new subs not very loud, help.

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

How does your ground look? Is it tight, and is the contact point sanded down to bare metal? Also, is it grounded to a sturdy location or a piece of sheet metal?

 

[jmw703 10+ year member]

Yes ground wire is very very solid. Short maybe 3 foot 4 gauge wire to the metal in the back of the trunk behind the carpeting near the back of the rear seats. It's a very large amount of metal and it's sanded down well. But as I was searching for similar problems one guy had a weak power wire connection at his fuse.. I remember when me and my dad were trying to put the fuse in we took one end of the power wire out and I don't think we put it in as well as it was before we took it out. Another thing is we were having trouble fitting the maxi fuse into the fuse box that the rfk kit came with, the inside of the slide where the fuse goes had to be sanded down due to imperfections which blocked the fuse from sliding in. I'm not sure if that would make a difference or not as far as lowered power transfer.

 

[jmw703 10+ year member]

Ok so i took the car to my local audio shop and they tested everything. Turns out the subs were in phase and wired correct, me and my dads wiring job was correct, but the head unit wasnt powerful enough to power the amp! They told me that alpine contracted panasonic for the low end HU i had (cde-100) which is why the output was so weak.

The signal wasnt strong enough so either a new HU was needed or a output line device (im not sure what exactly this is). So they installed the piece and now im bumping loud enough to bounce a cell phone off my trunk, definitely louder than before but with about about half gain as opposed to full.