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Last weekend I got my new Helix DSP and a knob called the Conductor Pro. Wired it up that weekend onto my amp rack. The Skar gear was installed like 14 months ago. Installed the Conductor into a dash panel, placed to the right of my steering wheel. The Conductor lets me change the master volume at the dsp, the sub volume, tone control (does like +/- 6 bass to treble, depending on the direction), and profile selection. I can change between inputs if I wired a second or third input to it. Low level or digital.

I’ve done some paliminary tuning to the EQ but I still need to adjust the gain levels so I’m not clipping or distorting at any stage of the signal. I’m pretty sure the signal from the radio is fine but more concerned with the rca signal after the DSP and what’s coming from the output side of the amps.

My turn-on signal is coming from a factory fuse location, front passenger fuse box, first red fuse on the left. It turns on with any key position and runs on the timer that keeps the radio alive till a door is opened with the key off or removed. This signal is wired to a relay that connects power from the distro box to the rem input of the dsp. Rem Out goes to the amps. I have a 20 amp fuse for the relay and dsp, mostly because I don’t have anything smaller for the block but I do have 5 amp glass fuses on the relay input and power to the dsp. Just something to better protect the 16 awg wire. I don’t need the relay but I wanted to be sure that if the main power to the rack dies either by me tripping the 70A breaker or the breaker tripping itself, the setup doesn’t enter a half power state and fry something. I added the relay before the dsp showed up because the amps would go into protect if the main power died but the rem stayed active and just kept it when I installed the dsp. Extra protection never hurts.

The relay is nothing special. Just a 30A 5 pin cube I can get from the auto store. Pin 30 to Ground. Pin 85 to Key Power. Pin 86 to Battery. Pin 87 to Rem In on DSP. WIre for Pin 87a was removed from the holder. I stuffed the relay into a small project box that’s velcro’d to the board.

Radio Output feeds into High Level Inputs on the DSP. RCAs to the Amps. Amps to speakers.

I’m using one rca output on the dsp to feed the sub via a y-splitter. The splitter isn’t needed but looks better than just a single mono cable. Stereo RCAs for Front and Rear to the door amp. Someday I might do active Center and Front Highs but for now, I left the crossover box for the Fronts installed and wired the Front Tweeters to the crossover box after a year of running them just off the factory wire that feeds the woofer side of the crossover. As a result, they never really did anything for over a year. Now I can actually hear them. I’m still running the factory tweeters but if they pop, I have the tweeters the Component speakers came with that I can modify the factory tweeter mount to hold.

The door amp’s gain is set to about 55% full range. Sub amp gain is somewhere (note to self to check that). The sub gain was maxed out till I broke the wire for it’s external gain knob so I adjusted it to something tame because at the same time, the door amp was removed for warranty repair/replace and didn’t need the sub just maxed out for no reason. Now the DSP handles the amp’s input gain. Haven’t decided if I’m going to adjust the door’s gain since they really don’t need to be.

I’ve yet to verify the RCA voltage out of the DSP but I do think it’s stronger than what the PAC LOC I had before would put out because everything is so much louder at the same volume on the radio end. RIght now, the sub hits hard enough to vibrate everything in the truck. Harder than I remember it hitting. :)

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