Originally Posted by Milhouse

Simply putting the gain at halfway doesn't ensure it's set properly, an improperly set gain can not only cause unnecessary dimming it can also cause your subs to get a clipped signal....turning the bass boost to half only facilitates this (dimming and clipping). So my first piece of advice to you would be to learn how and ensure that your gain is set properly. Second, turn the bass boost down, all the way down would be best. What bass boost does is boost the low end at a certain frequency, this can cause the signal to clip at that frequency because the amp is trying to produce a signal beyond what it's capable of so it will amplify it to what it can and then the part that can no longer be amplified simply gets cut off or clipped. Not good. Clipping blows subs.

Being that you're experiencing dimming, I highly suggest you move the amp power wire directly to the battery terminal. The aux terminals are supplied via a wire from the battery that's probably 8ga, so essentially your 4ga. wire is spliced to an 8ga. wire, rendering your 4ga. wire to carrying only the current the 8ga. wire can supply. Not good.

What I meant by upgrading the grounds/power wire is...Do the Big 3. Add a large diameter wire, same size or bigger than your amp power wire, from the battery to chassis, engine block to chassis and alternator to battery. This will help to ensure a more efficient flow of electricity for your charging system, feeding more current to your amp.

Originally Posted by jaws2008

A starting battery wont do anything, it should be a deep cycle battery.. Milhouse gave some good info in this thread and I support what he suggesting you do.

I would be surprised just by moving your power wire directly to the battery would not help most of your problem(along with correct gains on amp), Ive played the 12" Alpine type X on a PDX1.1000 hard and had no dimming on 100% stock electric, as well as when I had my 13.5" W7

Originally Posted by NovaSS369

Welllll, I ran the wire to the battery instead, I even went as far as pulling the battery...sanding the tray down and shooting it in satin black cuz it was RUSTY, just a cheapo fix. But anyways I got it hooked up and cleaned the terminals well. I then realized I have an 8 gauge power wire instead...DOH. Still flickering tonight, going to check the amp settings tomorrow and see if that fixes anything. On another note, believe my tensioner is going out because I am hearing some grinding loud noises sometimes so I put a flat head to the tensioner and could hear the bearing in there. It sounded loud! Plan on replacing that tomorrow and see if it fixes the problem. Gotta miss the Iowa Wbody Meet now :/ grrrrr....baaaad start to the weekend.

Originally Posted by zwc0442

Doing the big three is well worth it. It's cheap to do and the gain from it helps out your entire electrical system. Before I did my car I would get around 14.5 volts to my amps. After I am getting 14.9. Very worthwhile in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Milhouse

Wow, that's pretty small wire, I use that for speaker wire for my subs. Def gotta step that up, to at least 4ga, bigger if you can afford it.