AR240 sound tuning

[Familyjetboat]

I replaced the stock Clarion radio with a new Clarion M608. It was pretty straightforward except the sound wasn't as good. So, I began trying to adjust the amps to improve the sound quality. I have 2 JL amps. 1 amp runs the 4 speakers in the boat and the 2 tower speakers. The other amp runs the sub. I'm having a really hard time trying to get all of them adjusted correctly. Does anyone have the same setup and can send me a picture of what their amps are set to?

 

[adrianp89]

As a baseline.... set everything flat on the Clarion, if it has Xovers, turn them off, make sure the EQ is dead flat and not on any preset setting.

For the speaker amp, set the HPF Filter to around 80hz. For the subwoofer, set the LPF to 80hz.

Then turn the gains all the way down on both amps. Determine what max volume is of the Clarion and mark 3/4 of that. (I.E. if max is 40, then 30 is your goal). Put the volume to 30, and slowly turn up the gains of each amp until you hear distortion, then back off a hair. (This is typically under halfway)

A little more technical way:

https://jlaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204374120-Amplifier-Level-Setting-Guide

 

[Familyjetboat]

As a baseline.... set everything flat on the Clarion, if it has Xovers, turn them off, make sure the EQ is dead flat and not on any preset setting.

For the speaker amp, set the HPF Filter to around 80hz. For the subwoofer, set the LPF to 80hz.

Then turn the gains all the way down on both amps. Determine what max volume is of the Clarion and mark 3/4 of that. (I.E. if max is 40, then 30 is your goal). Put the volume to 30, and slowly turn up the gains of each amp until you hear distortion, then back off a hair. (This is typically under halfway)

A little more technical way:

https://jlaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204374120-Amplifier-Level-Setting-Guide

Thank you very much. This is really helpful information.

In your opinion why would the sound quality be bad when I swapped the radio's out? At that time I had not made any adjustments to the amps. The new radio was plug and play with the old harness.

 

[adrianp89]

Thank you very much. This is really helpful information.

In your opinion why would the sound quality be bad when I swapped the radio's out? At that time I had not made any adjustments to the amps. The new radio was plug and play with the old harness.

Could be multiple reasons. Could be the way the EQ was set on the old, or the way the crossovers were set on the old radio. Often radio have different pre-out voltages, which affects how the gain should be set on the amplifier.