helppppppp

okk.
everyones probably gonna think im stupid for asking this but im only 17 and i dont know everything about it yet. but i just got a zx1500.1 for my 2 cvx 12s in a ported box. and i was wondering how much i could turn the amp up and be safe.i got i a little under half on gain right now...please help

what is your pre-out voltage coming from your deck?
ok if your deck put's out 2 volt's you want the gain 3/4 up but if you have 8+ volt's you want it all the way down and you get the picture

The gain is not a 'volume' knob. It matches the input section of your amplifier with the output from your head unit. Unfortunately there is not a set standard in car audio where you simply plug the deck into the amp and the amp performs to it's full potential. Simplest way to explain is to put the nastiest music you will listen to in your cd player, turn your deck to near max volume, start with your gain all the way down, turn it up until you hear distortion through the subs then back it down a touch. Ideally you would use a test tone for this as the distortion is far easier to detect with a solid tone.

A good test to see if you have it right is to listen to your music at low volume, slowly turn the volume up. If at some point the bass stops getting louder, the gain is up too high. I am sure you have heard friend's cars that pound at low volume, then you turn it up and it doesn't get louder. At the point where the is no gain in output, you are sending a clipped signal to your woofer(distortion).

Good luck man and don't be afraid to ask questions. That's the only way to learn. None of us were born with the knowledge that we have. We learned it somewhere, some the easy way and some the hard way. Mostly the hard way for me.

nice one bill!

BillGass wrote:

The gain is not a 'volume' knob. It matches the input section of your amplifier with the output from your head unit. Unfortunately there is not a set standard in car audio where you simply plug the deck into the amp and the amp performs to it's full potential. Simplest way to explain is to put the nastiest music you will listen to in your cd player, turn your deck to near max volume, start with your gain all the way down, turn it up until you hear distortion through the subs then back it down a touch. Ideally you would use a test tone for this as the distortion is far easier to detect with a solid tone.

A good test to see if you have it right is to listen to your music at low volume, slowly turn the volume up. If at some point the bass stops getting louder, the gain is up too high. I am sure you have heard friend's cars that pound at low volume, then you turn it up and it doesn't get louder. At the point where the is no gain in output, you are sending a clipped signal to your woofer(distortion).

Good luck man and don't be afraid to ask questions. That's the only way to learn. None of us were born with the knowledge that we have. We learned it somewhere, some the easy way and some the hard way. Mostly the hard way for me.

As he said....good advice here

thanks guys...thats alot of help. i actually entered my first competition last saturday and and i did a 145.2 in sb2. i found a new song after i did my run that i think would be a lot louder.