AAHTahoe

I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about car audio other than how to turn the system on/off and adjusting the volume. I do have a question regarding amp adjustments. What, if any, advantages or disadvantages are there to tweaking the crossover and or gain settings on an amplifier? TIA.

shawnvw

are you talking about an aftermaket amp?

AAHTahoe

Yes, an after market amp. 4 x50w Alpine. No subwoofer just A/M component set in the front and A/M replacement speakers in rear doors.

shawnvw

Different speakers operate better at different frequencies, and can handle different amounts of power. Amplifier companies, make the amp so you can adjust it to work on virtually any set of speakers(as long as they are matched properly). Setting the amplifeir for low pass(bass), mid pas(mids), or high pass(treble), filters out some unwanted frequencies that will only distort\blow the speakers. Setting the gain will depend on how much the power the speakers can handle.
Some installers like to always play the same disc when setting up an amp. (tragically hip for some reason?) I like to find out what the customer listens to, and tune it to make that genre of music sound the best. Go through all the settings on the amp, turn them all the way down, all the way up, and find the spot in the middle that sounds the best. As for the gain, set that last. Turn the deck up 3/4 of the way up, and turn the gain up untill its loud but not distorted. Just do it by ear and make it sound the best to you without there being distortion and you should be all set

AAHTahoe

Shawnvw - Thanks for the response. Your explanation makes much more usable sense to me than what I was getting from the amplifier manual. The set up was professionally installed and I have the option to go back and have a tech fine tune it but I also wanted to understand what is going on in the process. Much appreciated!