AudioControl Epicenter 1200, Installation Manual

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Installation Manual
If you have ever listened to a friend’s “Killer” car audio system and
were sad to hear lots of hiss, clicks, or pops, then you have experi-
enced an improperly level-matched system. When a performance
autosound system is properly level-matched, you should get the max-
imum output from your source unit and your amplifier without any
clipping. The following steps will help guide you through the process:
1.
Before you begin, make sure that you are wearing good
quality hearing protection, as it is going to get very loud,
enough to damage your hearing. Bits of cotton wool in
the ears is not going to cut it. Do not attempt this on a
quiet Sunday morning in the church car park.
2. Turn down, or turn off the amplifiers that power your main speak-
ers. This will help prevent damage to the other speakers in your
system.
3. Set the ACR-3 Remote (in red-LED mode) to maximum . (As it is an
endless control, then turning it more than one turn is considered
the maximum.)
4. Set the Epicenter amplifier’s Gain control to
minimum
.
5. Set the source volume to
minimum
, and set the source bass and
treble controls as you expect them to be used during listening.
6. Start playing the signal material at the source device. The ideal
material would be an uncompressed, 100 Hz sinewave at -1 dBFS.
If you do not have such a test signal, choose uncompressed, full
Adjusting the System
volume music in the region of interest. This is a subwoofer am-
plifier, so the region of interest is 20 Hz to 200 Hz. A good choice
would be “Shake Your Rump” from Paul’s Boutique (Capitol CDP 7
91743 2) where there is some prolonged passages of heavy bass.
A poor choice would be “Clair de Lune”, a lullaby, or a recording of
finger cymbals.
7. Increase the source volume just enough until the MILC Source Clip
LED begins to flicker on the Epicenter amplifier. This is an indica-
tion of low frequency clipping, and represents the very maximum
output of the source unit. (Behold the power of calculus at play
within the Epicenter amplifier to detect clipping.) Note: If the head
unit has RCA line-level outputs, then there may not be enough
signal to reach clipping anyway. If you are using the speaker-level
outputs, then chances are that clipping is possible.
8. Now that the source is playing its loudest but not clipping, slowly
increase the Epicenter amplifier’s Gain control until the “Gain Max-
imized” LED begins to flicker, or if you hear the woofers begin to
bottom out, whichever comes first. This represents the maximum
playback level for the system.
9. Your system gain has now been optimized.
10. Reset the source volume to
minimum and the ACR-3 Remote (in
red-LED mode) to minimum, so there are no surprises when you
turn the system back on.
Chapter 6: Adjusting The System