k i was searching on forums about distortion and its kinda vague on what distortion sounds like....i know that my sub isnt distorting but what concerns me more is if my amp is clipping...
for some reason i get weird numbers when i try to set my gains with a dmm on my pg x600.1...so i always set it by ear...i dont hear distortion at all even with the gain 80% up no bass boost...and it still sounds good...(users of the pg x600.1 do put their gains this much up)
i just dont know if my amp is clipping...
what do u guys think? this has always been on my mind..im just worried about messing my amp

 

Harmonic distortion from an amp is much harder to hear through speakers at low frequencies....

most amps have clip indicators that will tell you if you are clipping the amp hard... (usually if you see the light flickering you are hitting at least 1db overdrive) in other words if your amp's clip indicator is lighting up you were probably already clipping your amp long before that......

If you have a full range amp you can lowpass it to whatever main speaker its running with a piezo tweeter in parallel... the tweeter will start screaming at you when you begin to distort the output..

If you want to hear what distortion sounds like with your sub playing music... you could try hooking a low value resistor up in parallel with your RCA cables... that should cause the preamp to distort badly as you turn it up.... (umm... Iam not %100 sure if I want to recommend this or not; but you can generally short the preamp in most decks without anything blowing up)

There are also a few resources on the net that let you hear what distortion sounds like, as well as various system test CDs available from carsound and I believe Dave M. on this forum and various others...
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/t...ound/index.htm

Edit: you can probably clip the snot out of your amp at minimum load without worrying about the amp blowing up (I think that is your concearn?)... your amp actually prefers to be clipped, be it class AB or class D... so I wouldn't worry about clipping hurting the amp.....

 

so ur basically saying if my amp light isnt flickering i am not clipping it hard? what if theres little clipping in the amp is that okay? and will the pg xenon amps have a clipping indicator

 

just a little pinch?

...

no pinch no pinch no pinch.


haha sorry your comment reminded me of that honda comercial .

but just because the light isnt flickering it doesnt mean you arnt clipping the amp.

im teh same way i cant hear distortion ethier. all i do is turn my front speakers up till tehy distort . then match my sub to them. ( given i dont push the gain past 4/5 th's of the way up and i dotn push the deck loudness past 80% .

 

yeah i realized thats all i can do since i dont know how distortion for low frequencies sound like...thanks a lot...