Yes, this procedure should help isolate. I would do the LOC last.
K, so the Amp does not smoke with just power/ground connected. I unfortunately don't have a way to isolate the PnP harness from the LOC, as the one powers the other. I
did think to change out the RCA's this time, to eliminate that variable, to no avail. With different RCAs from LOC to amp, and with LOC connected, but with speakers
not yet connected to the amp (note, I did have the two channels connected from PnP harness to high input on LOC), I powered on the radio to reproduce smoke immediately. I could actually see orange flame through the cracks of the amp housing, to the far right in pic, behind the speaker terminals-
So, with each speaker wire/speed wire pair previously tested (okay) via multimeter, it would appear the issue is either with the LOC or the PnP harness. Please correct me if I'm thinking incorrectly here. Should I repeat, with high input disconnected from LOC, from PnP harness? Would that make a difference, or help to further isolate issue, between LOC and harness?
Question is, assuming above thinking is correct, and with no desire to fry a
third amp, do I go ahead and replace the LOC
and the harness (with my own manually run speaker wires, with the OEM wires snipped and spliced behind the head unit instead of using a harness, and with LOC powered from fuse panel), or just replace one or the other? I bought harness and LOC together, from here:
https://plugnplaykits.com/products/...audio-harnesses-kits-1?variant=41430559948990
I guess the other possibility still exists that I've wired something wrong (wiring logic explained on a prior response, on this thread).