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Hey,

So i have had a sub in for about a week in my vehicle. I am just now tonight going to have time to set the gains correctly and what not. Since i have not done this before i have a couple questions. To start off i have a kenwood HU, infinity reference 1600a amp and pioneer 1208D2 sub. The RMS matches up well (400 to 400). I have read online that i should turn my volume up 3/4, then play some music and turn the gain up till i hear distortion. I am worried that i will not be able to easily hear the distortion and don;t want to blow my sub anytime soon. Any tips or tricks you guys use? I have also read that i should leave the low pass filter wide open for the amp and adjust it via the HU. Is that true? And what should i set it to? 80, 120, or 160? I listen to mostlly hip hop and some rock as well. Thanks for any help!

 
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Gain is something I prefer to leave right at the default setting on my amp. Unless you know your amp won't produce a square sine wave at high volumes, it's safest to leave it alone.

I would definitely recommend setting the low pass filter on the amp itself, in case your battery dies / gets disconnected and you forget to set up the filters on the head unit again.
As for the exact setting, I think that frequencies aroung 160hz start to sound muddy. I would set your filter to 120, so the sub doesn't try to play anything above 120Hz.

The other option is to set the amp's filter to 160 (Allowing the most low frequencies through), and then use your Head Unit to lower the cutoff until you find a level you are happy with.


Edit: Also, set the high-pass filter on the head unit so the door speakers aren't trying to play anything low, they will sound a lot better, as gearbox mentions below.

 
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yeah usually optimal "or middle" gain setting is fine unless your amps and speakers are mismatched (like your amp puts out more than the speaker can handle, in which case the gain would have to go down). as for lo and hi pass filters, you would leave em wide open if you just had regular speakers on an amp, so you get some bass out of em. but since you have a sub, you dont need the small speakers to play the bass cause they will suck at it anyway. and the speakers will perform better if they only have to play mids and highs. i agree with the above post that around 100-120 would be a good lo pass cutoff (so the speakers dont play below that range). also, you want the filter for the sub to be set the opposite, so that the sub only plays notes below 120hz. most subs will only play notes upto 80hz, maybe 100.

 
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yeah... audio, something I'm actually qualified in on here... set your filters up, high pass to your speakers at about 120hz (blocks off waves below this) and low pass for the sub at 120hz (allow just sounds of 120hz or lower to the sub)...

you will hear the sub clip if you turn the gain up too much way before you're going to blow the speaker. The clipping, or distortion, will sound fuzzy and bad, you'll know it. Google clipping or square wave sound and listen to it to get an idea of the sound. Then sit back and listen and enjoy.

 
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i never turn an amp up past half way and i usually set the low pass at 100-125 depending on what the other speakers are and if they're amp'd seperately.