Quick advice needed on unfinished amp install

[GreenSpeed]

Hey guys-

I am below a novice when it comes to audio stuff, but I always like to learn by trial and error so I decided to undergo the process on my own. I have a single amp connected to the factory HU and a small sub in the back, but cannot get the amp or the HU to turn on when the ignition is turned 2 clicks and even when the car is started.

I followed the crutchfield guide as closely as I could, but when I turn on the car, the HU and amp do not power on.

Here's a quick summary:

-Power Cable from Amp Power through firewall to 80 amp fuse, then about 6 inches to positive battery
-Remote power spliced from blue cable on blue harness from factory HU. I simply cut the blue cable a few inches from the HU and spliced in a new remote wire into the existing two.
-Grounded on a well sanded and exposed bolt about 4 inches from amp, which is under the passenger seat.
-Obviously the factory HU doesn't have RCA's, so I spliced new speaker wire for all 4 speakers from the blue harness and their indivual colors based on the wire reference guide in this forum. The speaker wires are running to hi-level inputs on the amp (ran the RCA's from the stereo area to the amp without connecting them for future ease of attachment)
-Sub is connected to amp without power

I can't think of anything else. Can someone tell me why my amp and HU aren't turning on? I tested the blue remote wire before and after cutting it for splicing to make sure I had the power wire.

Really appreciate some quick advice as I have my car apart and need to drive the car tomorrow morning.

Thanks!!!!

[mickymouse]

Hi,

you connected everything on the HU?
a) Please check if you have re-connected all connectors.
b) if that fails, remove connector for the speakers from the HU. Does the HU turn on now? Alternatively remove all 4 cables from the high-level input on the amp.. test again

[GreenSpeed]

I figured out how to get power to the amp and still be able to turn it off and on with the ignition. I reconnected the factory remote lead back into the radio harness and ran the remote lead from the amp to a 12v source (the cig lighter). It works great now, but I have yet another problem now......

When I turn the volume past about 20 on the factory HU, the sound completely cuts out. I can't get the sound back by turning off the radio. Instead it requires me to completely shut off the car and the sound will come back again after turning the ignition to on.

Each time I push the volume up around 20, sound shuts down. I have even tried turning the car on with the volume set to 45 or higher and there's an immediate static click and no sound. Weird.

Could it be related to not having positive/negatives correct on the speaker wires going into the high level inputs? Am I having these problems because I'm not using RCA's?

Thanks again.

[mickymouse]

there is a volume adjust on the amp... right?
close it all the way down (so it will not be loud at all)
increase the volume on the HU again.. will it go past 20 now?

BTW, you really should not run the amp remote turn on on the cigarette lighter.
The setup needs to run on the remote of the HU.
in order to reduce possible error sources... connect only one side (i.e. L) and check on the HU if you have the right side (use Fader and Balance control to do so).

Cheers Mike

[GreenSpeed]

Hey Mike-

Thanks for the info. I spent over four hours last night trying to get the HU remote lead to work with no success.

I tried every single variation possible from connecting a new remote lead from the amp to the existing lead from the HU harness and several other methods from the harness lead to try and get it to work.

The problem with connecting to the HU was that once connected, the amp would power on, but it would stay on even after the car was turned off and the key removed from the ignition.

The only way I could get the amp to turn on an off with the car was to send the amp remote lead to the cig lighter and then just reconnect the factory lead as if it had never been cut in the first place. Believe me....I tried every way possible to make your suggestion work.

[GreenSpeed]

Oh, and I'll give your voume suggestion a try. M amp does not have a volume adjustment per se, but several gain adjustments....is that the same?

[mickymouse]

tried to answer yesterday.. but the site was down

hi,

yes, some call it gain.. some volume.. all the same.
You need to match the amplifier output with the signal input.

Think of it as the throttle control of your car.
If you press the accelerator pedal 1/4 and the throttle opens 100% it is too much and you "loose" 3/4 of travel.

Similar to the amp - HU. If the HU is "open" about 75% your amp should be "open2 about the same. In order to do that you reduce the gain to a very low value and increase the HU volume to a point at about 3/4. Now the sound should still be nice and clear.
Increase the gain slowly .. when you start to hear distortion go back just a little.

The remote... Do you have a multimeter or a test light?
Make sure your tone controlls are set to neutral.

[bzinn 1]

If your amp is still on while the car is off then you are not hooked in tothe remote on the deck as it loses power after ignition is off.IF amp is shutting down at 20 on deck volume it might be a faulty wire,bad ground,bad signal,bad amp.......the list goes on and on.This next part is important.......

Gains on amps are not volume knobs.this is how you blow up decks,amps and subs and comps.
Google how to tune an amp using the gains the there are lots of forums with info on how to tune amps.

But basically to tune an amp you burn a 80hz 0 decible tone disk.put the disk intothe deck with the gain all the way down on the amp.....put deck to say 15 on volume and set all eq levels to 0 levels.then goto the crossover point knob on the amp and turn it till the sound gets the loudest then back it off just a little bit.that gives you the point the subs crossover at from the main speakers.If amp has no crossover point knob use the closes to 50-100 on the deck itself and that will give you the best signal to the subs and amp.

