PROBLEM*** X200.4

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:20 pm

maka78 wrote:
deathcloud wrote:Ok so i haven't got time to trouble shoot ground noise, BUT what i did just do is try to tune my sub. it is a RSD600.1 and that means that I measure

squareroot of (600 X 2) since i am running a rsdc124 at 2 ohms

the answer is 34.64 so that means around 34 volts. We were only hitting 19 volts WITH the gain almost maxed. I have the EQ set flat, subwoofer is set at 0 when it can go to +15. So something is wrong because it needs to be 34volts. What could be the problem why it is lacking? Is it because I need a line driver? I am just tempted to hook it up to my line driver and see what volt i could hit. I mean it doesn't hit as hard as it should. It hits hard when I turn it up to +6 in the subwoofer setting BUT I remember doing that fucks up ur amp because every 3db it causes twice the work or something i remember. I don't + anything anymore after reading that if anything I lower settings HELP!
IDK if you figured this one out already, but here's what I think: If you can't hit the 34V you need (should be 36V though since the amp makes 650w RMS from my understanding), then you def. need a line driver. The problem here is that the amp expects the HU to give it more voltage, but the HU is not made to give it that much voltage, so you're SOL. I saw this happening with my HU - it gives off like .3V at the 7/8 volume, so I needed to adjust the gain to almost max on the x200.4. I then got a line driver, and can adjust the line driver (again, to almost max) to get the required voltage into the amp without the gains being turned up on the amp. I'm guessing these new PG require even more voltage input than the xenon.

Bottom line... you need a line driver or a different HU for this to work. Anyone think different, please chime in.

Yea you know what i figured that. It is so bad that with my head unit i couldnt even get higher than 1 volt until i turned the line driver up about 1/2 the way at first I thought the DMM was broken and wasn't reading the RCAs right but either I have shit RCAs (in the process of getting PG ARX-8 series) or my headunit is shit and it is a pretty old head unit alpine 9855 so what I've been doing is researching headunits and a car audio place sold me on the new kenwood excelon KDC-X991

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-WEPU6Cv0He ... 113KDCX991

It has a good screen, has a DA 24 bit converter for the front/rear/sub preouts so ill get cleaner sound and a powerful 5 volt preout. So deff saving for this. has good EQ's ect... anyways yea thats my problem with the RSD is its not getting enough voltage. I don't have the true power to make it sound good...

anyways I had an epiphany and I realized you are right Maka if I truly wanted to set my DMM on a certain amp to the desirable voltage then that means it wouldn't burn up my speakers. E.G. if i wanted my xenon 1200.1 to power 1 single RSDC124 at 650 rms and no more than that, then I simply do the equation of squareroot of (650 x 4) since it is xe load and u go to the highest ohms and then bam you get your target voltage which is 50.99

then I would adjust the line driver and have the gain set at minimal on the x1200.1 and hit the target voltage. then bam i don't fry the sub. I can do this with every amp out there too so I can have my x200.4 which is 200rms truly only run it at 125 or 150rms so i don't blow my speakers and this gives less stress instead of trying to run it at 200rms as well. I feel like i just got +10 smartness in car audio.

(sorry im an RPG nerd, well kinda but i still pull bitches

Post by **stipud** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:03 am

Your subwoofer level control may not be a "boost". Maybe at 0, that is the min volume, and at +15, that is the max volume. I remember in Fuzzysnuggleduckstruck we had to increase the sub level out on his Alpine deck a bit in order to reach a decent voltage as well. HOWEVER, turning it up too high also made it sound worse.

Check your manual to see how it works... does it work by boosting the signal artificially, or is it simply a volume control? Either way, if you can't even get it to work with the gains down

deathcloud wrote:sorry im an RPG nerd, well kinda but i still pull bitches

Fuck dude that is funny.

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:13 am

FuzzyHoNutz wrote:Actually dood......You could have bought a 200.4 for $140 at the sale

daaaaaaaaaammmmmnn, 140!!! wtf man. I shoulda picked up a couple of things then.

Oh well, gotta fix this one now.

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:18 am

k, so I tested the amp again with the case open and this is what I got:

Plugged in B+/B- to TI Powercore, did not connect any speaker terminals and connected the R to B+. No RCA's connected, all gains turned down, all filters off.

I get one red LED go on for a second, along with the fans, then that LED goes off, another one goes on, fans stop for like 2 secs, then another LED flashes and the amp starts making a noise. I def. smell burning in the cicruit. I tested the speaker terminal resistance and see that both left channels (front/back) have infinite resistance while both right channels (front/back) have about 300kOhms resistance (this number changed, but around there).

Any ideas from anyone?

I think I'm going to take off the bottom and see if there's anything burnt there or if anything's touching where it should not be. From what I got, it seems like there's an internal short for the right channels, causing the amp to go into protection.

Post by **stipud** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 7:34 am

Man... it sounds like that guy on eBay really fucked you guys over.

He may have bought them as returns from another shady dealer... seems like most of them are failing.

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:15 am

yea i tried asking the guy for a receipt and he hasn't gotten back to me either because basically i was talking to Mangagement and i think they could do something for me IF i have the proof of purchase... so i need it so bad from the guy then maybe my amp wouldn't end up costing me 485 bux... thats like 2 good amps because i got a shit one... jkaslkfjaslkdfsdaf

finkle636 · Post by **finkle636** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:47 am

How come you have to use a line driver?

