Thread: Extremely Hot Amps ***SOLVED***

Ive had 2 really hot amps in the past couple months. Last night i posted once again about a different 1 and i was pretty much told to just go to a audio shop and have a person thats really good with car audio to take a look. I also was told to get a d class amp.

Well today, i did just that, i came in there and told the guy ive been having problems with my amps getting extremely hot. So he wanted to take a look, when he did he said, "theres your problem, your getting crappy amps." He then led me into the store to show me what amp would do good and shouldnt get hot. To make a long story short, i went and took back the Sony Xplode, got my money back and went back to the audio place and purchased this amp below. The price was $230 and he gave it to me for $200.


I hooked this amp up and drove about 30mins and played all these songs with crazy amounts of different bass levels at a high volume. Felt the amp and....NO WARMTH WHATSOEVER. Hope develand doesnt yell at me for this lol but i even have the gain all the way up, along with the bass booster and still barely no warmth. Finally a solution was just junk cheap amps that some were telling me this entire time. This barely fit my budget but at least things are good and i hope i dont run into anymore problems.

Oh and yes it is a class d amp...Thanks to all thats helped me the past couple months

Congrats, next stop hearing aid store.

Originally Posted by tod1d

Congrats, next stop hearing aid store.

hahaha yeah better starting saving money now lol but thanks

And that new amp just blew one of my subs

once again turn your gains down a bit please. clipping your **** to death

Alright, what is the correct way to set the gain knob? I know how I would do it, turn volume knob to 90% and set gain knob just below where you hear it causing distortion on the subs.

Turning your gain up causes clipping... it also can cause voltage drop witch in some amps can cause more clipping...
Bass booster... oh man do i have problems with this. i've NEVER had it above 0 in any amp i have owned(11). Y
our subs will DIE every time unless you get the NSv.3 (took wall socket for 5min barely warm).

Bass Knobs are dumb. Don't use them. And never turn your gain up 100%.

set it with dmm

To figure out what voltage you should set the gains to, multiply the RMS power of the amplifiers output by the impedance of the speaker, then find the square root of that number. If you are using an amplifier that has an RMS rating of more than your speaker(s) can handle/rated for, then use the RMS rating of the speaker (instead of the RMS of the amplifier) to determine the voltage to set your amp to. This is also referred to as gaining down
Gain Setting Equation
Voltage of the output = sqrt(RMS Power X impedance of the speaker)

• Example
  Say the amp provides 100WRMS into a 4 ohm speaker:
  
  Voltage = sqrt(100W X 4 ohms)
  Voltage = sqrt(400W*ohms)
  Voltage = 20V
  
  Again, that was only an example, use the ratings of your amp to figure that out.

Setting the Gain(s)
To set the gain(s), you need two things:

• 1. A DMM (digital multi-meter) that is capable of measuring AC voltage (needs to be able to measure up to a range of 200V).
  2. A test tone CD to use to set the gains at the correct setting.

Now, to set the gain(s):

• 1. Start the vehicle, and pop the test tone CD in the head unit.
  2. DO NOT hook up the sub(s) or speaker(s) to the amplifier while doing this, just leave the outputs unused at this time.
  3. Now, time to set up the head unit.
  
  • a. If the loudest you listen to your music at on a regular basis is 22/35 with bass @ +3 and treble @ 0 with MX (or any other sound processor) on, use those settings. NEVER turn the headunit above 3/4 of the maximum volume.
    b. Remember to have the car turned on.
    c. If you want to use bass boost on a sub amp, set it prior to setting the gains on the amp and use the center frequency of the bass boost (45 Hz for most amps) as your test tone.
    d. Please remember that if you have a subwoofer volume control on the headunit and/or a bass knob for the amplifier, set it to the maximum before you set the gains on the sub amp.
  
  4. Take the leads from the DMM and but them on the outputs from the amp.
  5. Set the gain so that the outputs of the amplifier equal the voltage you found above. This is a MUST.

Here is JL Audio tutorial on their site:
http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/Input_Sen...ensitivity.html

Here is where you can download some test tones for system testing/gain setting:
Stereo System Test & Analysis Tones by Nino B.
http://www.eminent-t...imediatest.html

For test tones higher than 80Hz, download this program and you can create your own:
Adobe Audition Trial Version

It is best to use 50 Hz tone for a sub amp (unless you have bass boost, use the frequency that is boosted as the tone), and a 1kHz tone for a full-range amp.

This is a good way to set the gains, but if you have access to an oscilloscope, by all means use it. Then you can set the gains to their absolute maximum as you can see when the amplifier clips.

If you are wondering what exactly clipping is, and what it looks like, read this:
Why Too Little Power will NOT blow Your Speakers