I just got a used hifonics bx1500d in the mail today. After hooking it up and running it. I noticed i needed to set the gains waaay higher then my old amp for the subs to get loud. The amp should be over powering my sub by 300 watts at 2 homs so shouldnt i have to turn the gain up less. My old amp was under powering the sub by 100 watts.
I know gain isnt a volume control, and is for matching volts but I have my gain turn up 95 percent to full, way passed half. My old amp I had to turn it less then half, only 40 percent.
Then I looked at the gain, the hifonics amp has the lowest setting(left labeled 9v), and the highest setting (right, labled .05 or something). When I have it all the waycounterclock wise at the 9 volts mark no sound. Half is barely any movemeant, and passed half ok.
My sub preout on my HU is 2 volts. So does that mean eveything is ok? Cause using the scale of 9volts being lowest setting and 0.05volts as highest. 2 volts would be at 90 percent.
So eveything is cool? I never ran a hifonics amp before, so i dont know.
hifonics are overrated for one thing so you won't see the power it claims...if you went strictly by the numbers the gains should be slightly more than 3/4 of the towards the .05 side....but set them with a meter and you'll be fine
Turn it from 9v to 12v, first thing. Hifonics have that for people with weak batts and charging systems, so the amp has the option to draw as if from a 9v rather than a 12v.
Secondly, for abstract comparisons, you need to tell us more. What was your old amp, how was you old setup wired compared to the new (ohms), what kind of subs are you using, etc. etc.
People on this forum LOOOOVe to talk shi t about hifonics, I'd say well over half have never owned any of their products. Pretty much anything that's not JL or Memphis is considered crap around these parts. I disagree.
A friend of mine does have the Zeus and it runs his speakers cleanly, but it does get waaaay hot. My JBL doesn't do that. Jerome, are you sure he can turn it to 12V? Is that another switch on the amp?
I'm sure. It's not a switch, rather more like a gain knob. He could set it at 10 or 11 if he wanted.
My best guess is that he has the amp wired at a high impedence, or is trying to set off car alarms with a pair of 10's, or something. Because that bx1500d is a pretty decent amp. It's rated at 1500 rms @ 1 ohm, and regardless of what anyone here says it's putting out at least 1200 solid with a good battery if wired right. What homeboy should do is set the amp to 12v with the gain halfway up, then tinker from there. Also that amp doesn't get too hot unless you have the gain turned up high, running for a while. Mine would get prolly 90 degrees on a 4 hour car trip, it thundered with 4 15's. Warm but not hot.
You wanna talk about a hot amp, try running a rf punch amp @ 1 ohm. That's hot.
nevermind i went back and reread your post.... if the input sensitivity on the amp is to 9 volts...you will for sure have to go halfway, you will have to go like 3 quarters of the way at least on your gain
yeah i figured it out. My HU is putting out 2 volts so it has to be turned that much to match it to the amp. I also tried is in my brothers car, he has a lower model brutus , and when he plugged in my amp the gain had to beset to half, his own amp is the same way. He has a 4 volt HU. So it works. I just didnt know. Thanks for all the help and answers.