help install XENON X400.1, no bass

harminoff · Post by **harminoff** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:25 pm

front and rear rca's from hu to 4 channel. pg monoblock is connected to that 4 channel's rca out.

harminoff · Post by **harminoff** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:21 am

Sorry to bump this, but I have a small question

I thought I had it set up good (sub moves a lot) but it wasn't giving me the results I wanted. I unplugged the rca's from the sub, and just listened to it with the 4 chan. I noticed the sub wasn't really adding much. Though I now realize how powerful my rears are.

But with the rca's in our out, it sounds pretty much the same. Even though the sub is moving a lot. Is this something to do with phase? I don't really see a way to adjust that?

Do I just have it wired wrong, and the speakers are canceling out the sub?

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:28 am

well thats sounds like a possiblility, is your 4 channel no crossed over? You most often want to cross your highs and sub at the same point. I believe that depending on the slope of your crossovers (6db,12db,18db etc..) that your speakers will actually be out of phase. What are your crossover settings?

harminoff · Post by **harminoff** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:40 am

Crossover the fronts are around 100 hz and rear around 70

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:57 am

hmmm.

you got a dmm? I would unhook all your speakers, Turn your head unit up about 75 or 80 percent. Download a 60hz sinewave and adjust your amp to where you are getting your rated power out of it. I am guessing you must not be getting everything you could otu of that amp. There is an easy guide to do this in the how to/faq section. its called gain setting with a dmm. After that hook everything back up and we will see where that got you. Being that you have a xenon use 4 ohms in the equation to find your voltage. Make sure you use a 60 hz sinewave unless you have a true rms dmm. I meen have you tryed turning the gain up more. I meen as long as you dont hear things that arent music you are good to go. Are your front and back speakers loud enough to run somebody out of the car already? I dont see why your sub would have any trouble keeping up with them.

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:07 pm

Okay I took another look at your speakers and I myself have a set of boston sx69's in the doors of my work car running on an xs2300 so they are getting about 75 a peice and they sing but I have an old pg sapphire 12 running on another xs2300 and it keeps up just fine. I actually have to turn it down a tad when I am listening to music I want to hear accurately. Like I said before set your sub amp with a dmm and see where it gets you. I would be very sparing with the bass boost tho. remember that 3db of bass boost will make your amp try to double the power at those freqs. I cant remember where the xenons is in the freq band but I would guess around 45. If you dont have the time or resources to use a dmm try playing some bass heavy music like joc or jeezy with a real heavy bass line, turn the bass boost off and turn up the gain til you hear anything that doesnt sound good.

harminoff · Post by **harminoff** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 3:21 pm

when you say bass boost you are talking just about hu controls and not the amp controls right? gain is on amp, boost is on hu right?

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:50 pm

There is also a bass boost on the amp. I wouldnt use much on the hu either.

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:32 am

Sorry for the short post last night I was being stealthy on my psp so the gf wouldnt bitch. The amp, I assume like other xenons, has a gain and right beside it a bass boost. If you are using a loudness setting or alot of bass boost on your head unit I would turn it off temp. until you set your gains. I try to stay away from much eq at all and especially boosting. With a headunit it doeesnt yield great results cutting frequencies or I would advise that. Im sure you are using some kind of bass boost because I know the bostons are probably bright in the upper vocals. Ive got mine cut back quite a bit. Are you running bass boost on your amp? If you are turn it off and turn the gain up as high as you can without clipping. Like I said before there is no reason that sub wouldnt keep up with everything, especially if it was before with the jbl amp. I would say that most of your problem is the jbl might have more sensitive gains. It wont hurt the xenon to be up all the way if it sounds clean.

harminoff · Post by **harminoff** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:27 pm

ok so on the amp it has sens and bass, do you mean gain as in the sens control?

dBincognito · Post by **dBincognito** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:29 pm

Line Driver ?

dBincognito · Post by **dBincognito** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:31 pm

harminoff wrote:ok so on the amp it has sens and bass, do you mean gain as in the sens control?

yes

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:21 pm

harminoff wrote:ok so on the amp it has sens and bass, do you mean gain as in the sens control?

Yes the sens is what I meen by gain. Bass down on amp and hu and turn up the sens up until it is either loud enough or is distorting. Sorry for short words. Psp again.

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 7:42 am

Like said above a line driver might be somehting you should look into. Hu's most never put out the power they say they do and a line driver works to amplify the signal before it gets to your amp. The stronger signal also has better resistance to noise. It is easy to install, it just goes behind the hu and plugs into the rca's. It would definately help your results. I would think you could get satisfactory results without it tho. Let me know what happens when you adjust your gains.

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:29 pm

Ok I had a death in the family tonight. My eq215x went bizzerk. But, good news, I have a feeling what you are dealing with now. You most likely need a line driver. With my 215x giving my xenon some extra voltage my sub had plenty of output. My eq died and after bypassing it the xenon now has that gain almost all the way up and is not doing much work. My xs2300 that is running my 6x9's has a gain range from .2 to 3 volts. My xenon has a .2 to 8 volt range. My 215x gave me the ability to cut back the xs2300 and gain alittle to the xenon and things were great. Now not so great. So my advice to you is to get a line driver and implement it into you system. I will be turning mine up tommorow and putting in my x200.4 to fix my problem. Hope this helps.