herndog wrote:Hey guys, I have a Kicker kx 350.2 amp and was just wondering if the amp is at full power all the time. My past two amps have had power knobs on them and this one doesnt, or else im an idiot and cant find it. I was just wondering if this was normal?
all that is needed to get full power out of that amp is to adjust the gain to match your preouts. the gain DO NOT need to be all the way up in order to get full power out of this or any amp.
look up the gain setting thread and you will have all the info you need.
in short you need a DMM which records true RMS or even better an O scope.
turn your head unit up to the highest level you will normaly listen to. with most head units its a good rule of thumb to not go over 3/4 of the way up. set all eq settings to off or flat. turn off all bass boost and loud settings. if you must use these features set them first and then set your gains. slowwly turn up your gains while playing a 45 HZ test tone. turn them up until you get the proper voltage reading on your DMM
to get the proper target voltage use the following formula
take the ohm load being presented to the amp X the RMS out put of that amp. then take the square root of that number and that is the voltage you want to set your gains at
IE
2 ohm load X 1000 watts RMS= 2000
the square root of 2000 is 44.72
44.72 is the the target voltage output
this will give you the cleanest unclipped power to your subs. to get a true reading or atleast the most accurate you should use an o scope but the DMM method works very well and most people own one.
remeber that clean power = good
clipped signal = VERY BAD
i would say that 95 percent of speaker damage is do to clipping. set your gains up right the first time and leave them alone and you will be very glad you did. your speakers will thank you as well.
GL my friend