Issues tuning my system! Please help

New guy trying to get my stereo to sound decent. I have been searching multiple forums and youtube for a month now trying to figure out how to tune my system. Set up in a 2005 crewcab

Pioneer AVH8400 head unit
1 JL 8W3 in the CP108LG-W3v3 MicroSub behind passenger rear seat
Image Dynamics CTX-6.5cs xover set at 0db.
Sound deadened front doors
Stock rear speakers turned off
Precision Power PPI P900.4 amp channels 3 & 4 bridged to sub
4AWG power Knukonceptz wire
16AWG Knukonceptz speaker wire
MKS Knukonceptz rca cables

First, adjusted gains by ear with all settings flat, loudness off, bass at 0. I do not have access to a O scope but do have a DMM if this method is better.

The amp has so many settings it makes my head spin. I tried to get roughly 80hz LPF to the sub and 80hz HPF to the components. The dials are very hard to judge so today finally turned amp to "FULL" hoping to bypass the filters at the amp, and set the head unit to 80hz for LP and HP.

Do these settings seem right?
Should there be a gap between the low and high pass frequency?

I have played with the EQ on the deck and can not get the mids and highs to sound clean or play very well. The EQ is 8 band showing 40Hz, 80Hz, 200Hz, 400Hz, 1kHz, 2.5kHz, 8kHz, and 10kHz. With the sub turned off, I boost 40Hz all the way up and finally get some midbass out of the drivers but not much.

If I have the deck HPF set to 80hz why do the adjustments to 40Hz in the EQ make a difference to the mids?

Still have the loudness off, bass boost off, S.Rtrv does what?

Sorry for the long post. Any help is appreciated!!! Really hope someone can help me out before I have to take it in and pay a ton of cash. Thanks again!

Pic of amp to show the adjustability confusion...

 

I'll probably get bashed for saying this but try the loudness setting on low and adjust from there (obviously turn down the sub gain via HU or amp)

I have HAT clarus up front / Arc 10 sub in the back powered by a JL Audio HD600/4 and have been trying to tune my trucks for months because it just never sounded quite right. Got mad one day and just started trying random settings I had ignored before (I always assumed loudness was just to counteract needing higher volume - so you'd max out at volume 7 rather than 13 etc) My sub and door speakers just didn't seem to be as active as I would have liked, and this solved my problem. Sub was very flat as were the door speakers especially at the lower frequencies until I had turned that setting on.

Currently running a 80 Hz LPF / flat equilizer (except for one notch up on 40-80 / one notch down on 10 kHz).

Here's an old post I had made that I found fairly useful.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/audio-video/181730-equalizer-settings.html

I checked up the HAT manual (couldn't fine a link for yours) and it said the HPF cutoff should be at 45 Hz for the mid bass *minimum* and the response is from 50 Hz on up. Your response on those speakers is 55 Hz on up so I would assume that the HPF should be around 50-55 Hz? Might see if you can find the manual.

Once again a lot of people call the "loudness" setting a bass booster but for whatever reason I allowed me to actually fine tune my system better when it was set to low. Could be an issue with my HU, who knows. Good luck!

 

I did play with the loudness and it makes it louder at lower volume but does not make it more clear. I am also concerned with introducing distortion and clipping if I run the loudness too high.

Their frequency response: 55Hz-25kHz Is it safe to set HPF at 55hz and still have LPF at 80?

 

Well here's the thing, if you're worried about clipping the loudness setting won't change the fact that you'd be clipping the music. You'll still listen to it at whatever volume is comfortable for your ears. I remember that my JL audio amp had a setup that involved a multimeter / unplugging the speakers from the amp / cranking the volume on the HU / play pink music / and measuring the voltage on the outputs to set the max level, but not sure if your amp had something similar in the setup. I'd check out your manual and read on the setup guide - here's the link from JL for reference:

http://www.jlaudio.com/header/Suppo...rial:+Input+Sensitivity+(Gain)+Setting/287546


As far as the HPF goes I would say that it's fine to set it at 55. AFAIK the response just references the frequencies that the speaker can accurately reproduce without +/- a certain amount of error. The sub you can play around with usually....I found setting my sub at 100 Hz picked up a lot more "noise" in rock music and it was much cleaner at 80 Hz but it's definitely something you can play around with.