If the sens on the amp goes from 8v to 0.2v. Surely you can just use that setting to get the output voltage on the speaker terminals correct.

thedeal7235 · Post by **thedeal7235** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:53 am

line driver cleans up signal and helps to gain match your source units voltage out; b/c so many different manufacters voltage out are different

finkle636 · Post by **finkle636** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:03 am

But isn't that what that setting does on the amp ?, match the RCA voltage to the required internal amps components needs?

If not, why have that setting on the amp at all?

I can see the need for a line driver if you cant make the speaker terminal voltage what you need it to be.

But if you can, by adjusting the sens, i dont understand why its needed as surely that adjuster on the amp is doing the same job.

thedeal7235 · Post by **thedeal7235** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:12 am

its even cleaner, lots of people use them, even with high end head units

finkle636 · Post by **finkle636** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:17 am

Im confused, do you set it as

squareroot of (RMS of Sub x Ohm configuration used)

Or if its a DVC 4 ohm sub, do you use 4 ohm?

Im running it at a 2ohm load on an rsd600.1 so i'm setting to to 34v and taking the measurement from the bridged speaker outputs on the amp.

Is this correct?

finkle636 · Post by **finkle636** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:28 am

also should you calculate it at what your amp puts out or what your speakers can handle (RMS)

As i have a X200.4 and 1 set of 6.5RSDs and a set of 4" coax RSD's

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:34 am

Well the point of setting the gain with a DMM is you are putting the max volts at 3/4 volume so anything below that will not be clipping and anything above 3/4 volume will be clipping.

So for you, you could set ur voltage of 200 rms at 3/4 volume so you dont clip the amp

and you have to be careful about xe load it is 1-4 ohms but you use the highest ohms so the correct way to calculate it is

squareroot (200 x 4) or if you wanna be conservative you put the target rms for your 4 inch coax for example

squareroot (100 x 4) which i believe is 20 volts

as for your sub you have a RSD600.1 so you do the ohms that your sub is wired at so im guessing it is wired at 2 ohms so then you do

squareroot (600 x 2) and get your target voltage you could even do 650 x 2 if you wanted because i read somewhere its about 650 rms that the sub puts out without clipping.

Hope this makes sense and i hope i gave correct info.

Post by **stipud** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:50 am

finkle636 wrote:But isn't that what that setting does on the amp ?, match the RCA voltage to the required internal amps components needs?

If not, why have that setting on the amp at all?

I can see the need for a line driver if you cant make the speaker terminal voltage what you need it to be.

But if you can, by adjusting the sens, i dont understand why its needed as surely that adjuster on the amp is doing the same job.

It lowers your noisefloor... the background hiss when there's no music playing.

At 1 volt, a 0.25 volt noise radiated onto the line would mean 25% noise. At 8 volts, a 0.25 volt radiated noise would mean 3% noise. This is why you want to get your signal voltage as high as possible, so that it is less affected by electrical noise in the vehicle. This is also why line drivers need to be installed as close to the headunit as possible, to minimize the amount of low voltage RCA, so your signal is less prone to noise all the way down the length of the car.

finkle636 · Post by **finkle636** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:56 am

so at 3/4 volume my line driver needs to putting 8v AC down the rca's into the amp?

finkle636 · Post by **finkle636** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 8:12 am

somethings not right here

I play the 60hz sine wave at 52(out of 60)

set the line driver to output 8v AC by measuring the tips of the RCA cables that will then go into the sub amp.

I plug them in to the sub amp. Check the bridged speaker port AC voltage. Adjust the gain on the amp slightly to get 36v AC (600w sub @ 2ohm). Great.

Plug the sub back in. put in a regular cd and theres virtually no bass and the sub is hardly moving.

I recheck the RCA's voltage with a regular cd and it barely registers

anyone?

I also set the X200.4 by calculating the rms voltage needed on my front 6.5" and rear 4" speakers respectivly and now the fronts are far louder than the rears

help......

finkle636 · Post by **finkle636** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:26 am

I now appriciate the need for a line driver as a means of reducing noise.

But this voltage method of setting gains is clearly not working for me.

I have read all 3 manuals for my PG amps and line driver.

Line driver manual states....
Set amp gain to min (8v)
set head unit to max undistorted volume (around 80%)
do 1 channel at a time
play a very dynamic recording (if setting a sub use a known heavy bass song)
turn line driver up until speaker distorts then down abit. If it doesn't reach this stage, then and only then use the sens setting on the amp to reach this state.

The RSD manual is similar.

This is how i had it all set before i tried the voltage method.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that when i set it like the manuals suggest, the voltage output from the speaker terminals on the sub amp is WAY above using the recommened method of sqrt (600x2) = 36 volts

anyone know why?

Post by **stipud** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:46 am

Try playing that test tone through your sub... it should be loud as hell.

The problem is how quiet most bass is recorded. This is why I use an LPL... I set the gains with the LPL turned down a bit, that way I can increase the volume on quieter recordings. You need to be very mature about how you use the knob though, as keeping it cranked up constantly would mean you clip the amp on loud bass songs.

zmcqdv · Post by **zmcqdv** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:55 pm

Hi,

I'm new here.

zmcqdv · Post by **zmcqdv** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:56 pm

Hi,

I was thinking to get this PG X200.4 from ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/PHOENIX-GOLD-XENON- ... 240%3A1318

or

http://cgi.ebay.com/PHOENIX-GOLD-X200-4 ... A1318#nogo

Has anyone purchased from them and having problems with the amps?

Thanks.