Problem with Amp

[pauldriscoll123]

I have had my system set up in my car (originally 320 watt 2 channel boss amp and two 12" JLs) for about 6 months now. They worked without flaw up until two weeks ago. I had hooked my subs upto my buddies car to see what they would sound like with a more powerful amp, and once i hooked them back up I started having what seems to be power problems. The subs would play but at times would cut out then come back on. Eventually this became worse until my amp wouldn't turn on at all. I went out today and bought a 500 watt mono d series alpine amp and hooked it up (thinking maybe my crappy amp had died). Once hooked up the light turned on showing power until the music started and it went out. I disconnected and reconnected battery lead, ground, and antenna to the amp and reconnected. Also checked inline fuse and both fuses in the amp (60 and two 30s respectively). No dice. Hooked up the amp to my buddies car and the light turned on, but unfortunately he didn't have a working sub to test it out on. Any ideas on what this could be? I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do about either the antenna lead or RCAs (possibly fuse in back of headunit) Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks

stock 1998 Civic ex coupe

 

[95Civic Dx]

Your RCAs should not cause this problem because you don't need them to power a amp. Hook it all up with your speakers hooked up and jump your remote wire with the power if it still powers down then it would be a power wire or ground wire problem.

Dose the amp just turn off or go into protection?

Is it hooked up to a aftermarket radio?

Dose it do it at high volumes or low?

 

[lethal6]

A grounded speaker wire causes some amps to go into protection. Check to see if the wire going to the sub box is grounding somewhere. Also check to see if one of the wires in the box it's self is loose and crossing to the other.

If the fuse in the back of the head unit is blown, the head unit would not come on.

 

[pauldriscoll123]

Your RCAs should not cause this problem because you don't need them to power a amp. Hook it all up with your speakers hooked up and jump your remote wire with the power if it still powers down then it would be a power wire or ground wire problem.

Dose the amp just turn off or go into protection?

Is it hooked up to a aftermarket radio?

Dose it do it at high volumes or low?

I checked the end of my ground from the amp to my chasis and it is fine there
Yes it is hooked up to a sony xplode headunit
and it seems to be at high volumes.
What do you mean by jumping the remote wire with the power?
It seems to just turn off, the new amp doesn't have a protection mode indicator, just a blue light on the top to show it is getting power.

 

[pauldriscoll123]

A grounded speaker wire causes some amps to go into protection. Check to see if the wire going to the sub box is grounding somewhere. Also check to see if one of the wires in the box it's self is loose and crossing to the other.

If the fuse in the back of the head unit is blown, the head unit would not come on.

I dont think it is the speaker wires being grounded because when I installed the new amp, I respliced my wires and re connected both sides.
It is possible about the wire itself in the sub but I would not be able to check that for a few days (I am in college and It is finals week)
Another thing I thought it could be is that my amp kit is ran with a 0 gauge power lead so it is possible it is over powering? Not sure why it would only start happening now tho and not in the past.

 

[95Civic Dx]

If the amp dose it at high volumes only then your subs are most likely in the wrong ohm causing to much stress on your amp and it will clip out that is most likely what it is. Or second there might not be enough power going to the amp causing it to clip off.

 

[pauldriscoll123]

If the amp dose it at high volumes only then your subs are most likely in the wrong ohm causing to much stress on your amp and it will clip out that is most likely what it is. Or second there might not be enough power going to the amp causing it to clip off.

1. I don't understand why the ohmage wouldnt have effected it for the past 6 months and just start now
2. That is a possibility but again its only been a problem since I removed my subs and hooked them back up about two weeks ago, I didnt touch the amp when I had done this

 

[DiverDown]

Yes it is hooked up to a sony xplode headunit

Found your problem

But in all seriousness...

I'm not saying you wouldn't know, I'm just covering a base here: Are you sure you didn't blow your subs with your friends bigger amp, and now because they're messed up you're confusing an amp problem for a sub problem? Especially if the new amp is the wrong ohm rating, or they're not wired correctly through the channels to make the correct ohm rating, you could be experiencing sub failure followed by incorrect powering.

The only reason I say that is because this:

The subs would play but at times would cut out then come back on.

sounds EXACTLY like what my old kickers were doing when I overpowered and blew them. They still worked, but when the coil let go it would take a couple notes for them to regrab.

Putting a bigger, incorrectly powered amp on some blown subs wouldn't fix anything if it was the subs

Troubleshoot with crap you'd be ok with destroying if something goes array. Try using the amp with min gain on an old speaker you don't care about, or try powering the sub through a regular pos/neg speaker terminal. If it works, then that's not the problem

 

[pauldriscoll123]

I'm not saying you wouldn't know, I'm just covering a base here: Are you sure you didn't blow your subs with your friends bigger amp, and now because they're messed up you're confusing an amp problem for a sub problem? Especially if the new amp is the wrong ohm rating, or they're not wired correctly through the channels to make the correct ohm rating, you could be experiencing sub failure followed by incorrect powering.

