BASSFACE DB1.2 User manual

The Bass Face DB1.2 amplifier is a high power Class D mono amplifier with an over-
sized power supply for high fidelity distortion free sound and increased reliability.
Before you even get the amplifier out of the box (realistically, you will have done this
already and boy it looks sweet doesn’t it!) you will need to install a suitable wiring kit
in your vehicle. We recommend the use of a 4AWG or 0 AWG wiring kit with appro-
priate termination for maximum performance, especially if you will be running the
amplifier at 2 ohm impedance. If you are planning to run multiple amplifiers you will
need to up the gauge of the wiring accordingly. Do bear in mind that many manufac-
turers offer wiring kits that actually come up smaller in true wire gauge than adver
tised.
To begin, disconnect the car battery, taking note of any required precautions sug-
gested by the vehicle manufacturer such as alarm or radio codes, or on board com-
puter or AGM battery requirements.
You need to find a suitable point on the firewall (bulkhead) to run the power wire
through. If you have to drill a hole, you will need to fit a rubber grommet to ensure
the wire does not get damaged as a short will ruin the whole setup and can be very
dangerous. The positive wire needs to go to the + positive terminal on the battery. A
fuse of appropriate size to protect the cable (for a quality 4 AWG kit we suggest 80A)
needs to be fitted in line and no more than 18” from the battery.
OnceOnce you have the cable in the car, run it back to the boot or to where you intend to
fit the amplifier. When you do this, be aware you will need to run the remote cable
and the RCA’s from the head unit back to the amp too. A common mistake is to
forget that a car amplifier needs the remote 12V turn on cable to see power for it to
even work! If you only fit power and ground you’re going to get…. Nothing!
IfIf the wires you are running have to run over or go alongside other looms of the car,
try to cross them at right angles to avoid unwanted interference in the signal, and try
not to run them parallel with other cables either. If you can, run the power and the
signal cables down opposite sides of the car. This isn’t essential but if you do get any
interference once the job is complete the first thing to look at will be separating these
wires so if you can do it first it makes a lot of sense!
TheThe absolutely most important aspect of the power install is the earth wire. This
wants to be very securely bolted to the chassis of the car. We recommend drilling a
hole (take care not to drill through your spare tyre, brake lines or anything else!) in
the boot floor and sand off any paint to the bare metal where the wire will be connect-
ed. A bad earth is a very common flaw in installation and can cause a number of
headaches later down the line so be sure to take care in doing this. Do NOT use a
self tapping screw to try and screw the earth down, as it will come loose and impair
performance.performance. Other common disasters include trying to earth to rear light mounting
bolts, boot lock mountings and other ways to “trap” the cable in the vein hope you
might get a good earth. For every volt the amplifier doesn’t see it requires TWICE the

power to create the same output. That means poor performance and a possible
broken amplifier…. DO THE EARTH RIGHT!
Once your power cable, RCA and remote lead are all securely running through the
car to where you want the amp and the earth wire is fastened securely, somewhere
close to the amp, you can fit the amplifier. Don’t forget to fit the bass remote control
and run the control cable with the other wires to the amplifier! This can be plugged
in right away.
TheThe amp needs to be mounted on a solid surface, favorites are boot floors, backs of
seats etc. Wherever you do choose to mount the amp, it needs sufficient ventilation;
2-3” around will be enough. We do not recommend mounting an amplifier on a bass
box as the vibrations can cause damage to the internals of the amplifier over time.
YouYou are now ready to connect your subwoofers! The DB1.2 has 2 sets of positive
and negative connectors, this is for ease of connecting multiple speakers and bridg-
es inside the amplifier (they are not separate outputs) Take care that the positive on
the speaker is going to the positive on the amplifier. If your car speakers and woofer
are connected “out of phase” then it can severely affect bass output as the speakers
might cancel each other out acoustically.
The Phase control knob on the amplifier is there so you can quickly flip the phase of
your subwoofers to your car speakers, instead of taking out the wires and changing
the + and – around. This can be very useful if you are trying to get a specific sound
or if you have wired your door speakers and subwoofer out of phase to each other
by accident.
ThisThis bit is VERY IMPORTANT. You need to ensure that the load you subject your
amplifier to is within specification and of a sensible nature and that you have the ap-
propriate cooling where applicable. This particular amplifier is suitable for running a
mono load at at minimum of 2 Ohms. Having Class D topology means that it will be
highly efficient at 2Ohms and as a result should not generate a massive amount if
heat. However, care still needs to be taken as to ensure the amplifier has appropri-
ate venting.
Just as important is to remember that as well as the actual physical impedance you
need to consider the type of load you are going to subject your amplifier to. A single
(or pair of) 8, 10 or 12 or 15 inch subwoofer of an appropriately matched construction
and in a nicely designed enclosure will be fine run off a DB1.2 amp at 4 ohms or 2
ohms in the case of the pair (assuming proper setup) but you don’t want to try and
run eight massive heavy coned dual voice coil monster woofers off it, even though
on paper you might well have a 2 Ohm load. You have to use a bit of common sense
– – if you need to fill a van with eight woofers like that then use four or eight DB1.2's.
Big power woofers often have heavy cones, these type of woofers can have big I
mpedance dips and can cause clipping on transients.

