Help...trying to add a sub

[KaiserSoze]

Help...trying to add an amp

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a beginner to hooking up car audio. I've been installing in my own cars and friends' cars for the last 12 years.
I've got an amp that has been tested good in my friend's car. It slams his subs. When I hook it up in my car, it goes into protection mode. I've changed power wire, used 4 different unpainted ground sources. I'm using the stock head unit with just the high level input wires the amp came with. I hooked the high level wires to the front left and right speaker wires off the back of the head unit. I searched and used the wiring diagram I found here. I've tried two different subwoofers and each of them just get static until the amp goes into protection mode. I used a line out converter and hooked RCA's up to the amp, still protection mode. I took off the wires I used to extend the high level input and hooked the line out coverter straight to the back of the head unit. Guess what? That's right, protection mode. If i take all the inputs out of the equation, the amp will stay on forever. It's only when it gets a signal that it goes into protection mode. The only thing I haven't been able to do is hook it up via really long RCA's to my friend's stereo. WTF is going on here? Am I going to HAVE to go to an aftermarket deck (which I don't want to do) to get a damn amp in my car??

Oh, BTW, I have the NON-BOSE system.

 

[dark3]

are you hookign up an amp that is ment for lows to work on your mids and highs?

 

[kragan76]

This stinks of bad wiring somewhere, either power/ground or the subs themself. When you tried your 4 different grounding points, did you check the ground continuity? If it was an issue with the power cable grounding, that should blow a fuse. You did not mention that was happening, so I'm thinking ground wire.

Is/Are your sub(s) wired for the same impedance as the subs in your friends car? In other words, is your friend presenting a 2 ohm load to the amplifier and you are presenting a 1 ohm load, but your amp is not 1 ohm stable? Check the impedance of your subs with a volt-ohm reader. If your subs are wired incorrectly, or are defective, they might be presenting something like 0.5 ohms to the amp, which would surely make a vast majority of amps out there go into protect.

I feel your frustration here, especially if it turns out to be defective equipment. You'll be beating yourself up trying to figure it out, when it is in no way your fault. I have been there, done that ... it sucks.

Good luck!

 

[Hirudin]

Something I would do is get a 1/8" mini-jack (headphone jack) to RCA adapter and try plugging that into the RCA inputs.

Also, if you're not sure the impedance of your subs and don't want to find out, maybe you could disconnect the subs to see if that makes any difference.

 

[tsunami]

i would check your wiring for the LOC for sure as well make sure you are getting the correct source there are a couple links for wire colors for these cars make sure they match up. also as some one else mentioned the impedence of your subs could be an issue... have you tried your subs in your friends car yet? that would clear that issue up if your friends amp and your amp are the same or at least support the same impedence.

 

[Abaddon]

Check the ground on the amp.

And once you've checked it.. check it again.

It sounds like the amp isn't grounded properly and when you hook up the signal wires, it grounds itself through them and goes into protect mode.

Edit: nevermind.. I see you HAVE checked it multiple times... um.. well.... the amp just might be toast. Try hooking it up to your friends headunit... and if that doesn't work.. put it back in his car to see if it still works.

Edit #2: Ya.. check what tsunami said first...

 

[fourthmeal]

Try an alternate input (like an iPod hooked up to RCA leads) and send the amp a signal. See if it still behaves badly.

 

[KaiserSoze]

Sorry for not keeping this updated. After a week of trying to rule things out, I finally decided to rule the sub out. I put one of my house speakers in the hatch and sure enough, it worked fine. So I got about 2 months of use out of my sub and then my first amp blew, presumably taking one of the voice coils along with it. At any rate, I did also have bad wiring behind the dash. I had a crappy remote turn on connection. So all that is fixed and now I'm just waiting to get another sub. Any suggestions for a cheap but good 4 ohm 10? I've heard really good things about Cadence (from someone who had them) that I can get for about $60 new (regular $200) from an ebay store.

 

[Hirudin]

I got some Cadence 6.5" components (ZXN-6K) for my '93 ford ranger. I do NOT have an ear for sound quality, but I can tell you that they were actually quieter than my stock speakers...

Like I said, they may have sounded much better, but they weren't louder.

 

[dtlmunkey]

Check Crutchfield.com if you are looking for good deals on a 10". I have an Alpine that sounds nice in a sealed box that I got for around $60. Usually they have a buy one get one half off deal, so see if you can find someone else to split the bill with and get it cheaper. They sell JL audio now, which is also pretty good imho.

 

[KaiserSoze]

Well, I'm 99% sure I'll be going with an eD 11Kv2. As long as the "bank" agrees for $90 for the sub and then either $55 for the box or me building my own. I've heard nothing but good on eD's subs and you can't beat an ideal sealed box volume of 0.6 cu ft.