annoying problem plz help

[lsufan778 10+ year member]

I got an alpine cda-9825 installed along with some boston components and it sounded nice but didn't have any low end. So I took out my infinity kappa 10" dvc sub and box along with my alpine 200w mono amp from my old car. They worked fine together although not giving me extreme spl at all. Well I installed the amp in my 1997 pathfinder and connected the sub to it exactly how it was before. When I power up the head unit I get almost zero volume from the sub. I tried all of the setting on the head unit and all of the settings on my amp and still very little output even with everything maxed out. Before I had everything set on flat and I had three times the output I have now. The fronts completely drown out the sub. The amp doesn't get even a little warm with the volume on 15/25, the gain up significantly,

and all bass boosts on. Could this lack of voltage be caused by a bad preout on the hu? Could the hu be a lemon? Should i try a diff preout besides the sub preout? plz help.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks.

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[supa_c 5,000+ posts]

You are 100% shure you wired it correctly ?

It might be in 8 ohms and not 2 if its a DVC 4 ohm

 

[themainjam 10+ year member]

swap the plus and neg on one of the coils......... it works for me.....

 

[lsufan778 10+ year member]

i have it wired the same way it was before because i never took the sub out of the original box. So the sub is definitely wired correctly and so is the amp. It has to be the hu i guess? Or the amp is not drawing enough power from the battery or sumpthin'?

 

[LBX2G 10+ year member]

what kinda car was it in before.

 

[themainjam 10+ year member]

just telling you what i have to do. i dont know why but i will move my amp and box from one car to another and sometimes its just what i got to do. pushing a single 10" should not draw too much from your battery. especially only 200W...... sounds like the polarity is wrong but i hope you figure it out man!

 

[lsufan778 10+ year member]

It was in a camry with an eclipse hu set on flat and it sounded awesome. I moved it to my pathfinder and i can't even tell the thing is on. The driver doesn't even flex at very high volumes. I'll recheck the wiring again but i think it is the stupid alpine cda-9825. Someone i talked to said they had the same type of problem with this hu. I'll never buy alpine again. Even eclipses cheapest model blows away any alpine junk.

 

[bonesninja 5,000+ posts]

your headunit has a internal subwoofer gain control make sure you have it turned up to where it needs to be ---not the gain on the amp thats something totally different---on my alpine its called subwoofer output level control and goes from 0 to 15-with 15 being maxout. try that

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, IIRC on Alpine HU's the 0 is really -15, and 15 is really 0....so you need to set it to 15 for it to put out it's full volume.

Check and make sure you have a good ground.

 

[lsufan778 10+ year member]

I tried the subwoofer volume level on the hu and still no response. When i say there is no sound i mean there is literally no sound. Like if you put your ear up to the driver you can't tell it is on. The amp doesn't get hot either after extended play.

I tried installing the old eclipse but something really strange happened. After i put the unit in, i went to put the negative terminal back on the battery and the second the terminal was connected the unit came on with some error message. I don't even have the key in the ignition and the stupid hu turns on. I think it has a mind of its own. Well i closed the hood and started the car and the hu went into some kind of safe mode that i cant disable. Its that stupid ESN security thing and it wont play so i cant test out the system with it installed.

I think im going to return the stupid alpine and get a new ECLIPSE - the real deal.

This stuff is giving me a migraine. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I HAVE EXTREMELY BAD LUCK WITH THIS TYPE OF STUFF!

 

[LBX2G 10+ year member]

yo man i say just swicth the rca in the back of the head unit.

 

[bonesninja 5,000+ posts]

i say you should probably take it to someone who really knows what they're doing. alpine makes great headunits--i'm pretty sure you just don't have something wired right or something set right. btw--i'm not saying that you don't know what you doing but sometimes a fresh set of eyes makes a world of difference.