Why is my door speaker amp quitting at 1/4 volume.

[truckinat15]

Why is my door speaker amp quitting at 1/4 volume HELP PLEASE

I decided to hook up an old amp i had (audiobahn A2200E) to my front door speakers to see if it would help my door speakers from being overpowered by my sub. i looked for about 20 min and decided it was impossible to run a wire from the inside of the car to the door through the little rubber thing. I dont know if i did this right (this is my first time hooking up an amp entirely by myself) but i just spliced the speaker wire from the amp into the speaker wire running from the head unit. i made sure that they were the right wires because they were labeled. i hooked up the RCA cable to the one labeled FRONT, i figured this meant front speakers. So i turn on the car for the first time to hear it and it plays for about 1 sec then stops but the sub is still bumping so i look at the door speaker amp and there is a red light on that is labeled OVER, but the green POWER light is still lit, while the THERM yelow light is not. so i turn my car off then turn it back on and play it at super low volumes, less than 1/4 and it plays fine but when i turned up the volume to anything above it, it would just stop and the red light would come on. The amp wasnt hot or anything it just would stop working, did i really mess up wiring or is the amp screwed up????

 

[davesexplorer]

*I have the same amp running a component set in my front doors.

1. First make sure your speakers can take that much power, 50-60 watts rms
2. then go to your amp, youll see a screw adjuster that says "gain" over it, you'll want this screw to be turned down, to the "min", or the lowest voltage present.
3. Turn your volume on your Head unit to a comfortable level, and adjust your "gain" screw up on your amp little by little as desired so that the speakers dont distort.

If that doesn't work,
-check your connections into the speaker wires, your connections to the stock speaker wire, may be contacting metal etc.
-you might want to think about running new speaker wires, its hardly impossible, just takes time and patience
-check all connections to the amplifier

Reply back if youve done all the aforementioned steps and it still doesn't work, Good Luck!

 

[MrExplorer]

Sounds like you have a short somewhere or have the wrong wires in your speaker wiring. Personally id run new wiring to those speakers to be sure. If you are able to use an ohm meter i would make sure your leads arent shorted to each other or to ground You can also verify you have the correct leads. Otherwords you could have one lead from one speaker and another from the other speaker. GOOD LUCK!

 

[truckinat15]

Well i checked every connection and made sure everything was connected correctly and good. I didnt run the wires from the amp because i did a search and found that many people were able to just splice into the factory wiring and were successful. I turned on the car and kept the volume low, everything seemed fine until i turned it up a lil and the chorus came in the speakers kind of cracked and stopped playing, then i smelled something bad from my headunit, i took it out and it was HOT so i disconnected all the speaker wires from the head unit and just hooked up the factory wire and took out the rcas but when i went to play it again to make srue everything was fine there was no sound at all from the speakers, the sub was still working fine and the head unit seemed fine but there was no sound to the speakers??? What did i do to screw it up so badly and how bad is it?

 

[Geoff123]

Yes, check all of your wires. Most likely, you will find that it is the wiring to the amp. The first place I would check is the ground wire from the amp. If you have checked all the wiring, then it is the amp. The reason that red light comes on is because it is a wiring problem. The yellow, it sounds like is a temperature warning light. The green is on because the amp has power running to it.

Hope I could help you out
Geoff

 

[truckinat15]

Could someone please help me out here. I have no idea what happened?!?!?! I think that i might have burnt up my wiring harness but thats the only thing i can think of, i checked it and all the wires are fine and hooked up right. The head unit is still sending the signal to the sub and all the functions still work i just get no sound!!!!!! What happened?

 

[Naga Sadow]

An universal reply for anything electronic. Maybe you have a virus.

 

[davesexplorer]

Ok it should look like this (crude drawing)

IMPORTANT : In the middle paragraph, between speakers and amp, by "They" I mean your speaker wires should only be hooked up to your external amp.
The speakers from your head unit should not be connected to your speaker wiring if already powered by another amp.

Other than checking your crimps, or solders this is about it as much as i can help you

are you hooking up all your door speakers to your amp?
do you have another amp running the sub?
what is your head unit running? (if anything)
Did you cap off the Head units amp leads if unused?

 

[truckinat15]

im trying to hook up the amp to the front two speakers since it is two channel and puts out 50x2 at 4 ohms and the speakers can handle 100 i thought it would make a great improvement over stock.
I have another one channel amp running to my sub.
the head unit is running all 4 speakers.

I dont understand what you mean about where the wires run from the head unit. you say they should not be hooked up to my speakers, that doesnt seem to make much since, if the wires from the HU are not hooked up to my speakers how did they work before?
Are you saying that i should cut the connection from the head unit to the speakers then run the wire from the amp into the wire that runs to the speaker, leaving 4 wires connected to nothing?????


I read that others on this forum spliced into the factory wiring, why didnt this work for me? and still my speakers will make no noise. Im gonna get a new wiring harness today and see if that will do it, i hope it does cuz if it doesnt i have no idea what im going to do. Thanks for your help

 

[MrExplorer]

Am i reading this correct? You just spiced into the speaker harness without disconnecting them from the HU? If thats the case its not going to work. Splicing into the harness is normally no problem at all if A: you have the correct wires that run to the speakers and B: they are ONLY going to the speakers. and C: you arent pushing excessive wattage. So if they are still going to the HU or the factory amp you will have to cut them and tape properly. But if you arent good at reading diagrams and using a multimeter the best way to solve the problem is to run new wires from the amp to the speakers. If i misunderstood what you did please disregard.

 

[truckinat15]

yes i understand that i messed that part of it up. i should have disconnected the speaker wires when i spliced into them, but why is there no sound now?? is it the harness or is my HU messed up

 

[truckinat15]

Yes i am a complete idiot, instead of just trying it the way you guys said i wanted to do it my way. Well finally tonite i decided to try it your way and guess what.....IT WORKED. I dont think I will ever question you guys again. Thanks a lot.

 

[davesexplorer]

no prob, i like to help when i can, and this is definitely the best bunch of people (forum users) that u can ask Q?s to.