohm [600/1200][1200/2400 pair]
kenwood excelon x493

and then i got this raptor 0/1 gauge splitter so i can wire up both power and ground terminals on the amp

Welcome.

I think the voltage would be 69.28.

Try http://www.the12volt.com/ohm/ohmslaw.asp
There are calculators for alot of thing to do with car audio.

You might want to take car when running this amp.
I sent a woofer to its death with the wrong setting with this amp.
The cone went to full excursion and stayed there.

there are so many ways it can still go wrong I still recomend usin yer ears....

how do i set all the other knobs? or should i keep them all turned down and use the headunit instead?

^^^^ +1

The sub box will come into play when setting the voltage you send to the sub.

Too little space or too much. Ported or sealed. All of these will effect how the subs take and handle the watts you send.

we have a tutorial on the forum!

http://phoenixphorum.com/gain-setting-w ... vt280.html



and good call using both power inputs on your amp. it will make a good difference

they should take a serious amount of power.

i would check the wires rattling before worrying about distortion from those subs

well i kinda had my gain all the way up [thought subs could take it]
but i think i was clipping it with the bass boost and gain

had the light come on and blink so i turned teh sub level down on my deck.


didnt really understand that tutorial

WORD OF THE WISE....ABSOLUTELY NO BASS BOOST its just distortion, and as the all knowing bfowler has pointed out, use the gain setting tutorial with a dmm and you will be very happy

By the way freshskater, welcome to the coolest and most informative forum on the net. oh and the best gear can be had here too

yeah, your gain all the way up would do that.

at full clip you could be sending them way over 2000 watts with that misused...

it seems like the sub on the left is hitting harder than the one on the right.

both wired up the same.


like this...

sub 1 vc1 + to vc2 -
then vc1 - and vc2 + to the speaker box terminal

i did this to both subs and then ran each +,- to its own +,- on the amp.


im going outside right now to put the + and - of my DMM to the speaker channels and get it to 69 volts

and what kinda settings are good for this amp/subs combo? I have a vented box dont know if it was a prefab or built to spec. sounds decent tho. would like to build a box for my svt focus hatchback. but until then, maybe i can take measurements and post on here?

see if you can see what hz its tuned for. or if i can add some polyfill and get some better bass

tips on subsonic and low pass filters would be mucho appreciated. didnt know if i should use my kenwoods lpf or the amp

You need to pull the subs out and check all the connections at the speaker terminals. You shouldn't have one "hitting harder" then the other. Also check speaker connections at amp.

so i'm having trouble invisioning how you have them wirind up, but it sounds like you are running them at 1 ohm on the amp?


if so, you should swap them out for series parallel, the xenon's power supply allow them to make more power at higher ohms since it senses heat

Bfowler wrote:so i'm having trouble invisioning how you have them wirind up, but it sounds like you are running them at 1 ohm on the amp?


if so, you should swap them out for series parallel, the xenon's power supply allow them to make more power at higher ohms since it senses heat

Sounds like he has them wired in series, and the amp terminals are run in parallel, so it should be 4 ohms.

Can you read the resistance of each speaker lead going to the amp? It should be about 6-7 ohms. If they are different than eachother, the wiring may be messed up.

and remember the gain is not a volume control

well if i have my deck 3/4 the way up i have to have the gain on the amp all the way up before i start hearing some bass. 3/4 up you can hardly hear the subs playing.




what can i do to check my wiring? I can take pics and post em in ten or so minutes

Add a line driver to increase the voltage from the HU.

Do you still feel that one sub is playing louder than the other? You also need to rectify this problem as it may be part of your issues.

I have a headunit with 4V preouts.

shouldnt need a line driver.



also, i opened the box to see why one was looking like it was hitting harder, and the part that connects to the metal frame that the wires go thru is loose. half of the wavy flat thing [spider?] is loose. i can pull the cone upwards and look inside teh sub and see the voice coil and all the internal stuff. guess i should send this one back??

replaced the sub and am not going to try and tune the subs to 69.28 for the voltage. ill be doing it by playing a 50hz sine wave at 0db.

I turned the gain all the way up [thats when the subs get loud. they are 600rms a piece so thats prolly why] and the bass is at 0.

i just dont know if i should set the sub and low pass to??

also can i tune my system? i bought the bass mechanik - sonic overload " cd.

sub is your subsonic filter. it is a high pass that eliminates frequenices that are 1: difficult to reproduce 2:power robbing and 3:Inaudible to the human ear. I usually set mine close to 20 because I still like to feel some of those notes I cant hear. Some of you may still be able to hear 20hz, lol, I cant. Your low pass should be around 80hz. depending on the rest of your setup. Do you have your front speakers crossed over? The idea of the crossover is to blend the subwoofer with the rest of your system. At a certain frequency human ears hear the notes below as omnidirectional, meaning you cant pinpoint where the source of the sound is exactly. So by crossing you sub low pass and front speakers high pass they blend and the bass seems to be coming from the front speakers. This is working towards the ultimate goal of reproducing an accurate soundstage. Like if you were at a concert.

gain all the way up should be your first clue, that you have major problems- with a spider disconnected, god knows what thats doing to your impedance value, - my stomach aches from just reading this post- your amp (was a nice piece of equipment) and now may just be a piece, your head unit (4v) is in reality probably 2 at best, unless it is 10 years all, and really a 4v head- so line driver may be in order- but it basically sounds like your a heavy handed bass head, and are paying the price for that behaviour- good luck on getting the sub replaced- not a lot of people warranty sub damage any more, unless you have a really good relationship with the owner- sounds like I am bagging on you, and thats not really the point- its just looks like you made a lot of uninformed decisions, and have wound up with a mess- first you need to see if the amplifier is undamaged- hook it up to a different speaker source, one that is simple - not some dual voice coil, cumbersome load- 1 speaker, 1 set of terminals- turn the gain down, lets say half (max) and see what happens- if out put is crappy, it could be amp, it could be rca cables (likely if you bought cheap ones) or it could be you deck- you need to isolate where the problem is originating from- once you do that, you can replace your woofer and get back to having a good time- sounds like a hassle, but shouldn't take longer than 1/2 hr to troubleshoot- good luck

It is common to set the gains high on Xenon amps, however you still want to be cautious of clipping your signal to the speakers.

ive already replaced the sub. it actually came like that.



you say turn subsonic filter to 20

well the range is from 5 to 55 so turn that 3/4 the way up

and LPF on the amp says 30 to 300. but should I just use my headunit for the LPF and set it at 50? 60? 70? 80?

and ive tried to set my gains with a DMM but i dont see how you get 69 for the voltage. maybe i was doing it wrong. but what i do is take the + wire to the + lead, and - to the - lead. and tried to measure it. but nothing. different values when id change the dial, but no response when i changed amp gain. maybe im doing it wrong???


and yes, I LOVE SPL. My subs right now dont hit as hard as the 2 sony xplode garbage subs i had with less power. i had 2 sony 12's on a sony 1200 watt amp prolly pushing 400rms.

now i have 1200RMS and it seems weaker.

so poking the leads at the amp is prolly the wrong way right? to set gains?

do i disconnect the speaker wire from the box, and test it there?