****it I think I hurt my amp

[JonMR2turbo 10+ year member]

I have an Arc Mini 2 channel amp.

I decided to flush mount my tweeters in my kicks today. I did that, turned the system on, and everything sounded great. I turned it off and then decided to set the left and right gain. I disconnected the RCA from one of the channels so I could set the gain for each channel separately. I wrapped the bare RCA in tape just to be safe (800prs headunit) and turned the system back on. The remaining connected channel sounded horrible...very garbled and distorted. I'm thinking "oh **** I blew the Pico fuse". Then I took my MP3 player with a headphone jack to RCA converter and connected it to the amp, bypassing the headunit. The problem remained. It almost sounds as if the music is being played underwater.

All connections are secure, no fuses are blown, and the amp isn't in protection. The problem must be with the amp since my components are new and I can't see how unplugging one RCA would have effected them. So what happened? Am I going to have to get my amp replaced? How could unplugging one RCA with the power off do this?

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[zack39648 10+ year member]

ummm weird

 

[JonMR2turbo 10+ year member]

Yeah I know. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Etac 10+ year member]

well since it does it with the mp3 player too i guess we can rule out the rca connections on the headunit.. the wire itself might be damaged, i had rca's cable go bad on me from being bent too much, or you can try moving them around where they connect to the amp to see if any of those connections got loosened internally.

 

[Motley 10+ year member]

Re-check all your wireing, from HU to amp, everything. Check ground. Remove power to amp. Re-wire everything.

Try new RCA's

What comps and amp?

 

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

Does it do it if you hook up the taped off RCA back on the amp?

 

[JonMR2turbo 10+ year member]

Yes it does Rich.

I have an Arc Mini and Phoenix Gold RSDs.

I think I can rule out my RCAs because hooking up my MP3 player bypassed them as well. The cable I used looks like this: http://www.yourcablestore.com/assets/images/RCA%20M2-HP3M%206.jpg So it plugged directly into the amp.

I'll recheck all of my wiring again.

 

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

Yes it does Rich.
I have an Arc Mini and Phoenix Gold RSDs.

I think I can rule out my RCAs because hooking up my MP3 player bypassed them as well. The cable I used looks like this: http://www.yourcablestore.com/assets/images/RCA%20M2-HP3M%206.jpg So it plugged directly into the amp.

I'll recheck all of my wiring again.

That sucks.

I was thinking it might be the gain control is dirty, as that can make it sound scratchy like that.

Without having the stereo on try rapidly rotating the gain up and down several times to loosen any dirt on the pot's contacts, then try it again at a low gain setting to eliminate that as a possibility.

 

[JonMR2turbo 10+ year member]

I tried that, no luck. It has separate gains for the left and right channel so the odds of both getting dirty at the exact same time are pretty small I bet.

I know for sure the problem is the amp though. I just hooked up my old Cadence amp and sent a signal to it with my MP3 player and it comes through nice and clean.

This really pisses me off. I'm already on my second Mini. The first one I got came with a broken gain knob and now this. For how much these little ****ers cost they should be of higher quality than this. How the hell can both channels get screwed up by simply disconnecting one RCA plug with the power off? At least I bought it through a dealer. Hopefully he will swap it out for me...again.

 

[JonMR2turbo 10+ year member]

Getting a new one Thursday! My dealer was pissed at Arc. This is the second one I have had to take back. The first came with a broken gain knob.