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i know someone has to have an answer to this!

would any one one know what would be the ideal amp settings on a JL 300/4 amp. currently i have mb quart components in the front, and boston 6x9's in the back. i have not ajusted any thing on the amp to this day, comments????

thanks

 
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i will look it up if i find an answer i will tell you

 
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I haven't done mine either. But I heard you turn the deck volume up until it distorts, then turn it one notch down to where it stops distorting. Then you turn your amp gain up until it distorts, and turn it down from there until the distortion goes away. Then it's calibrated. Not exactly sure on this.

 
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^^ That's the hoaky way to do it...

Amplifier tuning for every system is specific to all components of the system, including the vehicle itself.

To properly tune your car, you will need a Real-Time Analyzer (RTA). This device will allow you to adjust your amp until you get a totally flat response, meaning your amp will be properly tuned. You can't just set it to a certain setting and have it be the "right" setting, you have to adjust it for each vehicle. If you could just set it to one specific setting, then the amp wouldn't have adjustable tuning controls at all.

 
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Haha. I thought so. So are there places that will tune everything the right way?

 
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Of course an RTA is great, but 99.9% of us don't have access to one.

Also every car, speaker, HU, etc is different ..... so there is no perfect setting for an amp. I would say its done in a couple of steps.

1) Set the deck flat. No EQ, Bass boost, Loud, and no Bass or treble.
2) Now turn the amp gains all the way down.
3) Turn the deck up to about 85% of the max volume. This should be a good point that gives a lot of volume control and also is close the the output potential of the deck.
4) Turn up the front gain until the speakers just start to distort and back off just a tad.
5) Do the same for the rear speakers.
6) If you have a sub do the same for the sub.

The key to understand is now every speaker in the car should be maxing out, be undistorted, and getting as loud as it can at the 85% volume mark. Think of this as the new max volume.

Now the next thing to do is to tune the system. Everything maxes out at the same time and is as loud as it can be, but that might not be the best. Whatever speaker is drowning others out, turn that gain down. For example, say the rears are overpowering the fronts. Then you need to turn the rear gain down so that it isn't as loud as compared w/ the fronts. Any tuning here should be by turning the gains DOWN only since they should already be as high as they can go.

From here you can add in bass or treble, but +2 at the most. Preferably none at all. And no on the bass boost, loud, etc. Those are just bad news.

 
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where can you use one of these RTA's??

 
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also besides the gain adjustments, what about all these other adjustment that can be made on the amp. should i leave them alone or what???

 
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jmaz, you can become good buddies with someone like me, who has access to an RTA

set your x-overs hi and low pass to around 80hz. As far as any other adjustments, I don't know what your amp has.

What amp do you have btw?

 
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i have:
-jl audio 300/4 amp.
-MB quart 6.5 components
-boston 6x9's

when you say x-overs you are talking about the ones for my components or on my amp??

 
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amp

 
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He has said what amp he has twice already...JL 300/4

 
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I'm still confused about tuning. And my ears are sensitive, so I'm not gonna be able to turn the volume up to near full.The highest I've listened is 1/3 volume.

What about if you fade the sound to front or back and do one pair at a time? I don't listen to music that's super loud, but I still want it to have good sq.

 
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JL has a tutorial section on their site that can help understand what each and every ****, etc. does and what it's purpose is in tuning. They also offer sample settings, systems, etc.

here's the link to the 300/4 feature adjustment explaination:
http://www.jlaudio.com/amps/pdfs/300_4.pdf

here's a link to the amp tutorial section:
http://www.jlaudio.com/amps/amp_pdfs.html

here's the link to their general tutorial section:
http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/index.html

and here's the link to their homepage:
http://www.jlaudio.com/

 
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When did I ask what amp he had?

 
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Uh, ok, RTAs are for EQing correctly. You don't use an RTA to set the master gain/HU volume.

I have read that you should turn the HU to about 80% vol., then adjust the amp to just before it starts to distort. Sounds reasonable to me. (And if your amp is not powerful enough to distort stuff, I'd turn it to about 80% as well.) Using an RTA is not a substitute for this method, as using an RTA and using this method are accomplishing two different goals.

You use an RTA to get your frequencies at the right level (i.e. to EQ everything so it is flat).

You use the above method to give you the maximum possible volume (without distortion).

Hope that is clear.

 
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Don't worry about it. If the max you will ever listen to your music is 1/3 up, then leave it at 1/3 up (or turn it a touch more, maybe, just in case). SQ won't suffer if your amp isn't turned up past 1/3. In fact, it's probably better to leave it as low as possible, since that way you are amping as little as possible any noise your amp picks up.

 
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Also my deck has an auto eq function. Basically you plug in a mic, and it runs tests to create a custom eq curve based on car accoustics. Maybe it's worth a try. Now the amp is set at 1/2 gain (optimal). I guess that's good enough.