We recommend the Bass Face SPL12.2 12” 2500W subwoofers, as these were de-
signed along side this amp to provide a balanced match.
It's also worth mentioning at this point, that, running audio into the amp, with any
level of gain, but no speaker attached can and will seriously damage your amplifier
if done for long periods of time. Some amps have load sensing and will shut the amp
down if no speaker is attached, some do not. Car amplifiers often do not.
Another danger to your amplifier is mounting it onto your bass box. While this is a
very popular technique, people completely overlook the fact that the bass box will
cause the internals of the amplifier to be vibrated violently and can cause compo-
nents to become disconnected from the board, or crack the board itself. This will of
course break the amplifier and would not be covered under the limited warranty.
Time to lay on some power. Connect the earth first. Then 12V power, then remote.
Then connect in the RCA cables and speaker cables. Now you can move onto set-
ting up the gain and sound controls on the amplifier (the fun bit!)
Setting the “Gain” or “level” on the amp is a crucial aspect and needs to be done with
care, otherwise you can easily damage your equipment. Before we move onto this
we need to be sure the crossover settings are right for the application.
If you have an active crossover elsewhere in your system (such as the head unit)
then you may wish to set the crossover control knob all the way up to 250hz as the
crossover point is governed by the head unit.
WeWe recommend a LPF of about 100hz initially as an excellent starting point for most
car woofers. Try 80Hz and 120Hz too – you will notice the sound change. If you are
running a 15 inch woofer then you will want to be looking at a lower crossover fre-
quency (like 80Hz) – if it’s an 8 inch driver then you may want to go up to 120, 150
or even higher.
Once your crossover settings are set up, you can move on to the gain or “Level”.
This bit is REALLY important!
Before you do anything else, please ensure the BASS BOOST knob is set to 0 – I.e.
switched off. We also suggest you turn the bass remote level to a mid setting to allow
adjustment later to taste.
Next,Next, you need to learn about the subsonic filter. This is a crucial part of the setup.
When the music frequency goes lower than that which the subwoofer system can re-
produce with any guts you are wasting a lot of energy asking the amplifier to create
those parts of the music. Worse still, your woofer will try its best to create them and
find itself moving backwards and forwards at very large levels of excursion and dis-
tortion from the overstretched amplifier. Many bass amplifiers do not have subsonic
filters – this is MADNESS and results in a lot of burned out woofers and amplifiers.

