Subwoofer Volume Level

[JakeyCUK]

Hi, I have finished installing my active sub today. Complete ball ache as one of my nephews came to mess about and knocked a spanner into my engine bay, spent over an hour looking for it and shredded my hands!

Anyway just got a stange issue I was wondering if anyway can answer. I can only seem to get any bass from the sub when I change a setting in my HU called 'SW Level' I have to change this to +10db value, then the bass starts coming out. I don't mind doing this but I am sure changing something to +10db will be causing some clipping / distortion. I feel like I might be missing something here! I've tried leaving that set to 0 and putting the gain at full and there was a little bass is all. I've heard coaxials kick out more than what the sub was doing lol

Thanks all

 

[JakeyCUK]

Oh and one other thing I willl mention is the RCA leads I have actually came used with an amp I bought. These leads have x2 black RCA connections instead of red & white, could this be an issue? Can you have RCA leads in the wrong way around for an active subwoofer?!

 

[skinz]

Set the HU and sub/amp to factory, start pumping some tunes, then while doing so increase the gain and bass boost on the amp, then once you have some thuds move back to HU and start tweaking settings there. If it's punchy bass your looking for then gain won't be that high, what active sub are you using? RCAs shouldn't make any odds, as long as the '+' and '-' from the HU correlate with that of the amp

 

[JakeyCUK]

Set the HU and sub/amp to factory, start pumping some tunes, then while doing so increase the gain and bass boost on the amp, then once you have some thuds move back to HU and start tweaking settings there. If it's punchy bass your looking for then gain won't be that high, what active sub are you using? RCAs shouldn't make any odds, as long as the '+' and '-' from the HU correlate with that of the amp

Thanks for your help skinz. I've actually solved it now however, for anyone interested or having a similar problem I will explain. The HU had an option called SW Level on it which at default is set to 0. This can be decreased to -10db or increased to +10db. This is not bass boost, it controls the voltage going to your RCA pre outs. At default 0 it is actually less than normal so most people just crank this to +10db which ensures you are using 2v or 4v at your RCA preouts. Then once this was set I was able to start tuning my sub, much better now!

Thanks