Intermittent loss of audio troubleshooting

[Landy4.6]

I'm having a problem where every once in a while I get no audio upon starting my car. If I restart it then I'll have audio. Audio never cuts out while driving. I got stuck while troubleshooting, so heres my current situation:

My setup is as follows.
Pioneer head unit > Audiocontrol DQDX > 5 Channel amp > All speakers and subs

Everything is lit up and powered on when this happens, so loss of power is not the problem.

I figured an easy way to rule out the head unit was to wait for the problem to occur and then turn the input gain up on the DQDX and see if I can get the Maximized Input light to come on, which would tell me if my head unit is sending a signal or not.

The problem is that I got the opposite of what I wanted to see: the Maximized Input light is actually solid orange no matter how much I turn the input gain down. (When the audio is working fine, this light stays green until I turn the head unit to max, when it then starts flickering orange.)

I cant find anything about a solid orange input light on the DQDX. Hoping someone here knows more about this kind of setup than I do. Thanks in advance.

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[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

I cant find anything about a solid orange input light on the DQDX. Hoping someone here knows more about this kind of setup than I do. Thanks in advance.

You can acquire a 3.5mm to RCA cable and plug it in the DQDX and your phone. When the issue occurs play music from your phone. If it plays then the radio is the issue. If it does not play then plug the cable to the amp.

 

[RobGMN 5,000+ posts]

You can acquire a 3.5mm to RCA cable and plug it in the DQDX and your phone. When the issue occurs play music from your phone. If it plays then the radio is the issue. If it does not play then plug the cable to the amp.

Those cables have been so beneficial in setting up and troubleshooting so many systems, the inventor deserves a trophy.

 

[Landy4.6]

You can acquire a 3.5mm to RCA cable and plug it in the DQDX and your phone. When the issue occurs play music from your phone. If it plays then the radio is the issue. If it does not play then plug the cable to the amp.

Great idea! I'll leave one in the car and try that out next time it happens.

 

[RobGMN 5,000+ posts]

Great idea! I'll leave one in the car and try that out next time it happens.

Be careful when plugging in. Depending on whether the signal or ground make/break contact first, you could cause a damaging spike.
Maybe play it safe, and knock your gain way down before swapping cables.

 

[Landy4.6]

Be careful when plugging in. Depending on whether the signal or ground make/break contact first, you could cause a damaging spike.
Maybe play it safe, and knock your gain way down before swapping cables.

Good call, will do. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Landy4.6]

You can acquire a 3.5mm to RCA cable and plug it in the DQDX and your phone. When the issue occurs play music from your phone. If it plays then the radio is the issue. If it does not play then plug the cable to the amp.

So it finally happened again and I was able to use this method to troubleshoot. Looks like its the DSP.

I guess I'll just be dealing with it until I feel like buying a new one, unless someone here knows what the issue is and/or a repair.

 

[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

I guess I'll just be dealing with it until I feel like buying a new one, unless someone here knows what the issue is and/or a repair.

Dirty potentiometers and switches may cause sporadic loss of signal; with the system off do full sweeps of the gain knobs and cycle any slide switches several times. No need to sweep the frequency pots, those would only affect their alloted frequency.

 

[Landy4.6]

Dirty potentiometers and switches may cause sporadic loss of signal; with the system off do full sweeps of the gain knobs and cycle any slide switches several times. No need to sweep the frequency pots, those would only affect their alloted frequency.

Gotcha. I figured opening it up and poking around may be worth it? I'm pretty handy but this is a somewhat expensive piece of equipment so I'm not sure if its worth the risk as it still works 90% of the time. I'll start with the sweeps and go from there. Thanks!

 

[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

Gotcha. I figured opening it up and poking around may be worth it? I'm pretty handy but this is a somewhat expensive piece of equipment so I'm not sure if its worth the risk as it still works 90% of the time. I'll start with the sweeps and go from there. Thanks!

It being solid state components I doubt it would be something easily visible like an amp's bloated capacitors or burned transistors.
Speaking of that, another test is to wiggle the RCAs. Since those stick out it is easy to bump them and causing potential issues. I have fixed broken solder joints on the RCAs of a few amps.
Yes, it looks pricey. I would not mess with it too much if these simple test do not yield results. There are guys on eBay that fix EQ/DSPs. May be worth a looksie.

 

[Deiimos]

Gotcha. I figured opening it up and poking around may be worth it? I'm pretty handy but this is a somewhat expensive piece of equipment so I'm not sure if its worth the risk as it still works 90% of the time. I'll start with the sweeps and go from there. Thanks!

I did not see it mentioned, maybe I missed it, but it would not hurt to contact Audiocontrol support and see if they say anything about this problem. Companies are hit / miss when contacting them, but costs nothing to send an email with a photo of it lighting up and when it's not supposed to and no output when it does it.

I would guess fixing it won't be a simple procedure, or well, won't be simple to find the problem without experience / having the test gear to do it with a digital processor like this.

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[highfigh]

Be careful when plugging in. Depending on whether the signal or ground make/break contact first, you could cause a damaging spike.
Maybe play it safe, and knock your gain way down before swapping cables.

NEVER make or break connections when the system is on- if the Y cord is going to be used, connect it with the key OFF.

I didn't see anyone recommend checking the output from the head unit- why not?

 

[highfigh]

So it finally happened again and I was able to use this method to troubleshoot. Looks like its the DSP.

I guess I'll just be dealing with it until I feel like buying a new one, unless someone here knows what the issue is and/or a repair.

Did you set up the DSP? If so, does it have a way to save the configuration to a computer? If it does, save it and see if you can do a hard reset- this seems similar to an AV receiver that stops making sound.

 

[RobGMN 5,000+ posts]

NEVER make or break connections when the system is on- if the Y cord is going to be used, connect it with the key OFF.

I didn't see anyone recommend checking the output from the head unit- why not?

I think one of the recommended tests would rule out or confirm the HU as the problem.

 

[Mitchell Fosgate III]

Orange LED Lights. That could be wrong connections. No volts coming from the red, accessories or yellow constants. Or the speakers are not connected. All the cars are chassis ground connections or common ground connections. Meaning conventional flow from + to - leads on the loop battery. Internally from the radio it's common ground connection. Externally from the battery, it is chassis ground connections. But both are conventional flow of electrons flowing through the wires. Are you still using it, or shut down all together already? Protect mode. Which is orange or red LED lights. Get it to an electronics shop they'll fix it for you. Nothing to it. Pull out the mosfets, place new one in, or change a capacitor or drain the capacitor. Then they'll play it on a bench test like the one I did. They have a big antenna, so easy. Test it there. If it works, you got your amp back.​

 

[spokey9 5,000+ posts]

NEVER make or break connections when the system is on

This 100%

 

[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

I didn't see anyone recommend checking the output from the head unit- why not?

OP connected the test cable direct to the DSP and had no output.

 

[highfigh]

OP connected the test cable direct to the DSP and had no output.

I didn't see that until after I had posted, but decided to leave it in case someone has a similar need to troubleshoot an audio problem.

 

[Old_Slapper]

So, Mitchell is back? I see he hasn't changed. LOL....

 

[Landy4.6]

It being solid state components I doubt it would be something easily visible like an amp's bloated capacitors or burned transistors.
Speaking of that, another test is to wiggle the RCAs. Since those stick out it is easy to bump them and causing potential issues. I have fixed broken solder joints on the RCAs of a few amps.
Yes, it looks pricey. I would not mess with it too much if these simple test do not yield results. There are guys on eBay that fix EQ/DSPs. May be worth a looksie