 

For amp tuning, the only way you are going to know if you are using most/all of the amp's power is to tune it using a DMM/scope. DMM is pretty easy assuming you have a DMM ($20-30) and can find the necessary test tones. I use a 40Hz for sub and 1K for the main channels.

The above note from JL gives you the outline of what to do, and the voltages that you need to be at, give the wattage rating and the ohms of the particular speakers/sub.

Some notes on this process though. The gains are used to match the components in your system, and also to balance the components in your system. Balance is about setting the components to the LOWEST common denominator. I.e., in my system, my amp pushes 75W max to the main speakers and 350W max to the sub. My main component speakers are rated at 100W, and my sub is rated for 250W. Given this, I set the amp's sub channel to match the 250W sub rating, then start with a guess as to what to set the main speakers at, for me, I started at 65W. After setting the amp this way and the listening to some music, I ended up turning the main gains down some such that the sub channel would kick in a bit more.

Use the gains to set the "course" tuning, then use the EQ settings to "fine" tune the system.

Also note that when setting the gains using a DMM and test tones, that "real" music is much more variable and usually has less power then a test tone. Given that, once you have set the gains using DMM you might want to increase it just a bit to maximize the amp's power,,, or, do as I did and assume that you will add some EQ and bass boost when fine tuning and that this will account for the test tone/music discrepancy.

As for crossover settings, it really depends. 80Hz is the standard starting point for the HPF/LPF settings, but what works best is pretty much up to your system and your ears to decide. On my current setup, I have the HPF/LPFs set to 80Hz and that works fine for me. My last setup sounded better with some overlap in the HPF/LPF, i.e., 50 on the HPF and 100 on the LPF. Keep in mind that the crossovers are not cliffs, the filters drop the frequencies on a slope. E.g., an 80HZ LPF will start dropping around 80Hz, but will not totally filter sound til 100-120, depending on the slope of your crossover.

Also, on the crossover, keep in mind that you are using the crossovers to maximize the capabilities of your componnets. Setting the mains to 50HZ HPF means that you are using the mains as bass, if you have a sub, use the sub for bass, not the mains. Now if your sub is not as up to the task as you'd like, you might play around with the crossovers to help cover up the sub, but make sure you understand what you are doing. Why have a sub if you are going to tune around it?

 

My $0.02

Make sure HU EQ settings are at flat. Set Front outputs at an 80Hz HPF, Sub out at the same, but LPF (of course). Loudness off... Always, always off. Also turn the sub out volume on radio to 0.

Set both amp xovers to full (taken care of by radio) and you can ignore 8 of the buttons and dials on the amp, and since the amp doesn't have a LP setting for the rear channel, you kinda have to do this anyways.

Aside from having any sort of DMM or scope, turn both the gains all the way to the 6v mark, throw a CD (not MP3 file, actual CD) that has a nice and wide freq response, and slowly turn the volume up to about 2/3 volume (I'm guessing Pioneer still does the 0-35 numeric system, so about 22-23) or until you can hear some distortion. If no distortion then jump back and slowly turn the front gain up, noting that you shouldn't really turn it much more than a quarter turn before you would max it out (amp has 6v-200mv range, headunit has 4v preouts, and that's what you're trying to match). Listen for more distortion, and dial the gain back a few degrees, then slowly start turning the volume on the radio up to about 26-27 (75% max volume). Dial gain back as necessary for more distortion. Match sub gain to front gain, again, using same steps and listening for distortion.

Start here and you should be able to get a good basepoint for future tweeks.

 

Thanks for all the helpful info everyone! I am going to restart from the beginning and dial in the gains with a DMM instead of my ear method. This has been quite a learning curve. Last time I ran a system in a car (12yrs ago) I stuffed the fattest box I could fit with two twelves in the trunk and cranked up the amp and rattled my buddies teeth, we sure thought we were the ish!

If my amp does;
RMS Power Rating (14.4V):
4 ohms: 145 watts x 4 chan.
2 ohms: 225 watts x 4 chan.
Bridged, 4 ohms: 450 watts x 2 chan.

Does this mean at 4 ohms my comps could get 145 watts to each side, the two channels bridged to the sub at 4 ohms could be getting 450 watts?

Thank you all again!

 

Should be, but your DMM will reveal all....