JL AUDIO 12W7H.O Problem - Advice Needed

[Why So Cereal? 5,000+ posts]

The box? Thats gotta be the dumbest excuse ever

 

[EsotericRod 10+ year member]

ok... well, here is what happened today.. 9 AM i went directly to the store and walked in explaining my situation.. the guy who i initially spoke to about getting the installation done was at the shop and i told him what happend and he said he knew because he installed it.. So i told him that the whole box ordeal was a big heap of nonsense, and that despite the integrity of the box, i dont see how the sub would cut out and it was obviously from the amp. I went on to explain that the amp looked used and that there was scratches all over the cover face of the amp... he said that was not possible because he swore on his life that he opened up the amp himself from the packaging and that he personally installed it.. I then went on to ramble about how it might not be feeding it enough power considering its a 3 ohm sub and its 1 ohm stable at 1150 and 2 ohms at 700, but still, i dont see how it would cut out like that.. anyways... he began rambling on about the box being a problem again and that it was loose, he claimed that because of "reactive loading" the sub would short itself and trip the amp or something? i still wasn't satisfied so he said if it was the problem of the amp he would hook up these two random subs he had in the shop which were 2 12" 2 ohm subs that had no names on them so i couldn't tell, but if it was the amp it would definitely cut out trying to operate them... he wired them up and sure enough both of them worked fine.. actually hurt my ears after like a minute waiting for them to cut out like the W7.. but i still wasnt satisfied.. he went back into the shop and grabbed one W7 and took my Sub out of the H.O box and put his W7 in... make a long story short, it did the exact same thing.. cut out at about half of the volume.... At this point i felt defeated and literally couldn't explain the situation.. is this really due to this stupid enclosure? or is it just that this W7 speaker is quite an evil edition to my car and it doesn't want to play? Im literally so confused as to what steps to take now.

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

There is an issue with the wiring in the enclosure. Nothing to do with the enclosure/speaker itself causing the amp to go into protect though. I would inspect the wiring and the terminal inside the enclosure to see what is going on and causing the issue.

I'm not a fan of those enclosures do to the lack of build quality to them and I would have went with a custom enclosure to be honest.

 

[xSPLoder 10+ year member]

Did that shop sell you a brand new arc amp, because that sucker looks used since the control plate looks scrached up.
Might be a bad amplifier, and I cannot believe a shop would let a system go out the door with the amplifier turning on and off like that you are not even pushing it at a 3ohm load.

Not to mention that the install only took 3 hours. Sounds to me like they were rushing to get it done and didn't care about the aftermath. I'd be ripping the owner or manager a new a hole.

 

[xSPLoder 10+ year member]

Whoever owns a shop should know to never let a customer walk out of there unhappy and not fully finished on a build. It the sub fit loose in the box, he should of offered to at least make a new faceplate board that fits the sub better. There is a good possibility that you might have some serious clipping once you hit a certain volume and that's what trips the amp into protect too (some amps have a clipping indicator light). TBH, I not a fan of JL though so I would recommend just dumping the sub and box. But in your situation, save the money and just get a new box. Prefab boxes are cheap or building is cheap.

 

[EsotericRod 10+ year member]

here, i just took a quick (horribly shot) video from my iphone on the inner constructions of the box.. its apparent that this box is all messed up from the inside.. i cant believe "brand new" equates to this.. This is actually upsetting - warning haha

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

That is a very common issue with those enclosures. They are crap.

 

[EsotericRod 10+ year member]

That is a very common issue with those enclosures. They are crap.

understandable, but should the inside of it look like it was superglued like that? lol.. this has got to be some sort of refurbished piece of junk that was passed off as new?

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

Looked like excess wood glue to me...but it's hard to tell from the video.

 

[EsotericRod 10+ year member]

ok, well i decided to try and take the sub out of the enclosure and hook it up directly to the amp and see if it still tripped the amp into protect.. which obviously it did.. soooooo apparently the box isnt what is causing this problem correct? it obviously has to do with the amp..

 

[xSPLoder 10+ year member]

ok, well i decided to try and take the sub out of the enclosure and hook it up directly to the amp and see if it still tripped the amp into protect.. which obviously it did.. soooooo apparently the box isnt what is causing this problem correct? it obviously has to do with the amp..

Put a multi meter to those vc's and measure the ohms of each. Maybe the wired the sub wrong

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

is this a dual 3ohm sub and if so is it wired in parallel? pos to pos, neg to neg then straight to amp? i think what is happening is that the amp is 2ohm stable and not 1ohm stable and the 1.5ohm load is tripping the amp at certain output points. this is if arc audio actually lied which i doubt

just my observation

and the protection circuit is quite complex

Embedded protection circuits including thermal, current limit, rollback DC offset, reverse polarity, and overvoltage

call arc audio directly and ask for there help explain the problem and they should run down the ways to trouble shoot the problem

209-543-8706