Need some help with Amp. questions...

[Winnepesaukee]

I'm not sure that our Amp's are set up from the dealer correctly. I consider myself fairly mechanically inclined as I grew up working and building cars with my dad. The only thing he never taught or showed me much about was stereo systems. (I guess he figured the old 8 tracks could not be heard over the exhaust). So please excuse my ignorance and dumb questions regarding stereo set ups. I am hopeful that you guys can help as you have been extremely, extremely helpful through out my entire Tige purchasing process. The information on this site is invaluable.....

So here goes.....I had Tige put the Clarion deck along with the 6 kicker speakers and tweeters, sub and the ZX 700.5 Kicker Amp. in at the factory. Once the boat was delivered to the dealer they installed a second Kicker ZX 700.5 amp and the four Kicker tower speakers(the ones with the tweeters mounted on them) at the dealership. The workmanship is very nice and they seem to have done a great job. I have a couple of concerns/questions. Each amp. has a green LED light representing power to the amp. When you first turn the system on both go red for a second and then one turns green (as it should) and the other light goes out with no color. Does this mean that the amp is not getting any power or is it because they are hooked together that the one green light means they are both getting power? To the touch they both feel warm so I'm assuming they are both getting power, I just have no way to know.

I know that each amp powers different speakers but I don't know which is powering what. I can tell you that one Amp has two sets of RCA cables coming out of it and the other Amp has one set coming out of it. Does this provide any indication as to what amp is powering what. I guess I could call the dealership to find out what amp is powering what but I don't want to be a pain in the *** or sound like a dumb ***....

My other question is does anyone have any recomendations as to what the settings on the amp should be. The manual that came with the amp was not much help. As everyone probablly already knows on each amp there are 7 knobs, 1 set of three is titled sub and has a X-over knob, a gain knob, and a bass boost knob, the other set of two is titled amp 1 and has a X-over and gain knob and the other set of two is titled amp 2 and has a X-over and gain knob. The second amp has the same knobs as it's the same amp.

I have not really noticed any issues with the sound except for the left two tower speakers are not sounding as loud as the right two. However you wouldn't notice unless you put your ear right up to them. My concerns are if the second amp is actually working because there is no green light and what the knob settings should be on the amps. I'm not sure if they are set properly.

Any help would be appreciated and Spharis I know you are the man when it comes to this stuff so any help or information you can provide will be greatly apppreciated. Thanks everyone in advance....

[chpthril]

I just went through this with Philwsails (from Kicker) and mine is sounding PHAT

First, set the bass, treble and fade on the HU to 0. next, set the gains using Spharis' info. Do a search. Here is a link to a post, it wont let my upload again http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/show...highlight=gain

Here is how Phil had me set my amps up:
KX700.5
Sub
X-over = 100Hz
Gain = do the math per tutorial
BassBoost (Db's) 6
Cabin Speakers
X-over = 100Hz
Gain = do the math per tutorial
X-over switch = OFF

ZX350.4 (different tower amp, but same speakers)
X-over = 75Hz
Gain = do the math per tutorial
X-over switch = Hi (your boarder wont hear bass anyway)

How are you tower speakers wired? Mine were brigded, 1 lead (channel) per pair. Per Phil's advise, I rewired the tower so I have each speaker on it's own wire/channel.

Hope this help a little, I cant explain as well as Phil and Spharis and wont try but this may give you a starting point.

[spharis]

Some of that depends on how the amps are wired. I will assume the dealer ran 3 sets of RCA cables from the head unit. One set is driving the tower, one set on the sub, and one set on cabin speakers. They probably used the rear channel for the tower, front for cabin, and sub for sub. There should be no discernable difference in the tower speaker volumes if they are wired this way. Gain adjustments are per channel, so if you have one channel for the tower system, then the gain affects that entire channel. The tower amp probably has some sort of "use the same input" switch on it. That will allow gains on both the front/rear; left/right (however it is wired) to be independent. If that is the case, then the gains are probably not set the same on the tower amp, and you are hearing the difference in the audio output. As far as the LED, it might just be not working. If the amp was not getting power, then you would hear nothing out of that amp. Kicker amps should display red led with any problems. Can you do the following so we have a better understanding of how your stereo is wired?

