Re: Finally finished my audio....I think?!

[Mark Williams <williamh@xxxxxxx>]

So.. are you happy  or not? Sounds like you need to decide..
Reread your posting and then go sit in the car and jam for awhile and let us know.
In my opinion you should probably leave the system as is.. As you mentioned,
getting more power from the amp will only skew the sound  back to bass heavy.
However, for anyone to be able to assist you regarding whether or
not to run your amp mixed mono (L+ and R- as you mentioned)
then you need to find out what impedance (in ohms) your speakers
are, and what load the amp is  capable of driving... (also in ohms)
I would bet that you have 4 ohm speakers. If that is the case then you would
not want to run them in parallel as you would have a 2 ohm load.. Running 
in mixed mono the Kenwood amp would see 1 (!) ohm and would either 
1) puke
2) get hot and shut off every thirty minutes

Personally, I would never expect any Kenwood amp to run 1 ohm for very long. 
(If you had a Phoenix Gold or PPI amp for example, the amp would run
 one ohm all day long.)

Mark Williams
Dallas, TX
91 ///M3


P.S.. if you don't have the boxes for your woofers then you will likely
have to take them out of the box in order to look at the back of the
speaker to determine their impedance... You could also use a voltmeter..


FROM: "Paul Elliott" 


> Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2000 01:33:52 -0500
> From: "Paul Elliott" <pelliott@domain.elided>
> Subject: Finally finished my audio....I think?!
> 
> Just an update on my system. Today, Sound Concept in Mt Kisco NY installed
> my Polk DX3000 tweeters to go with my Polk dX5510 mid woofers, my
> Stealthboxes, and my Kenwood X501F 4X75 @ 14.4v amp to go with my Kenwood
> Excelon head unit..
> 
> Its truely awesome. Before, I did all I could to make my bass more
> prominent. Now, I find I have my hands full just trying to keep it down to
> reasonable levels. At first, it was sooo boomy, it had no 'distinctiveness'
> between notes...I found that using my hi pass filter to filter out some of
> the lows below 40 hz, and by messing with the Non Fading preout level, the
> gain, the Qs, etc, I can alter the boominess, so that I can either here
> smooth loud bass, boomy bass, or tight no-boom bass.  What are Qs and Center
> Frequencies anyway?  If I make the BAss center frequency Higher, how does
> that effect sound?  What about the Treble center frequency?
> 
> What kind of pissed me off is that I told the store and the installer I
> wanted him to bridge the two rear channels. Bridged, this amp is rated at
> 300 watts. With 2 subs, he should, I think, have wired the + terminal from
> the left rear channel with the - terminal from the rt rear channel,
> connected the left steatlhbox, and wired the rt one up in parallel....at
> least, that's how I read the manual...Instead, even though he said he was
> going to bridge them, because he's used all 4 rear speaker connections to
> the, I think he just gave them a traditional stereo connection, and set them
> to mono via a switch. So that instead of getting 300 watts, theyre probably
> getting 75 each. As I said, the bass from the subs is extremely prominent.
> Given that fact, do you think I might as well leave it as is, rather then
> going through another day at the audio store? I would think that giving more
> power to the subs by bridging would just make my job tougher to tune it back
> out for good sound balance! Leave it as is? Of course, I suppose its
> possible that he DID bridge the amp another way, if there is such a
> thing....But with all 4 rear speaker terminals used, I dont think that
> spells bridging, do you?
> 
> Also, I dont think he ran the ext. amp control wire from the head unit which
> allows me to control the amp's BMS Bass Boost circuit from the head unit.
> But, since I can set it at the amp, again, I dont think its worth dealing
> with those guys again. Sheez, where are the Good audio stores/installers ?
> 
> Anyway, I'm real happy with the system now, and I've finally got sounds Im
> real happy with.  Thanks for the tips.
>Paul Elliott

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