Audio Electronics

Don't know if this is where this belongs, but an amplifier and speakers can still be a part of a computer setup as it is in a car. Anyways, recently My subwoofers have been cutting out, and simply not working. I first assumed it was my crappy wiring job that i did a while back, so I used fresh wires and attached them to my sub (set up the exact same way they were before). Nothing.

The LED on the amp is on, so I assumed it was working. I then decided to use a small (i unno something like 16 gage or something) and connect it to my subs with the other end unattached. Then i took the negative end and put it on my ground cable leading into the amp, and brushed the positive end against the power cable from my battery to my amp. The sub woofed lol (phew). and then, mysteriously after doing that, attaching the ends back into the channel they belong in- the sub worked....

btw, these are dual 12" subs, so i decided to try the same for the second sub with the same thing going on, after a few minutes though, the sound from the subs once again cut out.

My logic tells me it has to be the amp, but perhaps its something else? do you think my subs are screwed? I was hoping to test em out on my friends car but he wasn't home. perhaps i should try that first. Perhaps my deck is to blame?

in any case, let me know what you think. I need to order the parts to fix this asap...!

Could it be a crappy ground? Or bad signal wire coming from the head unit? How many amps are you running? I'm running a twin setup and when I had this problem it appeared one of my signal wires was loose. Although I've now come across another problem - one of the filters in my amp has gone AWOL and now I have really high pitched buzzing but thats a story for another time.

masakabassist said:

Could it be a crappy ground? Or bad signal wire coming from the head unit? How many amps are you running? I'm running a twin setup and when I had this problem it appeared one of my signal wires was loose. Although I've now come across another problem - one of the filters in my amp has gone AWOL and now I have really high pitched buzzing but thats a story for another time.

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well the signal wires seem fine, And i know the remote wire works, since the LED on the amp turns on when the deck turns on. I'm only using one amp, and I'm running a sub off of each channel (2). the amp is a POS, its some 4 channel generic garbage, but it worked perfectly fine up to this point. Perhaps I'll try new signal wires just to be sure, but I don't wanna buy cabling for no reason. Also when the subs were working, they sounded terrible. One seemed to be "popping" more than pumping, it was strange.

If its "popping" as you say I would be more inclined to go with a bad ground. Is there another point you could ground it at. I'm using the grounding point for the rear tail light but before that I had a crappy ground give me a bad sound. As you can tell I was a complete noob when I first started putting in my sound system and thus came across many problems

on my old amp, the subs were bridged bringing the resistance to 2 ohms, when the amp want rated for 2 ohms, and the subs would cut out all the time. make sure you're running a resistance that the amp is rated for.

Mr. Roboto said:

on my old amp, the subs were bridged bringing the resistance to 2 ohms, when the amp want rated for 2 ohms, and the subs would cut out all the time. make sure you're running a resistance that the amp is rated for.

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He has a point ^^^

yeah but if it ran perfectly fine for over a year, without any changes, i dont see why that would be true. the ground i can understand because rust may have occured at my grounding point, but how can I test to see which point would be better?

Volt meter? what am i reading?

jokers_greg said:

yeah but if it ran perfectly fine for over a year, without any changes, i dont see why that would be true. the ground i can understand because rust may have occured at my grounding point, but how can I test to see which point would be better?

Volt meter? what am i reading?

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Sorry I missed that in your first post. I personally can't read / don't know how to use multimeters so I'll let somebody else explain that bit.

jokers_greg said:

yeah but if it ran perfectly fine for over a year, without any changes, i dont see why that would be true. the ground i can understand because rust may have occured at my grounding point, but how can I test to see which point would be better?

Volt meter? what am i reading?

Click to expand...

Ok, but it's still worth checking, only takes about 2 minutes to do so, if that. I also don't think you mentioned that they worked for a year.

Also, your gain may be too high, and the protection on the amp is just kicking in. What is the preout voltage on your deck? And what is the gain set to on the amp?

guys, danger averted. I ran my ground to a threaded hole in the trunk floor. I unscewed the bolt and wouldn't you know it was pure rust. I cleaned it up with some sandpaper, screwed her back in. and we have power!

thanks for the help guys

Sometimes its the simplest of things. Good to hear it!

And for future reference, try not to run 12 volts DC through your sub