The only reason I say that is because this:

sounds EXACTLY like what my old kickers were doing when I overpowered and blew them. They still worked, but when the coil let go it would take a couple notes for them to regrab.

Putting a bigger, incorrectly powered amp on some blown subs wouldn't fix anything if it was the subs

Ironically the amp my friend had that I had hooked it up to is the exact same amp I bought since I liked how it sounded so much so I'm not sure about the ohmage problem, I am hopefully going to be able to hook the subs up to someone elses system today and see if that is the problem, if not then I guess we are back to leads and wires (which is such a pain to check, I hid those suckers in my car pretty well)

 

[DiverDown]

Could have taken a pretty heavy stress load before they blew. I trust you're judgement man, I'm just playin' devil's advocate.

How'd that test go?

 

[pauldriscoll123]

Could have taken a pretty heavy stress load before they blew. I trust you're judgement man, I'm just playin' devil's advocate.

How'd that test go?

Well the subs worked on another persons amp and car, but they didnt work when I hooked up my amp to his car with either my subs or his so i simply returned the amp to best buy because It was obviously defective, Still doesnt explain the original amp tho. I will test the original amp again today

 

[natejdm]

did any of the wires come out from the amp when u had power running to it?
did it smoke?
u got your ground and power in the right spot

i had my amp running then it fell and my speaker wires fell out that made my fuse blow

are you running a fuse?
or did u just run the power to your battery

 

[95Civic Dx]

1. I don't understand why the ohmage wouldnt have effected it for the past 6 months and just start now
2. That is a possibility but again its only been a problem since I removed my subs and hooked them back up about two weeks ago, I didnt touch the amp when I had done this

Well for one you car run a 1ohm amp at .5ohm but you are putting to much stress on it causing it to cause problems your not just going to hook it up and pop.

Another thing is that if you have high wattage subs on a underpowered amp and have it turned all the way up it can cause it to over head and clip out.

And as for returning it they usually require electronics to be installed by a professional so that not ever nut job that crosses the wrong wires gets a free replacement.

 

[pauldriscoll123]

did any of the wires come out from the amp when u had power running to it?
did it smoke?
u got your ground and power in the right spot

i had my amp running then it fell and my speaker wires fell out that made my fuse blow

are you running a fuse?
or did u just run the power to your battery

Yes everything is in the right spot, no wires were loose, and it did not smoke and i have a 60 watt inline. It definitely has something to do with the wires I feel tho because I tried to put in the old amp today and it did not even power up.

 

[pauldriscoll123]

Well for one you car run a 1ohm amp at .5ohm but you are putting to much stress on it causing it to cause problems your not just going to hook it up and pop.

Another thing is that if you have high wattage subs on a underpowered amp and have it turned all the way up it can cause it to over head and clip out.

And as for returning it they usually require electronics to be installed by a professional so that not ever nut job that crosses the wrong wires gets a free replacement.

Well this is by far not my first time running any electronics whether it is in a car or a home so I know it wasn't me, but they were very accommodating to my return with no questions ask so I just took the money and ran.

The amp is a 2/4 ohm and the subs I'm almost positive are running at 4 ohms.

It is possible that the amp just met its fate because it is a very old boss 320 watt 2 channel amp, which when I think of boss i don't think of reliable.

I need to find a working set up and just plug it into my car to eliminate doubts of amp/sub defects

 

[95Civic Dx]

Old boss amp that has been the problem the whole time. The BAMF series for power acoustik are reliable and affordable or kole audio both made by the same company.

 

[DiverDown]

Yea that's a rough situation man.

I definitely think it's a powering problem too if you aren't even getting power. Most amps have the "power-protect" light that tells you when it's receiving some type of power but it's not able to do what it needs to with is (bad ground, bad electronics, just finally fried, etc.), so that fact that you aren't even getting power is sorta tell-tale of only a few possibilities. How to fix it? Follow the flow

First thing I would do is make sure everything with the head unit is turned on. I know this sounds stupid, but I thought I blew my amp once cause I had taken the battery terminal off and forgot the default setting on my deck is RCA Output Off. Then make sure the remote wire is still connected, especially if you used crimp connectors (those suckers pop off like nothin'). If that's all good, take off the interior trim and follow the line looking for cuts/crimps/bends/stripping or anything else that could have made a problem. You could try cleaning/replacing your fuse/terminal connectors if that fails, even though that's probably not it.

Best of luck man!

 

[Logan98036wa]

go through and replace the old wiring and go from there to the speaker itself
IMO