Many bass amplifiers DO have subsonic filters that their owners do not understand
– this is MADNESS and results in a lot of burned out woofers and amplifiers!!!
AsAs a rule of thumb you should set your subsonic filter to about 30Hz – this is a gener-
alization because obviously different subwoofer setups can play to different low fre-
quencies. Something like an 8 inch sub in a ported box designed to be very punchy
will struggle to get below 50Hz – in which case inch up the subsonic to that level to
improve all round performance and protect the components. If you have a 15 inch
woofer in a well sized sealed box that is designed to sound low and atmospheric
then you may be able to come down to 20Hz with the filter. As you turn the filter up
you will hear it stopping the low bass from being played – but you will notice that you
can play the music louder with less distortion. You need to set this to optimum bal-
ance later.
Now it is time to disconnect all other subwoofers or speakers so that you can hear
only the woofer powered by this amplifier. Next, turn the level on the amp all the way
down. Choose some music that you’re not particularly keen on that has a good
range of bass, treble and vocals (helps not to get lost in the music whilst you work
on the system.)
ThenThen go to your head unit and gradually turn up the volume until you begin to hear
slight distortion from the subwoofer. This is normally about ¾ the way up the scale.
This is the maximum setting that you will EVER use from now on – make a mental
note of it. Next, turn the head unit down from here by around ¼. This builds in a little
bit of “headroom” so should you have a track that is recorded quieter than the others
or is at a lower bit rate, you can boost the volume without pushing anything into dis-
tortion.
Once the volume is set on the head unit, go to the amplifier and slowly start to turn
the “Level” knob up, keep going till it is at a level you are happy with (that isn’t going
to deafen you!) or until your woofer(s) are just about to distort. If they do start to dis-
tort, turn back down till they sound perfectly clear.
One thing that you need to learn is how to actually hear a woofer “distort” – it sounds
different than a full range speaker because rather than hearing distortion in the con-
ventional sense you will hear it as an unclean bass note – you may hear a cracking,
a metallic slapping sound or a rattle. It is CRITICAL that you detect this sound and
back the amp off to stop it NOW. If you do not perform this step you will become an-
other sad statistic in our “rejected warranty” book – you will be ringing up in about a
week wondering why your woofer or amplifier is toasted. Don’t be this sad individual!
You will notice that earlier in the text we set the bass boost to off. This is because
more often than not this EQ control is misunderstood and can cause damage. The
bass boost control ramps a range of frequencies in the bass region (typically around
45hz) that will cause more bass to be created than the signal coming in from the
head unit expects. It will also consume more power and can push a system into

distortion if the settings are not made carefully. An example of a valid use of bass
boost might be where your woofer system has an uneven response – as you turn up
the gain the upper region of the output becomes strained and begins to distort but
yet with low frequencies you are able to turn up the bass without distortion. In this
case, you would go back to the beginning of the setup instructions, get the woofer
playing at a modest level and then swing in some bass boost until the distortion hap-
pens at the same volume level, regardless of the music you are playing. Then, you
wouldwould set the gain with the bass boost control in THAT position – to take account of
that level of boost. You ABSOLUTELY cannot increase the bass boost once you
have already set the gain level – you’ll overdrive the amplifier and burn something
out.
Treat the bass remote with similar caution. It is effectively an overdrive gear – de-
signed to allow you to fine tune the sound to your preference. It cannot, however,
make the system more powerful than it already is! So yes, as you drive slowly with
little tyre noise you might want to reduce the setting on the cockpit knob to reduce
the bass level. And yes, if you are listening to a track with a low recording level and
you fancy a bit more output you might increase the setting. But it is your responsibil-
ity to listen for “dynamic compression” (where you are turning the system up on the
knob and yet the actual volume is not increasing) since this is an indicator that the
limits of the power available have been reached and over-reached!
We hope that these instructions have been helpful and that the information will help
you to build a well balanced and stable system that will provide years of listening
pleasure.
Enjoy your system!

Subsonic Filter
Bass Boost Low Pass Filter
Master/Slave RCA
Master/Slave Switch
Phase Control
Remote Port
Gain Control
RCA Audio In
RCA Audio Through
REM
B+
Car Grounding Point Close to Amp
GND
Car Battery
+
-
Fuse
RCA Cables
Remote Cable

To the right here is a
complete fail, the earth has
been attached to painted
metal and held with a washer
and a self tapping screw, this
will most definitely cause
serious resistance and while
thethe amp may appear to
function correctly initially, at
higher output levels, the amp
will strain and a component
within will fail very quickly.
DO NOT DO YOUR EARTH
LIKE THIS!!! PLEASE! :)
To the left, we see a hole drilled directly into the
chassis, big enough for a bolt and with access to
the nut from behind. The area has been prepared by
sanding off all the paint down to the bare metal. on
the contact side of the hole. Although you do not
need to sand off as large an area as you see here,
this was done for illustration purposes.
Here you can see the finished product, as
you can see there will be ample contact
between the ring terminal and the chassis of
the car. The bolt is the correct size to clamp
down only on the ring. It’s worth mentioning
at this point, a quick blow over with primer
will stop the metal rusting too!
As explained in the previous instructions, getting
a good quality connection on the earth is critical
for getting your equipment working correctly. If
you get it wrong, it WILL fry your amp and WONT
be covered under warranty! These pictures give
you very clear examples of good and bad
practices.
ToTo the left you can see what is commony
percieved to be a good earthing point. It is not,
there will not be enough pressure on the ring
terminal and oxidisation will occur on surfaces.
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