i set up my amp today and i'm not sure where to set the gains. my alpine Head unit is 4v. the manual said to put the hu volume at max and then turn the gains down till no distortion, but is there a specific setting it should be at for a 4v input, like half-way or a quarter up or something?
right on. i'm not sure what the max is for my amp though. it only says "min" and "max." i emailed the memphis tech support and they told me to set hu volume at 3/4 and turn down till no distortion. i've emailed again to see what the max setting is, so hopefully i will hear back soon.
"Actually the "rated" input sensitivity was from 400mv-4V. In reality, you can use a head unit that puts out 8V and it will be fine for our amp. Now, I must say, if you give the amp an 8V input, by all means the gain on the amp should be turned down all the way counter-clockwise. If you give a 4V input, in theory it would be turned down all the way, but my guess would be no more than 1/4 of the way on the gain control. Having a high-volt line-level signal is a good thing in car audio and it is no exception for our amplifiers. It's very difficult to achieve 8V for the most part, that's why I feel like you'll be ok and you can just keep the gain on the amp all the way down and it will drive the amp to full output."