Sub not what I expected

[opliko]

Okay so I bought a Polk MM1040 and hooked it up to a pioneer 760w 2 channel amp http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882117110 and have it hooked up in bridged mode so it should be putting out 380W rms. I have the crossover on the amp turned off, and the bass boost on the amp turned to 6dB. I set the gain just before the 4V mark for pioneer recievers, which is what I have. With all bass boost turned off there's basically no sound coming from the sub. I have to crank the boost up to 5/6 or 6/6 to get bass with the volume below 1/2 way up. I have the HPF turned on and set to 100hz, and the crossover set to 100hz on the reciever.
Now my concern, is that before the sub gets very loud(its a 350w sub, it should be louder than my 180w at home), it starts distorting. I'm wondering why this is happening?

[biggs]

HPF at 100Hz? Did you mean LPF?

[dudeinaroom]

Is your sub hooked up to the right set of pre outs on your head unit? what model of pioneer do you have?

[opliko]

I have this one http://reviews.cnet.com/in-dash-car-stereos/pioneer-deh-p6000ub/4505-6729_7-32815176.html and I know its hooked up properly to the receiver. The settings have a HPF and LPF, one to only play sounds higher than that frequency through the speakers and one to only play sounds lower than a certain frequency through the sub.

[biggs]

Do you have HPF/LPF switched on at reciever and amp?
List your settings please.

[opliko]

Okay so I hooked it up to only 1 channel and now it seems to be working better. Maybe the way the amp handles the bridged mode was messing with the sound quality. I'll do some more testing and get back to you.

[opliko]

Figured out what the problem was. Apparently the gain needs to be turned all the way up (lowest voltage) for this sub to get the voltage it needs lol. Now I have thunderous bass with almost no EQ or bass boost. Now I'm running a flat EQ with +4 bass setting, and a 6dB boost at 50hz on the amp. Figured it out by using a spreadsheet I found for voltages and gain using a multimeter.

[exalted512]

It sounds like you had the amp bridged to 2 ohms. Those Pioneer's will not handle that which is more than likely the reason for the distortion sound you heard.

It also explains why putting it on one channel yields better results, as they will do 2-ohm stereo.

You should have got an amp that was more along the lines of a Kicker ZX300.1.
-Cody

[GTFreak]

i had the same pioneer amp mine wasn't bridgable.