They say you should be careful what you wish for but in this case you can stay care-free. You can now sleep soundly because Sonic Electronix now carries an assortment of products from the legendary Steve Meade. If SMD products were potential life-long companions, then you would want to make sure to treat them to a nice lobster dinner and make sure to call them back after the first date. What i’m getting at here is that they are very good quality products and have been proven to be one of the best among professional and amateur installers alike. We are very excited to be getting these in and I might even pick up one up myself!
SMD DD-1
The workhorse of the SMD line is the popular SMD DD-1. This unit is a distortion detector and analyzer which is used to set gain and eliminate distortion by matching the source units output level. This is a must have tool for any sound system due to the fact that any system can experience clipping. It includes easy-to-read LED indicators that will tell you if your system is experiencing a distorted signal and will tell which way to adjust your gain to eliminate clipping. The DD-1 is powered by a 9V battery in order to isolate it from the vehicles electrical system. This guarantees that you will only be measuring the audio signal and not the noise in the vehicle’s charging system. In addition to all these great features, a test tone CD is included for accurate calibration. There is also a high voltage version called the SMD DD-1 HV.
SMD CC-1
Another essential tool is the Crossover Calibrator called the SMD CC-1. This calibrator tool will allow you to seamlessly set electronic crossovers on your amplifiers to their desired frequencies. It features a “competition mode” which can be used to match frequencies and gains of any 4 channel amplifier or multiple monoblock amplifiers. When it comes to applications such as these, it is very important to make sure the amplifiers are putting out the exact same amount of power especially when you have two or more amplifiers on a dual voice coil driver. The unit also includes an RCA harness so you can measure the output voltage of your headunit directly.
You can take it one step further by adding an LED sound system output display called the VU-DIN. This display will give you a real time indicator of your music and will specify how close you are to clipping your signal. Comment below and tell us what you think of SMD!