How many sets of speaker leads (L and R) are coming out of each amp?
Any way to take some pictures of the wiring on the amps, pull the covers, snap some pics? I know it will be hard to focus.

I assume that your dealer wired two of the cabin speakers (probably the ones in the bow) to the head unit, everything else to the amps. You need to address the volume differences on the tower before we get into fine tuning settings on the amp. Depending on how those are wired, it can be a big difference.


What chpthril posted is a good procedure to use to set gains, but it sounds like yours are set, you just need to address the volume differences.

1 set of three is titled sub and has a X-over knob, a gain knob, and a bass boost knob, the other set of two is titled amp 1 and has a X-over and gain knob and the other set of two is titled amp 2 and has a X-over and gain knob.

X-over knob:
is an adjustment for the frequency cutoff. There should be a switch for the non-sub channels (those amps have 2 full range and one sub) that says LP-AP-HP. That stand for lowpass, high pass, and all pass.
AP - All Pass turns the X-over off, all frequencies pass through
LP- low pass - lets the low freqs through. The adjusment knob sets the highest allowed frequency.
HP- high pass- lets high frequencies through. Knob sets the lowest allowed frequency. This should be the setting on your amp for cabin and tower speakers. You can adjust it to your liking. I use 80Hz as a baseline, and 100Hz for anything smaller than a 6" driver.

Gain knob:
Sets the amp to match the voltage the head unit delivers (you can think of it like a volume knob, but it should not be used like a volume knob). You suse this to adjust the sensitivity of the amp to match the line voltage coming from the head unit on the RCAs. A good method to do this is either by ear or by multimeter (best way).
Ear - turn the source unit to 3/4 volume with some music you like. Turn the gain up until audible distortion is heard (clipping), or mechanical distrotion from overpowering the driver. Once there, turn the gain down a hair. The set volume on the source unit is a max volume.
Multimeter - see the link in the above post by chpthril

Your gains will be different for front, rear, sub channels on the interior speaker amp. On the tower amp, your gains should be the same.

Bass boost:
This is kind of like the x-over in that it adjust the frequencies coming from the channel it is tied to; it sets one of two things depending on the amp. Most amps have bass boost knobs. They are used to amplify certain frequencies in the sub's range. Many are set to 40Hz, and the knob controls the amplification amount. Sometimes they are used to control the frequency, so you can use an external knob in conjunction with that knob to control where, and how much boost you have. If you have an external knob, I would turn that one off. Adjust that one to your preference with some music you like. An external knob is much better if you are going to use this feature, and your amps should have come with them. You should look in the manual to see what that adjustment does (boost or move the curve).



From the way you describe your system, let's look at the tower amp. It will be the one with a single set of RCA's running to it. It should have a switch that lets the amp use a single RCA input to control the front and rear channel outputs. That should be on. Then, each tower speaker set should be wired independently to a channel. You will probably have one set of tower speakers (left side) bridged to the front output of the amp (bridge means that it will have 4 terminals with 2 terminals being used. + of one side and - of other side). You should have a similar setup on the rear channel outputs. I would enable the HP filter, and adjust the x-over to about 75Hz for starters - then adjust the gains. The x-overs and the gains should be the same.


If you take some photos, and something looks wierd, then I can see if I find time to draw up a schema to double check against, but from the sounds of it, you are wired fine, and the gains are not matching on the tower amp. Make that adjustment and you should be ready to rock.

[Winnepesaukee]

Spharis, chpthril and philwsailz....you guys are awesome. Thanks for all the advice.

Spharis I will run through the system with all of your suggestions this weekend. Sounds like your suggestions should fix the problem and set me up to rock. If it does not fix the problem I will try to get some pictures to you. Thanks again for all of your help. This site continues to be an amazing resource and everyones help is greatly appreciated. Thanks