I am going to gain match both my amplifiers to my hu today. I have my 60hz tone ready for the sub. I assume I just play it over and over on repeat as its only a second long tone..? or do i need a continuous test tone that plays for a while? I will be metering my sub amp in mono obviously.. so it will be 4ohms x 180wrms squared, giving me 26.8 vac to shoot for for the sub amp. Now my front stage amp is 50x2 rms so would the calculation be per channel then? would I just use 4ohms x 50wrms squared for 14.4v ac to shoot for, considering the other channel should be the same..
also i'll be using a 1000hz tone for the front which is ok yes?

 

Just google - setting gains with a DMM

 

I did that.. I was just asking a few in depth questions obviously... like the length of the tone or if it can be short and repeating, and if u meter both chans or 1.. but I guess I should have just expected a "google it" response... thanks :/

 

I prefer pink noise to test tones if gain matching using a DMM.

I also prefer to set gain by ear rather than DMM. For this you use a 1k test tone.

 

Ok thanks i'll try the pink noise for setting my sub gain.. and by ear a 1000khz test tone.. I thought the point of doing by ear was to pick a song with a good amount of bass. what are we listening for? distortion?

 

While playing the 1k tone, increase the gain until the tone 'goes flat'. It's easy to hear. Back off the gain a hair and you're done.

After this is done for all amps you know they all clip at the same time and you can move ahead with level matching by turning down the ones that are overpowering the others.

 

So typically you would start with the 1khz test tone for the front stage amp, THEN pink noise for the sub amp using dmm as a way to match it to the high amp?

 

Personally I 1khz tone the front end and then just set the sub amp to match by ear. A quick round of RTA to be sure it's where I think it is and I'm done.

The actual output of the amps is no concern to me so I leave the DMM out of it.