He'd obviously never heard of the empeg (pre-firesale).

OK, I said I was going to talk about gain setting, so here it is.

First go here. Pretty much all the nececary info is on that page, but for you convenience I will outline here what you will be doing.

Download his gain setting cd and load it on your empeg. After everything is hooked up, turn your gains on your amps all the way down and the volume on the empeg up to 0 dbs. Play the test tones and slowly turn the gain up on one of the amps untill you hear it distort, then back off a bit. Do the amps one at a time with the proper frequency test tones for the speakers you are doing. It will be loud so have the doors open and wear ear protection. (Your neighbour might wonder about the weird noises coming from your car, but ignore them.)

Once you do that, that is about it. You can play with the EQ to make things sound a bit better if you like (always attenuate, never turn them up past 0 dbs, it will only distort).

While a lot of us like Kappas, pick what speakers sound best to your ears. Go in shops and listen to as many different speakers as you can before you buy anything. For amps I still say you just want the cheapest one that still puts out a good clean signal, and Profile does it for me.

Good luck, post and let us know what you finaly go with!