Well, Car stereos has always been something that fascinated me, i just love it, but ive never took the time to learn it. i built a system (well im actually in the works of building it right now), what im concerned about are subs, i have 2 10" Kicker Comp VR's in a ported box and im gonna power them with a Fosgate Power 850s (2 channel). is this a good set up?
they can take more power than rated but it must be clean power were pushing a c comp 12 (lowest line) with twice its rated power and it takes it on a daily driver basis
like i said i am a rookie, so what exactly is the gain? like that guy said, i have an idea but im not to sure. Also, how do i know if im hitting 140db?
LOL YOU WILL KNOW trust me :P When ur having problems breathing, and you think your going to spit your eardrums out of your mouth, you will be hitting around 140 dbs. There is a button on the amp, under gain. That should rarely be turned more than 1/2
gain or input sensitivity on an amplifier is a small knob used to balance the input stage of the amplifier to the line voltage of the pre-outs from the head unit. This is required because different head units offer different line voltages (from 250mV to as much as 16 volts) and adding components like signal processors can affect the voltage as well.
If the gain is set too high, it over-drives the input stage of the amp, and you get distortion. the amp will "clip" causing DC voltage to be sent to the speakers, and you can damage your subs this way.
at a fixed volume on the head unit, the gain will make the amp sound louder or quieter as it's set, but in reality gain settings do not affect the amount of power the amplifier can produce, or make your system any louder by turning the gain up too high. If the system doesn't hit hard enough with the gain set properly, it simply means you need a bigger amp.