Do I need more amp or a higher preout voltage?

[grampi 10+ year member]

shit happens, must been a short somewhere.

A short that caused the preamp signal to not be present on all 4 rca's. What are the odds of that happening?

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

Yes I do, but right now I need to figure out if my problem is my amp or the HU. I don't see how you can blow a HU's preouts, especially a brand new one with less than 2 hours total playing time. But it makes no sense that I can't read any voltage on these preouts.

did you even see if ur sub was gettin a signal or not and whre did you put the dmm leads on the rca pin?

 

[grampi 10+ year member]

Have you checked to see that the sub is even playing for sure?

none of the speakers are playing at all.

 

[grampi 10+ year member]

did you even see if ur sub was gettin a signal or not and whre did you put the dmm leads on the rca pin?

I put one the outer rca ring, and one on the center pin.

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

Wait what? They WERE all playing at one time right??

If nothing is getting anythign now, its either your amp is shot, or your HU is shot, the only way to test the amp is to put it in another car since you're unsure about the HU.

If the HU has no voltage on any rca, then its prob toasted.

 

[luvinthebass 5,000+ posts]

I put one the outer rca ring, and one on the center pin.

like this?

sorry for the low quality drawing...

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

Wait what? They WERE all playing at one time right??
If nothing is getting anythign now, its either your amp is shot, or your HU is shot, the only way to test the amp is to put it in another car since you're unsure about the HU.

if you have a home theater setup that you can hook it to and a 12 volt battery you can test the amp in your house as well.

i'm running my HT sub right now off of a Rockford 301M using a car battery that i keep charging. lol so that is one more option if your unsure of the head unit.

 

[nauc 10+ year member]

i ordered a deck from crutchfield and within a day, the rcas stopped working

they shipped me a new one, got it the next day

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

Grampi where'd u get the 9887?

 

[grampi 10+ year member]

Grampi where'd u get the 9887?

From an unauthorized seller on ebay. What would possibly cause preouts to go bad on a BRAND NEW HU? I've never heard of preouts going bad on any HU, ever!

I really appreciate you guys trying to help and please don't think I'm taking out my frustrations on you, but right now I hate this hobby more than I've ever hated anything. I used to love it. I tried to take care during the install to make sure everything was done correctly. I didn't know anything about how to set the gains and now it looks like that's coming back to bite me in the ***, at least with amp anyway (if it's actually bad). If the preouts are bad that's on Alpine. There's no way preouts should go bad in the first place, let alone when the unit is still brand new. But if they are bad, I'm screwed there too because I bought from an unauthorized dealer. I don't know what to do. I'm basically fukked.

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

From an unauthorized seller on ebay. What would possibly cause preouts to go bad on a BRAND NEW HU? I've never heard of preouts going bad on any HU, ever!
I really appreciate you guys trying to help and please don't think I'm taking out my frustrations on you, but right now I hate this hobby more than I've ever hated anything. I used to love it. I tried to take care during the install to make sure everything was done correctly. I didn't know anything about how to set the gains and now it looks like that's coming back to bite me in the ***, at least with amp anyway (if it's actually bad). If the preouts are bad that's on Alpine. There's no way preouts should go bad in the first place, let alone when the unit is still brand new. But if they are bad, I'm screwed there too because I bought from an unauthorized dealer. I don't know what to do. I'm basically fukked.

Could have been a returned product or refurbed or a in house fix that wasn't properly repaired. Could be a number of things. Thats the problem buying unauthorized.

Hot swapping the rca's can cause an issue, as well as possibly shorting them out somewhere, possibly an internal problem with the HU.

 

[grampi 10+ year member]

I just tried to take a voltage measurement on the line out from my satellite receiver and I got no reading there either and I know it's working because I plugged in a set of headphones and they worked. My DMM reads battery voltage (DC), but it's not reading anything on preamp lines (in AC or DC). Do I have some type of electrical phonmenon going on in my garage? Am I located in some kind of Bermuda triangle or something?

 

[nismos14 5,000+ posts]

Take a pic of the setting your using on our DMM.

 

[IamDeMan 5,000+ posts]

While your reasoning is based in truth, your simply not correct. yes our ears do not hear distortion as easily in the subbass region, but to say the sub must surpass xmech before it becomes audible? You are off your rocker. What does xmech (the driver's "physical limitations") even have to do with audibility of distortion, according to your theory? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eyebrow.gif.fe2c18d8720fe8c7eaed347b21ea05a5.gif
It doesn't take a golden ear to hear distortion in subbass, nice try. Lets turn your last statement around on you. If subbass distortion was so inaudible, we wouldn't have gain setting tutorials based around setting the gains by ear (listening for distortion).

I think you should be reading more and typing less in this convo, you seemed to be rather confused about the topic. Here you are lecturing about subbass distortion, and you dont evcen think its audible. Heck if we can't hear it, might as well crank our subbass amplifier gains, right? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

Interesting, now you think you cant hear distortion below 280hz? Do you set your sub gains by guess? And you fail to realize my contention with your statement had to do with your comment that the speaker's 'physical limitations' must be exceeded before distortion becomes audible. None of your quote above discusses that topic in any way, now you just want to discuss distortion levels based on frequency. Ive never argued subbass distortion is harder to hear than midrange, clearly it is. Stay on topic.

AHHH, I see where we are lost. I wasn't saying that is the only time or that it had any direct relation. I didn't finish my thought that when a driver is surpassing it's physical limits then usually some mehanical noise is introduced(coil bottoming, leads slapping, etc) forthat I'm sorry I wasn't clear on that statement. I still don't believe anyone can hear a clipped signal on a sub. I have heard distortion in mids and tweeters easily when overdriving a signal, but not on a sub. I have heard mechanical noise from overdriving a sub though.

 

[grampi 10+ year member]

Take a pic of the setting your using on our DMM.

I don't have access to a digital camera. There are only 3 DC settings on my DMM (2, 20, 200) and two AC settings (200, 600). It doesn't read any voltage in any of these positions on the RCA's, but it reads the car battery in DC, and the AC voltage in the house on a wall outlet.