Newbie amplifier question...

I'm relatively new to car audio, and I just installed a Pyramid 500 watt 2-channel amplifier. I'm getting power to it, turns on with the H.U. just fine, but at the moment I'm stuck. First off, here's the set-up:

Pioneer DEH-P6400 Head Unit

4" Pioneers up front

6"x9" Surface mount Pioneers in rear

500W Pyramid 2ch Amplifier

10" Pioneer Sub (TS-W29C)

Alright, so the speakers are connected via the wire leads (both front and rear) and the subwoofer is going through the rear pre-out... Something doesn't seem right here, and it's obvious, because I'm getting no sound out of the sub woofer. I can go into the settings for the H.U. and enable subwoofer settings, but then it thinks my rear speakers are the subwoofers. I know I did something quite wrong, but I'm not quite sure how to fix it. Any ideas?

 
first thing.....looks like u have a great system till u throw the pyramid amp in there......but thats a diff. topic all together....how do u have the sub wired and what are the specs on the amp and is the remote, power, and ground, and rca's for the amp all connected properly????

 
make sure you're connections are right and if you did, then turn your gains up, usually when new amplifiers come in the mail, they are turned to the lowest so it seems like the subs aren't moving. But keep trying. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 
Yeah... I was low on cash when I bought the amp... Anyway...

I've kinda messed with the gains a little and still got nothing. The manual for the head unit mentions some subwoofer settings but fails to mention how to go about using the wire leads for full range speakers simultaneously with the rear preouts for the subwoofer. When I turn the settings on for the "subwoofer" what it actually ends up doing is setting the rear wire leads to low pass and totally ignoring the RCA preout. I don't really want two 6"x9" surface mount subwoofers though when i have that nice 10" sitting there. I saw that the DEH-P9400MP has 3 preouts (rear/front/sub) which would be great, but I can't afford an upgrade right now. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/banghead.gif.8606515f668c74f6de0281deb475b6fd.gif

 
okay....im going to try to help but i dont know if it will do any good.........

when you run your RCA cable from your deck to your amp where did you plug it in on your deck? on the pioneers there are two or three places to plug the male and female ends of your RCA into, plug it into the ones ON the deck not the cord that is coming out of your deck. if that makes sense...............

- garrett

 
You are correct in the way the Pioneer does its "subwoofer" thing... both the rear RCA preouts and the rear speakers get lowpassed for sub bass. What you'll want to do instead is use the LP feature of your amp.

What you need to do is get a voltmeter or 12 volt tester and check the DC signals on your amp. Verify that there's 12 volts across the amp's power terminals and also at the remote terminal when the HU is turned on.

Does the amp have a power indicator?

 
SPLSTOMPIN - That's where they are plugged in (the rear preouts).

maylar - I do have a power indicator (which is on) and the remote must work because the amp turns off with the H.U., but maybe I'll bvust out the multimeter just for the heck of it.

Thanks for all the help guys.

 
I am totally stumped. I checked all of the audio cable to make sure they are good, they are carrying a signal just fine... At this point I am totally frustrated. Are there any settings I am missing on the head unit? I looked through my operator's manual about three times but they only mention pre-outs in the specifications section, and only explain how to use the wire leads for the rear speakers as a subwoofer out. WTF? Could it also be that my amp was DOA? At this point i've quadruple-checked all the connections... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/banghead.gif.8606515f668c74f6de0281deb475b6fd.gif

 
Just tried something a little unorthodox... I hooked an old Pioneer stereo reciever to my RCA pre-out on my head unit, and it did get a signal. I'm thinking more and more about just returning this **** amp and buying another one, but I'm not too sure if that will solve my problem or just leave me with a slightly better non-working amp.

 
OK. You have power to the amp, remote on, and signal from the HU. Hmmm....

Sub wiring to the amp's outputs OK?

Does the sub work on another amp?

Any input switches on the amp (line level vs speaker level)?

Could be something really simple and dumb like that.

 
Boy, you ain't kidding maylar... I was messing with my ground point a little... I loosened it and all of a sudden my subwoofer magically came to life... There was too much paint on the ground...

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/banghead.gif.8606515f668c74f6de0281deb475b6fd.gif :banghead: //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/banghead.gif.8606515f668c74f6de0281deb475b6fd.gif

Nothing like a simple overlooked problem to make you feel like a moron. Thanks for the help guys. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 
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