Amp blown or what?

09Alti
10+ year member

CarAudio.com Elite
Ok guys I need some help. Sorry if I sound like a newb, but I kinda am.

I have 2 Kicker CVR 12 D4s and had them running off of a Kicker SX900.2 and had pretty decent sound for what the equipment is. I recently traded my amp for a new one (I won't say what brand it is yet) that is rated at 1500 @ 1. The subs are wired at 1 ohm. When I first hooked up the new amp, I didn't have hardly any sound, so I played around with it some, unmounted the subs and checked my connections etc, and it started working (not sure what I did to make them work, it just worked). So I went out into an empty parking lot to tune the settings and junk and had it sounding ok so I left the lot. On the way home it quit working again. I checked everything again, put it all back exactly how I had it, and it worked again. They worked for about a day and a half and yesterday it quit again.

So tonight I pulled the subs out of the box again and checked the resistance of each coil with a DMM. All 4 coils read exactly 4.5 ohms, so I would assume that these are ok since they're dual 4s right?

I checked the voltage coming from the speaker terminals to the subs on the amp and only see 0.05v. I checked my power wire voltage at the same settings on the DMM and it read 12.5v (car off, radio on and volume at 3/4 volume) I would figure that the voltage coming from the amp should be higher then .05v right?

Another funny thing that I noticed is that with the sub hooked up, I checked the resistance on coil 1 (the one wired to the terminal cup on the box) and get anywhere from 19.x ohms to 22.x ohms, is this normal?

I have the gain at near full and never changed it before/after getting any of the readings from the DMM.

So are these normal readings I should be seeing from the amp? Or what am I doing wrong?

Sorry for the novel but I wanted to give as much info as possible. I can say the name of the amp if needed but I'm afraid there may be some bias on the answer I get if I say the name.

Thank you in advance for any help I can get here, as I am out of answers.

Jeff

 
id say your amp is gone. simply because everything measures fine til you plug up the amp. did this happen with the previous amp? if the answer to that question is no, then id definitely say that its the amp and you need a new one, or send that one in for repairs. im not sure which is going to be more cost effective though.

 
that voltage doesn't sound right and neither does the final impedance at 22 ohms or whatever. are u 100% positive the subs are ok? no half broken tinsil lead or something? Assuming all is will you would have a 1 ohm or 4 ohm load with everything wired up correctly

have you tested output on the amp? with the subs disconnected?

 
I never had ANY issues with the old Kicker amp, none at all. The subs look fine, nothing looks broken etc. I checked the voltage on the amp with the speaker wire disconnected and only get 0.05v. With the subs wired up, the resistance at the speaker terminal on the box is 1.9 ohms

This amp is not even 3 weeks old, and it's covered under warranty. I have sent am email to Jacob with the same info, we'll see what I find out. It's just really frustrating to have 'upgraded' and now have no bump.

 
My guess, it could be, inadequate vehicle electrical(battery), bad ground, loose/bad remote wire, or bad RCA's.

When the amp is not working, check the voltage across the amp terminals. One reason is maybe the voltage is dipping too low and the amp is going into protect.

Does the amp only shut down after listening to it for awhile?

Also when the amp shuts off check the voltage at the remote wire.

Finally you can check for bad RCA's by buying a phone-to-rca wire and plug a mp3 player into the amp.

 
I've never seen my voltage drop below 12.2v, not with the Kicker amp I had before anyways (I had the SXRC hooked up to it and it showed the current voltage at any given time).

The amp has a protection light on it, but it hasn't ever come on. The other day when it was working, I stopped for lunch and it was fine. Got back in the car after lunch and it wouldnt come back on.

Last night when it wasn't working, I had 11.x volts at the remote wire.

I thought it might be the RCAs but when I plug in the set thats running my smaller amp it still doesnt work, but the other amp has no issues.

I just hooked everything back up, without changing anything, and now it's working again. If/when it dies I'll check the voltage across the terminals but for now .... ugh, I don't know.

 
As far as the electrical, it's a 2009 Nissan Altima and I believe it has a stock 160 or 170 amp alternator, so I would assume for as little power I have that should be sufficient.

 
pull out the speaker wires from the amp and test voltage preferably when its "not working" if its still .05v then its something with the amp or power connections (since you checked the rcas already) if its higher like normal then its the subs

 
I think your amp might be gone but you can aim me tonight and we can go over your connections as well as do some troubleshooting. I think you hooked your subs up as a .5 ohm load and may have damaged your amp. Aim me at reimermatt

 
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09Alti

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