Then you need to figure out how many watts are going to goto the sub with a calculator and multiply that by the ohms the sub is going to run at......then take the square root of that number and that gives you the AC voltage.......for instance amp is giving 600w x 2 ohms = 1200 then take the square root of that numberand you get 34.64.

That is just an example


Then turn the gains all the way down,turn deck up to 75% volume which is an average volume that decks will start to clip the signal after.while playing the tone disk on repeat,what I do is burn a disk with the tone on it liek 10 times so I do not need to wait as long for the repeat to read my disk.

Put a voltage meter on the + and - terminals for the sub,reading the AC voltage with the sub hooked up and bring slowly the gain up to the number you found as the square root,as in the example 34vac.that will give you the max clean power to your sub.

Be sure to never turn your deck up past that volume after that as you will jsut get a clipped signal and it will sound like crap,destroy your sub,and blow your amp.

Also never use bass boost....it does nothing more than trash your voice coils,it has a purpose,but not for daily use.

[GreenSpeed]

^^^^^Wow....great info!!! I just tried to find an 80 hz 0 Decibel tone sample on the internet and nothing came up. Any suggestions on where to find that so I can burn a disc with it?

[bzinn 1]

Sorry it took so long to get back with the info.......here is the link

http://www.realmofexcursion.com/downloads.html

when you go on scroll down to the part where it has all the tones listed in differant hertz they are all 15 seconds long.

What I did was copy it to my desktop then pull another copy to it till I had like 10 copies then used my media player to burn a disk.

I am sure there must be a easier way to copy but I am an idiot when it comes to burning stuff still.

I burned a 80hz to tune the sub and a 400hz to tune my front speakers.if you use the 80hz to tune the speakers you will get clipping before you get to max wattage.

For tweeters you can use like a 3500hz or so,but that is mainly if you area running an active system with 3 way comps.

Also if you have a sub that works comfortly in the 30-50hz range you can tune it with that,mine(Image Dynamics ID10s)dont really do well that low in sealed boxes,and I get better sound out of them using a 80hz.

Just dont tune your sub to 80hz crossover pont then you spekers to 400hz crosover point or you lose all the sound inbetween,you just use the disks to get the crossover points first then to tune the wattage
I can run my amp for hours and it never gets hot,no fans,nothing.when I used to have my bass boost turned up it got so hot I could not touch it in 20 minutes and the sound was louder but horrid.

also read up in the following forums.

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/index.php

free to make a membership and there is so much info there to read you will be amazed.I have been reading for about 9 months now and have learned so much I now am the guy everyone goes to to tune their amps and subs and install everything.....cannot complain as I get free beer from it and also teach them how to do it as well so they can do it for someone else.

[bzinn 1]

Once you build a hardcore system you use the sine waves to balance it all out,but that is a whole new game,and not needed for a daily driver stereo system....more for tuning for compitition and SQ setups for those who are really into sound quality.....I hae used a few to help me set eq settings and get things aimed correctly in the car.

[talnlnky]

a sine disc is a must for anybody serious about stereo.... whether it be home audio/theater, car audio (SQ or SPL).

Sines make for great tools & toys.

[GreenSpeed]

I feel like a little dog trying to drink from a fire hydrant. Great info, but don't know if I can keep up. LOL

[skigil]

i've been wanting to get into the Sine stuff for a while, is there a place I can find out more information on them? I'm anal about my sound and would like to know how I can better it. I have a Pioneer HU, an external Alpine amp for my 4 speakers, and an extra amp for my sub. I want to make sure I am getting the best out of my equipment.

[bzinn 1]

Just start with the burning of tone disks and gettign amp tuned,once you get that doen then read up on sine disks and how to use them on the sites provided and you will be fine.

[talnlnky]

do a search for "Audio Tools", or "Audio, installation discs" on google... Bass CD's often have some sine waves there too.

If you want to do it on the cheap... Find a Wave Generator/Sine generator program, and record them in .wav format, or any other loss less format. MP3's and other compressed options aren't as good. Then just burn them on a disc.

I have a Bass Mechanik Set that is 2 discs... has all kinds of stuff... I've gont from 20hz to 99hz in .1hz increments, as well as some audio tools like digital blank, white noise, sweeps, and even 10hz & 1hz tones. Never found cd player & amp combo that can play the 1hz tone... but 10hz is a properly tuned Home Theater ported box is WAY COOL.

Digital Black is really cool for finding out how much noise your cd-player & amps add to the signal... play the track, crank it up... and you SHOULD hear nothing... if your equipment has a bad signal/noise ratio however you'll hear noise of some sort (like static). I had an old school sony ES amp back in the day... (Please don't laugh).. It was AWESOME for the signal/noise... thing was SILENT.. I couldn't believe it... problem was it blew a resistor, then some mosfets really easily, it was the Achilles of the amp.