[druberoi]

Dear Friends,

I have a 600 watt, monoblock, kenwood amplifier running a 12 inch sealed JBL Subwoofer in an Altis. The bass seemed to be too high and I started fiddling with the sensitivity and frequency settings on the amp. And now I am lost and not happy with the sound. Could the Gurus please advise me on what would be the best sensitivity and frequency settings for optimal subwoofer output?



Regards,
RS Uberoi

[invincible7]

Firstly I would suggest to visit the place from where you got it installed so that they can help you in a better way.

Else as a safe bet you can check and share what frequencies you are currently running in your setup.

Ideally you can try using the following to see if it makes a difference to the sound.

On HU - everything should be flat.
Front/Rear Speakers - OFF
Track - Choose a good bassy track to play on CD/MP3 etc
Mono Amp - LPF - ON -- Frequency 60 Hz -- Gain -- start from 0 clockwise and rotate the knob clockwise till you feel the sound is too loud or vocals are coming in the sub. Acc to you can setup the gains as per your choices, the idea is to filter out vocals from the sub and get only bass out of it.

Finally turn the other speakers ON and set if the whole thing blends and accordingly adjust few of the parameters from the amp.

This is just a layman's way of doing things, it better to read more about setting up amp gains and frequencies or meet a good installer to perfect tuning of your sub and whole system.

[dot]

Originally Posted by invincible7

Mono Amp - LPF - ON -- Frequency 60 Hz -- Gain -- start from 0 clockwise and rotate the knob clockwise till you feel the sound is too loud or vocals are coming in the sub.

This is a very good suggestion. I had followed a similar methodology and it helped to find a right balance between sub output vs excess bass. However my only comment (from a layman's perspective, me no guru) would be to set the frequency of LPF at 100Hz.

[druberoi]

@invincible7: Thanks for your advice. I am a kind of DIY guy and would like to do the settings myself. Right now my Frequency setting is at 70 Hz and sensitivity at just below 1.3 at near 1 o clock position. I would like to know what does reducing or increasing the frequency do. Sensitivity; I think i would be able to handle. And one more query; at what volume do I do all this setting; max, mid or low?

Thanks again.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by druberoi

at what volume do I do all this setting; max, mid or low?

Normally amp tuning is done at 75 - 80% of max volume.

[invincible7]

Reducing or increasing the frequencies is just to attenuate the high pass frequencies from the sub. The ideas is to get clean low signals to your sub and high pass signals from the midrange speakers so that there is a clear distinction of which frequencies flow from which speakers to blend in the music enviornment perfectly.

Ideally you should choose the volume as 75% of the total your HU can attain to set the frequencies as mostly at this volume you would get clean signals from the HU without any clipping and that is again one of the important criteria to remove while setting up any system.

Hope this helps and for sure I am not Guru here.

[druberoi]

My HU is the one which comes with the Altis. Built in, no controls. The Amp I am talking about is a separate one put in the rear for powering the Sub.

[invincible7]

How are your front/rear speakers powered is it through the factory HU.

If this is so it would be very difficult to blend the music as the sub is more powerful in your case so either you set it up very low to match your speakers or add better speakers which are run through another amp to match the power of the sub.

Or you can think about investing in processors which help the factory systems sound better.

[druberoi]

My front and rear speakers including the tweeters run through the HU. The tweeters and front speakers are the original ones while i have replaced the rear ones with Hertz ECX 690 since I only sit at the back and was finding the stock rear speakers a bit muddy with hardly any treble heard at the rear.

Regards,
Uberoi

Originally Posted by invincible7

Reducing or increasing the frequencies is just to attenuate the high pass frequencies from the sub.

Could you please explain this in layman's terms? Reducing has what effect on the Subs and increasing has what effect. Is Higher better or Lower?

Regards,
Uberoi

[invincible7]

I would suggest start going through the existing threads on the forum and you would be able to capture many things related to ICE.

[druberoi]

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[kk28]

Mods I think this is the right thread to post my query. I had earlier posted in ICE for Ritz (Ask the Guru's section).

Dear Members,

I need advise on the ICE set of my new Ritz ZDi.

Here is the component list:

HU - Pioneer AVH-3200BT
Front Component Speakers - Infinity Reference
Rear - Pioneer Coaxial

The above set up was in my old car (Swift Vdi). I was quite happy with this set up. The only missing factor was the thump. Hence when I got my new Ritz, I decided to move the existing HU, Component & rear speaker to my new car. In addition to this, all I needed was a amplifier and a subwoofer to give the missing thump.

I choose to go with the 4 Channel amp to drive the front component and remaining 2 channels briged to drive the subwoofer. Since I was getting the amplifier and sub from MGA, the only approved brand they deal with is Sony. Hence invariably I had to go with the Sony Amp and Sub.

Now that the set up is complete, I am not happy with the quality of sound. I am not sure if its the product it self which is missing the clarity and thump I need or is it that the connection it self is wrongly done. I hear a lot of jar in the woofer and I do not hear the bass from the components at all. I really doubt if the technician has driven the component and sub (bridge mode) from the amp. The reason being, when I go to the fader in the HU, and set the fader to front, I hear only the front component speakers working and nothing comes from rear speakers. Contrary when I set the fader all the way to rear, I do not hear any sound output coming from the rear speakers. This makes me believe that the front component are still driven from the HU and rear speakers and sub are driven form the amp.

Questions/Concerns:
1. Is there a way to check if the speakers are driven from the amp as per my requirements ( i.e front component and sub from amp and rear speaker from the HU) ?
2.Is there a way to improve the sound quality in this set up? I am referring to the thump.

Truly appreciate any response from the guru's on this.

[kk28]

Update on my earlier post.

I just checked the connections at the reverse of the AMP. I see that, from one the of the channel marked as Front, they have connected the subwoofer and from the channel marked as Rear they have connect the rear coaxial speakers. Looks like there is nothing to drive the component. I checked with the technician and he says thats the way to do it for the optimum output.

I am surprised. I always thought if its a 4 channel amp then we need to drive the component and sub only from the amp and the rear coaxial needs to be driven from the HU

[Diamond_dawg]

Originally Posted by kk28

Update on my earlier post.

I just checked the connections at the reverse of the AMP. I see that, from one the of the channel marked as Front, they have connected the subwoofer and from the channel marked as Rear they have connect the rear coaxial speakers. Looks like there is nothing to drive the component. I checked with the technician and he says thats the way to do it for the optimum output.

I am surprised. I always thought if its a 4 channel amp then we need to drive the component and sub only from the amp and the rear coaxial needs to be driven from the HU

Would suggest going to a reputable audio shop and switch the component to the front channel and sub through the rear for the best sound. would avoid MGA cause they like to do it their way.

Try to sit in a car that has a set-up this way to understand the difference in sound quality

[kk28]

Originally Posted by Diamond_dawg

Would suggest going to a reputable audio shop and switch the component to the front channel and sub through the rear for the best sound.

Thank you Diamond_dawg. I did visit the workshop this morning. I had the wiring revered. Now in the current set up, front components and tweeters are being driven from the front channel of the amp and the sub alone from the rear of the amp in bridged mode. SQ is much better. However could not tune the amp/HU to give the optimum results as they are not pro in it.

I tried looking in this forum to get an understanding of the different set up configurations of the amp. Could not find any with the specifics I was looking for. It would be nice if someone could help me understand LPF/HPF settings. I do not like the boomy sound from the sub all the time. I just want it at specific frequencies and rest of the time it should be quite so that I can listen to the vocals as well. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.