Just finished install, subs not working :(

[ghohouston]

I working with a 18" long piece of 0 gauge. Don't think I have the length for that

It doesnt hurt to try. Iirc, thats how long mine was, but it also depends where under the seat your amp (s) are. Mine were under the back seat, as close to the seat frame as possible on the drivers side with the power/ground inputs facing the drivers side. And fyi, I had an aq2200d as my first amp. Theyre definitely worth their cost

 

[O2ShootTheJ]

First start by turning the gain down some...

The input sensitivity AKA gain knob works with a range of 0.2V to 8v

and your head unit pushes out a signal at 6v

so realistically you want to be around 35% or so on the gain knob. It isn't a volume knob. With the gain cranked too high and you crank up the volume you run the risk of clipping the amplifier and blowing the subwoofers. The woofers will handle clean power well over their rating, but low wattage in a clipped signal can kill them. Also when setting the gain you want all settings on the head unit to be zero'd out, no Bass Boost, no level increases, etc and then you want the volume around 90% of max, or at your maximum listening level, then you can set the gain by ear till you hear distortion and turn the gain down a click or two.



What all together does your stereo consist of, so far I know

kenwood dnx890hd
Audioque 1200.1
and 3 Sundown SD-2 8's

any other amplifiers? or door speakers?



the reason I am asking is because when tuning the amplifiers in, what you want to start off with is called level matching. Basically you set the gain to your "weakest" speakers, feed them as much power as they will handle, and then you can move to the next speaker/amplifiers and set the gain so that all the other channels blend in with the "weakest" speakers.

From there you can then set the crossover points maybe start around 80hz low pass with the subs, get your crossovers in good standing and from there you can move into final stages of tuning with EQ and other little tweaks.




As for the grounds, frame is great, but if you can get it to work inside the cab then all the better. Cab on these trucks is always debatable due to all the plastic welds holding the cab together. Scrape the paint clean on the truck floor to assure good contact between the ground wire and the floor metal.

Awesome post! I appreciate it! As far as the stereo what you listed is what I have added, everything else is factory. The thing is the head unit will go up to 30 or 40 I think for volume, but 20 is pretty loud to me. Do I need to adjust the volume offset in the headunit or should I just plug my ears while I tune the amp? Also what audio should be playing while i'm tuning it?

Dan, you are killing us here....LOL

Glad you found the gain knob and good luck dialing her in.

haha :morons:

It doesnt hurt to try. Iirc, thats how long mine was, but it also depends where under the seat your amp (s) are. Mine were under the back seat, as close to the seat frame as possible on the drivers side with the power/ground inputs facing the drivers side. And fyi, I had an aq2200d as my first amp. Theyre definitely worth their cost

If where I have it now doesn't work out I will definitely give it a shot. My amp is in about the same location. Never had a AQ before, had a 1200.1 kicker way back in highschool and a alpine 1.1000 in the 6.4

 

[ghohouston]

Play what you want the most bass out of, but play all sorts of music, so you dont tune too low or too high of a frequency, then it wont hit for **** on some songs, and will sound better on others. Keep all your head unit levels at 0, then tune your amp. Keep the bass boost on the head unit and amp COMPLETELY OFF. I personally would have a bigger rms watt amp on those subs, like an aq2200d, but to each his own.

 

[jdc753]

Like ghohouston said get a selection of songs and play some bass heavy tracks as well since you are primarily tuning the subs. Honestly you are going to want to crank it to get the settings right, and more on the conservative side.

First time I set the gains in my current setup it was 11PM at night and I thought I had it loud, but loud at 11PM out in a quite residential area is not really that loud. So I got it all dialed in and later on when driving around I found that volume level 20 out of 35 was actually MAX playable volume before speaker destruction.

SO...

You can set the gains for volume level 20 YOUR loud level, and then just know in the future not to crank it up too hard above 20, so really if you could set the gains at say volume 25 or 30, then you will give yourself some more of a safety factor for when you get the itch to really CRANK it, or a buddy borrows the truck and decides to turn it all the way up. But best not to plug your ears as you want to hear the distortion and then turn it back a few notches.

