Issues with clipping

[WillisMyName]

I’m personally not a big fan or the clipping indicators on bass knobs. Distortion is present in any system. The key is to be able to hear and notice when your sub is not sounding correctly, IMO.

I’ll say too that a bad box and bad box placement can cause distortion, because the box helps control woofer impedance, so if your sub is unloading and you’re getting large impedance spikes, that can stress the system, as well.

Sound is complicated, and literally every factor matters. You always need: the best, clean signal, solid voltage to feed your amps, and a solid box that will control your woofer properly. Those sundowns have so much xmax, too, that those woofers might be able to stress the amp more than other 1500w 12’s, just depends. There’s a lot of factors that can come into play here when it comes to clipping and distortions.

After realizing that the clip light is more just indicating a spike in voltage demand rather than looking at the actual wavelengths I also realized that I was far to worried about the "clip" when at the bass peak in songs. I've never heard my sub audibly clip.

For my box, I just recently finished building the new one with my friend. While it is not the exact box design sundown has on their site for the sub, it is built to spec in terms of displacement, volume, depth, port size, etc. It was really hard for me to wrap my head around it being my first box. The biggest issue I had was designing one that fit in my trunk with a MAX of 15" height and 14" sliding in with the back seats out and cutting about half an inch of metal off. However we managed and got it in and didn't even have to take the spare tire out and build some crazy odd shaped box. I can't imagine how that would have went lol. I forgot to mention yesterday afternoon I rewired my sub from 1ohm to 2. I really feel like this helped and was possibly a big issue. My amp, 2000d, is 2000rms at 1ohm and my sub is only 1500rms and I believe the amps will push that constant wattage regardless of the gain setting though I'm not positive on that. I can say though it does sound better now at 2ohms and certainly doesn't sound like its hitting less hard.

 

[SlugButter]

What DSP do you have and do you think it is worth having one? From a quick search it seemed they started around $300 and only went up but I didn't look very hard yet.

I have a cheap PRV 2.8. 150$. It’s a pain to set up because it’s bare bones cheap and all manual, with a wheel style knob. It gets tedious to scroll through and set up, but it does function well.

 

[Firewalker]

Dayton does one as well for 150 bucks. Although rarely these days you can get them on a refurbished deal for 70 bucks or so. Heck I picked up a Helix DSP 2012 V1 for 120 bucks shipped on DIYMA a few months ago

 

[SlugButter]

Dayton does one as well for 150 bucks. Although rarely these days you can get them on a refurbished deal for 70 bucks or so. Heck I picked up a Helix DSP 2012 V1 for 120 bucks shipped on DIYMA a few months ago

The Dayton has been out of stock. I wanted to use the Dayton so I bought the PRV so I could have something to use while I waited for the Dayton to restock. That was 2 months ago and the Dayton is still out of stock as of last night.

 

[Firewalker]

Last time I checked they were on eBay for around that price of 150 bucks. I have both of those sitting here I just need to heal up enough to get out there and be able to crawl around to install it. I think I am going with the Helix though since it is the better unit. If I sell the Dayton I promised it to Cliff if I do so I will keep my eye's out for a Dayton when searching for stuff.

 

[Taxed1]

The OP claims to have an SFB 2000, Sundown specs are 5 volts on the RCA as the input max. 2v from the head unit is perfectly fine but the problem is most head units provide 2 volts at max volume. We just don’t know when his head unit is clipping. He tuned at 3/4 volume so we know it’s not 2v & I’m not sure what type of tone was used, 0, -5 , -10.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

So perhaps the clip light is not something to panic about and might not be actual distortion just voltage drop? As for the second statement, does that have something do with it not being able to perform its best? Like are you just saying that is something I will likely run into in the future or a current problem I have?

Once your clipping light comes on you are definitely at or near the maximum output of your amp but a good design would build in a little wiggle room (say 10-15%). For practical purposes though you're not audibly gaining for such little power so if that light is flickering most of the time during a hard music track you're as loud as you're going to get without changing something else.

Sure, it takes power to make power, your electrical should be right etc. but still even say you get another 10-20% more out of your amp from getting your electrical really solid you won't hear the difference unless you have a serious problem right now.

 

[DRBOOM]

2 volts is not much but I also try this: Get a 3.5m jack to RCA and plug into your amp. See if you have the same issue. Secondly, you may need to take your subwoofer out to check if any wires are not loose or causing the clipping, by grounding. Also many amps are mixed ratings and specs, and even the days of testing power today is now calcuated at 14.4 volts, and not 12volts, ( which in my opinion provides more accurate specs) and also the signal to noise ratio on the amp is another factor to take into consideration. (My old PPI PC450 has a s/n at 110db and damping factor of over 500 but such details are not important with the new gear. Speaker sensitivity is another factor or if low voltage goes in from RCA's and speaker sensitivity is low, then you will have a lower output as well. If you are still not happy after all this, then maybe time to upgrade to a better head unit. I know for a fact old school gear had high voltage head units which provided stronger signal to the amps so the amps performed better with lower gain settings. Win-win situation. Good luck with it mate and let us know how you go.