can also try nudging in some extra treble at this point to get the sound exactly as you want
it. Try to ignore the fact that you now have a thin and tinny sound. You’re going to fix that
in a moment! Take a note of the new maximum volume level that you can play to cleanly,
and average that across 2 or 3 different songs (to take account of different recording levels)
– you want to know for sure that at the level you agree on in your head you know that your
system is totally clean regardless of the song you listen to. We are going to call this your
SET POINT.
Now, disconnect all other speakers and power up the subwoofer by reinstalling the fuse.
Next, turn the level on the bass box all the way down. Set the remote knob to a point
somewhere in the middle of the range.
Before we do this please learn to hear distortion from a woofer, because it is slightly
different from a conventional speaker. On a woofer, distortion makes itself known as an
unclean bass note – you may hear a cracking, a metallic slapping sound or a rattle. It is
different for each setup and song but to do this setup properly you will need to learn how to
detect it. As you work it is acceptable to swing on the controls and let the system distort for
a second or so as you learn to recognize the sound as it goes bad. Don’t be too scared of
this – but as soon as you hear those bad sounds just make sure you immediately back off
into normal operation. If you do not understand how an unhappy woofer sounds then you
risk damaging the speaker as you listen to it.
Now, go to your head unit and gradually turn up the volume until either you begin to hear
distortion from the woofer or you reach the set point. If you hit distortion first, then keep
turning down the remote bass knob on the woofer until you can get to the set point cleanly.
If this is the case then you are done here – your woofer is set up. This is unlikely – what will
most likely happen is that you will reach the set point and you won’t be getting that much
out of the woofer….
Now, with the head unit at the set point turn up the level control on the woofer until it
begins to distort. Then back the level off a bit to a point at which the bass sounds clean and
tidy no matter what song you throw at it. You can now reconnect the rest of your speakers
and have a listen.
It will likely be the case that with your setup done in this way the integration and balance of
the amount of bass vs the rest of the sound is not perfect right away. The way to deal with
this is to fine tune the levels now. If you have too much bass, it is a simple matter to turn
down the woofer on the dashboard knob. If you have too much midrange and treble then
you need to lower your set point and turn up the woofer on the dashboard knob, being
careful to re-check the output at this lower set-point in the same way as before. If you
choose a lower set point and are happy with that lower output level than your head unit is
capable of then you will be able to put back some of the bass that you took out of the head
unit previously which will be helpful.
You will notice that earlier in the text we set the bass boost to off. This is because more
often than not this EQ control is misunderstood and can cause damage. The bass boost
control ramps a range of frequencies in the bass region that will cause more bass to be
created than the signal coming in from the head unit expects. It will also consume more
power and can push a system into distortion if the settings are not made carefully. An
example of a valid use of bass boost might be where your car/woofer combination has an
uneven response – as you turn up the gain the upper region of the output becomes strained
