Ok, I have been wondering this for a while. . . I know the my interior speakers can take the full volume if I give it to them. . . But what about the sub? How can you tell if it is becoming too distorted? I know that there is a sound difference, but how would I recognize this? My deck has a volume reading of 0-80 and I don't ever turn it about 60 with a sub level of 11 (out of 16). It still sounds good, but I am wondering how loud I can take it. FYI, the sub is a Kicker Soloberic 12-D running off a PPI PC2400 amp, with an Eclipse 5441 deck. Any help would be great. TIA

 

Well, you'll have to experiment for yourself, because absolute limits are determined by more things (such as the enclosure the sub is in). So shut off all of the other speakers so that the sub is the only one you can hear, and then crank it until it begins to distort.

 

the subs will bottom out, it'll look like the woofer cone is going passed it's magnetic gap (like its flapping). it'll sound like it's not hitting 100% either.

 

turn off all your trebble so you hear just the bass. or you can also just disconnect the rca's for the speakers and crank the volume up so all you hear is sub, and adjust the gains from there. i have my sensitivity set really low, and also the bass *** that goes from 0-12 i think is set around 2. i dont' like boomy bass.