Help setting sub gain

[Monaso]

At what level does the stock Sony system begin to distort, I’m trying to set my sub gain by ear but can’t figure out when my stock system is distorting, I have a 2018 USDM ST with the Sony touch screen head unit


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[Tiberius1701]

If you are adding a sub, the best option to avoid distortion in your mains is to install a capacitor on each door speaker. I added a small Blaupunkt powered sub below the cargo floor and cut the mains off at 120hz. This keeps the low range speakers from reproducing the subwoofers frequencies. Hope this helps.

 

[Monaso]

If you are adding a sub, the best option to avoid distortion in your mains is to install a capacitor on each door speaker. I added a small Blaupunkt powered sub below the cargo floor and cut the mains off at 120hz. This keeps the low range speakers from reproducing the subwoofers frequencies. Hope this helps.

Ok, I have a powered jbl trunk sub installed and in the manual it sets just set my head unit volume to 75% of its max (which for us us 22 but I’ve honestly never even gone or wanted to go Past 20 or 21) and to set up my gain from their. Would this approach be fine? I understand this probably won’t utilize my subs maximum potential but like I said I don’t plan on playing louder than 21/30 when it comes to volume.


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[Tiberius1701]

I am sure that would work well. But the capacitor installation will keep the mains from attempting to reproduce the same frequencies as the sub. This will reduce stress on the main mid-woofers. Capacitor value in the area of 3.3uf should cut all signal below 120hz.

 

[Monaso]

I am sure that would work well. But the capacitor installation will keep the mains from attempting to reproduce the same frequencies as the sub. This will reduce stress on the main mid-woofers. Capacitor value in the area of 3.3uf should cut all signal below 120hz.

Awesome thanks for the help man, I’m super new to car audio so this is all really helpful info [emoji106]


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[Tiberius1701]

Anytime!

Awesome thanks for the help man, I’m super new to car audio so this is all really helpful info [emoji106]


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[Monaso]

Oh and one more thing what voltage should I get the capacitors if I do go that route?


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[Tiberius1701]

I used 330uf 25volt. Sorry about the value error previously.

 

[olmosbananas]

short answer: 19

long answer: make sure u have strong signal going into the headunit, that is also not clipping

so, since most of my music listening will be done using either bluetooth or when phone is plugged in with android auto, i tuned using those settings.
-when using bluetooth -- making sure signal from my phone was at highest without boosting. in my android its the point highest without turning red on the volume fader.
-when using android auto, phone volume does not affect the signal change into the headunit, so that's nice.
-when using USB to play music, use test tones at different frequencies (60hz is good for basic subs), and make sure the signal is at 0dB. u can find a quality wav file online: 60hz 0dB test tone.
-when using CD player, burn the wav file to a CD, instead of using the USB.

i assume this are all the same level (unity), but i didn't have a chance to test and measure.

now to answer your question:

at 20 on the headunit, my oscilloscope sees distortion.
so i tuned my system at 19 in the headunit.


proper gain staging from there.




similar to what tiberius was talking about :https://www.amazon.com/Audiopipe-133-Bass-Blockers-300Hz/dp/B001OPQFAY

source: im an audio engineer.

 

[Intuit]

Did these nearly two decades ago using Cool Edit software (if anyone remembers that LoL) and don't remember whether they're zero decibels.
https://1drv.ms/f/s!ABsZJDCN8kMMiDc
That was done back in the CD days. Needless to say, modern software/hardware is going to have much better signal to noise and resolution.

The headunit has its own built in software media player so the device type is irrelevant when plugged into USB. It's merely a file server.

You'll get a lot of clipping when 24-bit and 32-bit sourced audio is reencoded to CD quality 16-bit audio. Seems to be a common enough mistake.

2004 Syntrillium Software Cool Edit (this copy could be Trojan software)
https://www.techspot.com/downloads/327-cool-edit-pro.html