I have 2 10'' Visonik subs in a bandpass enclosure with a visonik 2 channel amp bridged mono so 400 watts RMS going to each speaker. I dont know if the speakers are really bad or I have set the gain and bass wrong but I cant turn the bass up loud with out the speakers clipping what should I do????

 

turn the gains all the way down. then turn your radioup to the loudiest you will listen to it then turn the gains til it sound good or starts clipping then back down alittle

 

Bandpass enclosures are exteremly efficient. They really don't need that much power (in general...the power rating of the speaker is a factor, too) to get going. I would set your gains correctly before 'cranking' it again. First, turn all your head unit and amplifier settings 'flat'... or to zero/off. That includes the low pass filter. Next, turn the head unit volume up to 3/4 of max (make sure your gain is all the way down--fully counterclockwise). Slowly turn the gain clockwise (up) until you hear the bass start to distort. This is usually hard to do with many bandpass enclosures due to the fact that many 'prefab' bandpass enclosures aren't really designed...just built and shipped to a shop. The main goal of these prefabs is to allow a 'standard' woofer to get real loud off very little power--sound quality is seldom a 'design' goal. Soooo, when you're turning up that gain, it may be a bit tricky to hear the beginning stages of clipping/distortion.

By and large, Visonik doesn't make great subs. They are cheap and get loud (their target market, I would guess, is high school age kids who just got their first car and are looking to put a little bump in their ride)...with sound quality seemingly not even on the designers checklist. Work with what you got, though. You may be able to tweek the gain, and fiddle with the low pass filter enough to get a sound that you enjoy.



BTW, after you set your gains, if you decide to add any kind of bass boost, your likely going to clip the signal...defeating the tweaking you just finished.