HELP! I changed a speaker while the car was running and now I hear nothing!

[dccurrent]

Oh man I think I really screwed up. I changed the front two speakers, and while I was testing them out (with the car running so the battery didn't drain) I heard an annoying rattle from the right speaker. I determined that it was most likely the speaker itself, so I decided to swap it with another to make sure.


So I turned off the stereo, and with the car running, I switched it out for another speaker. I then turned on the stereo, and all I hear is a light "pop" sound from that right speaker and no sound at all! Complete silence no matter what the source. The head unit does everything as before only I can't hear a thing! Does anyone know what happened? What's the extent of the damage if any?

[IllusionX]

you probably fried the internal amp.

although.. you might want to check the fuses... i'm almost sure there's an internal fuse on the HU itself.

[dccurrent]

you probably fried the internal amp.

although.. you might want to check the fuses... i'm almost sure there's an internal fuse on the HU itself.

Would the fuse be behind the head unit or literally inside it? This is so aggravating and I am so upset at myself.

[dccurrent]

you probably fried the internal amp.

although.. you might want to check the fuses... i'm almost sure there's an internal fuse on the HU itself.

If the internal amp is indeed fried, would I still be able to use the preamp outputs to install an external amp? Is there any way to check these connections?

[YarisSedan]

If you did fry the internal amp just buy a new deck. Its cheaper than a trying to hook up a external amp to it. ANd you will get better sound quality

[Spades]

fuse for the stereo is in your regular fuse panel...on the plastic cover it will list which one is for the radio.

even if you did fry the stock stereo, $100 will get you a decent CD reciver. if you are only spending around $100, make sure you get a semi quality entry level unit like a pioneer, kenwood, clarion,ect. I would advice against cheap-o decks with more features than a single 1/8" input and a cd reciver & am/fm tuner...to get fancy displays companies sacrifice quality and longevity for bells and whistles.

[dccurrent]

If you did fry the internal amp just buy a new deck. Its cheaper than a trying to hook up a external amp to it. ANd you will get better sound quality

fuse for the stereo is in your regular fuse panel...on the plastic cover it will list which one is for the radio.

even if you did fry the stock stereo, $100 will get you a decent CD reciver. if you are only spending around $100, make sure you get a semi quality entry level unit like a pioneer, kenwood, clarion,ect. I would advice against cheap-o decks with more features than a single 1/8" input and a cd reciver & am/fm tuner...to get fancy displays companies sacrifice quality and longevity for bells and whistles.

I apologize but I should have mentioned that I already have an aftermarket HU - a Pioneer. It works just like before only it's completely silent. Wouldn't a blown fuse render the unit completely inoperable as opposed to just the sound? Unless the fuse is only for the amp. This is why I want to check if the preamps work to put an external amp because I don't want to get yet another stereo.

[Spades]

yeah. a fuse under the dash will kill the whole unit. sometimes on the back of decks they have a fuse in the power wire to the unit, or on the back of the unit itself, but not likely...and ussually if they blow the unit is inop.

chances are you blew the unit up. if its under warranty you could take it back to where you bought it, and if not i would say you are screwed and will have to look at buying another head unit.

im sure there is a way to fix it, but, most pioneer decks arent worth the repair cost...price of imported goods is low, but labor is still high. maybe one of the forum gurus here can give you some advice, there may be a simple way to fix it...but if the unit is operating normally but without sound, sounds like you fried the internal amp or the circuitry going to it in some way.

[dccurrent]

yeah. a fuse under the dash will kill the whole unit. sometimes on the back of decks they have a fuse in the power wire to the unit, or on the back of the unit itself, but not likely...and ussually if they blow the unit is inop.

chances are you blew the unit up. if its under warranty you could take it back to where you bought it, and if not i would say you are screwed and will have to look at buying another head unit.

im sure there is a way to fix it, but, most pioneer decks arent worth the repair cost...price of imported goods is low, but labor is still high. maybe one of the forum gurus here can give you some advice, there may be a simple way to fix it...but if the unit is operating normally but without sound, sounds like you fried the internal amp or the circuitry going to it in some way.

Thanks for all the help. I guess it's time to switch out my deck. Yet again. Well, at least all I'll have to do is plug the wire in the back this time since I did all the prep work already! Wiring the unit for a 4 channel external amp would be too much trouble anyway. It's a shame too because it sounded pretty damned good.

[CTScott]

Oh man I think I really screwed up. I changed the front two speakers, and while I was testing them out (with the car running so the battery didn't drain) I heard an annoying rattle from the right speaker. I determined that it was most likely the speaker itself, so I decided to swap it with another to make sure.


So I turned off the stereo, and with the car running, I switched it out for another speaker. I then turned on the stereo, and all I hear is a light "pop" sound from that right speaker and no sound at all! Complete silence no matter what the source. The head unit does everything as before only I can't hear a thing! Does anyone know what happened? What's the extent of the damage if any?


You say you had the HU powered off while swapping the speaker. If the HU was off, even if the car was on, you wouldn't hurt the HU. I would double check the speaker connections and make sure you don't have one of the tabs shorting to something.

[dccurrent]

You say you had the HU powered off while swapping the speaker. If the HU was off, even if the car was on, you wouldn't hurt the HU. I would double check the speaker connections and make sure you don't have one of the tabs shorting to something.

Would a short on the speaker I swapped cause the rest of them to not function as well? I am going to disconnect it and see what happens before I go ahead and buy another HU. I can't imagine what the connectors could have possibly touched to cause the short but I sure hope you're right.

[dccurrent]

Well I went ahead and disconnected the speaker and the stereo worked great! I then reattached the speaker and the stereo is now back to normal. Something must have thrown it out of whack but now that I disconnected and reconnected the speaker it's back to normal. Thanks everyone for the help!

[wsladaritz]

I had a similar problem when I put new speakers in. It was a short somewhere, but I never figured out where. I just got pissed and redid all the connections to all the speakers. One short on one speaker cause the head unit to stop sending out the audio to all speakers, some safety feature thing. It would still come on but I couldn't hear anything until the short got fixed. Disconnect all the speakers and reconnect them better than you had before. If you had to cut any wires anywhere try to cutting your connections again and giving them more length to contact each other. If you just twisted them together you might want to try soldering them together or using wire nuts and electrical tape to make sure they come off. And check all your fuses in the fuse box! It's quick and easy to just look and see if one blew.