 

[O2ShootTheJ]

Play what you want the most bass out of, but play all sorts of music, so you dont tune too low or too high of a frequency, then it wont hit for **** on some songs, and will sound better on others. Keep all your head unit levels at 0, then tune your amp. Keep the bass boost on the head unit and amp COMPLETELY OFF. I personally would have a bigger rms watt amp on those subs, like an aq2200d, but to each his own.

yea the original plan was for 2 SD-2 8's but the first box didn't fit so I went up to 3. We will see how this amp works out. Can always swap in a new amp down the road

Like ghohouston said get a selection of songs and play some bass heavy tracks as well since you are primarily tuning the subs. Honestly you are going to want to crank it to get the settings right, and more on the conservative side.

First time I set the gains in my current setup it was 11PM at night and I thought I had it loud, but loud at 11PM out in a quite residential area is not really that loud. So I got it all dialed in and later on when driving around I found that volume level 20 out of 35 was actually MAX playable volume before speaker destruction.

SO...

You can set the gains for volume level 20 YOUR loud level, and then just know in the future not to crank it up too hard above 20, so really if you could set the gains at say volume 25 or 30, then you will give yourself some more of a safety factor for when you get the itch to really CRANK it, or a buddy borrows the truck and decides to turn it all the way up. But best not to plug your ears as you want to hear the distortion and then turn it back a few notches.

ok sounds good i'll give it a shot tomorrow. thanks

what do I do with the subsonic and LPF knobs?

 

[ghohouston]

Your lpf(low pass frequency) is basically a filter for the different bass frequencies, you want to adjust it accordingly, but usually you do t have nor want notes above 80ish hertz bass wise. Usually you will be fine setting it around 80, audio freaks like me will set them lower, because i had a box tuned to 28hz for low low notes. The subsonic is a little trickier, you basically have to tune it by ear with a song playing, andrun through a few songs, with different bass lines, to where it sounds good through all of them.

 

[O2ShootTheJ]

thanks GHO. sounds like all this is gonna take a couple tries to get just right! kind of intimidating but hopefully I can handle it!

 

[jdc753]

Just take it slow and steady, and remember ONE step at a time, ONLY change one thing at a time, and each change is small and steady till you get it fine tuned.


Just to add to GHO's post

I am assuming your box is a sealed box right?

If so I would honestly leave the subsonic filter off, or as low as possible. Subsonic filter is designed to cut off the extremely low frequencies, and this primarily comes into play in large ported boxes or extremely large sealed boxes where the sub is pretty free to play and could possible damage itself from over extending on the lowest of frequencies.

 

[O2ShootTheJ]

yep it is sealed! remember reading that somewhere now that you mention it! Will be sure to keep that very low/off.

Thanks for all the help fellas I really appreciate it!

 

[HD F250]

thanks GHO. sounds like all this is gonna take a couple tries to get just right! kind of intimidating but hopefully I can handle it!

Tip of the day, don't turn the gain all the way down while tuning. LOL

Very nice feedback fellas, I need to build a new box and will refer to this when I start tuning mine.

 

[alradco]

Moved the ground. Same thing. Turned the volume up, didn't hear anything. Out my hands on the sub and felt them moving just a tiny bit. Looked at the amp, gain was way down. Turned it to 60-70% and it's good. Lol

Now I need to figure out how to tune the amp properly and I'll be good!

That's pretty funny, sometimes it's the simplest things. oke:
For tuning I'm not a pro so this may not be the best way but I've had good results. I do one amp at a time to keep it isolated. Start of by turning gain down all the way. Turn stereo up to 75% then increase gain until start to hear slight distortion. Once I hear that I back it off a bit. Repeat process for remaining amps.

How do you like those subs? I was thinking about putting those in but ended up with some flat Pioneers that sound better than expected.

Peter

 

[O2ShootTheJ]

they sound pretty good for 8" subs. I used to have a 8w7 in the center console of my 6.4. Not sure they are quite the sub that one was, but they are much cheaper as well.