Car Audio Central - Ultimate Car Audio Forum and Community

Okay, so I have just installed some CDT Audio EF-61CF 6.5" components with SatNet 400 crossovers powered by a Clarion DPX2250. My head unit is a Panasonic CQ-C8803U which has 31 rms (for the rears) and has 5v pre outs. The amp has a switch to select input voltage but I'm not sure if the pre out voltage of 5v is the rms or max power. Now I have the gain at about a 1/4 turn and it sounds great (rears distort before i can get fronts to) The amp also has low/high pass filters, should I turn them to off as the crossovers should do the work?? I would like to use a test tone to set up the fronts, can someone recommend a frequency?? and can someone explain how to set up with a tone. As you can tell I am fairly new to all this but am very eager to learn some stuff.

Thanks

first of all I would fade to the front a little, so you don't hear the rear distorting. Second, use the amps crossover on high pass @ 80 hz approximately, to start with anyways. If you don't have a sub you could cross them over a bit lower I suppose to get a little more bass, but that would hurt the sq of the mid severly. The crossover for the cdt's are only going to have a low-pass for the mid, still allowing all bass frequencies to play causing distortion and hindering sq. I would use a 1 khz 0db test tone to set your gains up front, the 0db being most important. With a dmm you can measure the voltage your amp creates at the output, and this is A/C NOT D/C. you must calculate your target voltage with the formula, sqrt(rms x resistance)=voltage. ie 100 watt rms per channel @ 4 ohms would be sqrt(100x4)=20 volts. So with your dmm you would set the gain until you see 20 volts at the output while playing the 0db test tone. Most people say to set the volume at about 3/4 when doing this, I don't agree with that but it may depend entirely on the head unit in question Anyways, its late, felt like helping someone out to pass the time. Good luck