No Audio - can anyone help now?

[ChrisCan 10+ year member]

Trouble getting audio from speakers. I'd really appreciate a reply, while I still have the dash open and all the wires/connections exposed.

My setup:

1992 Toyota Celica GT

- Kenwood Excelon HU; dual preamp outs

- Rockford Fosgate 4 channel amp under seat (powering 6 cabin speakers; it is such that the fronts I believe are sort of "components" with 2 full range and 2 tweeters)

- Kenwood Two channel amp in trunk (powering two 8" subs in trunk)

Basic connections, e.g. one set out preamp outs to 4 channel amp, other set to subs, so I can fade subs in and out (there are other ways, this is good for me).

I basically get only very some distorted audio from the front tweeter speakers; the other 4 cabin speaker are just very low static. The subs work fine, so I focused on the 4 channel amp and connections around it.

What I checked- power to amp is good 13.8 volts; no fuses blown

- the amp itself is good, powers up; I tried a second one known to work ok and it's behavior is the same, so it is not the amp.

- I checked the RCA outputs from the head unit; they are working (I recorded some audio from them on my mp3 player that has line input; it sounds real good, all channels); so I think it is not the head unit

- I figured it could only be the speaker wires or speakers; I checked the speaker wires, where they are spliced together (ones to speakers and ones to amp); these look fine, no sign of shorts or being cut as far as I could tell).

Thanks

Chris

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[ChrisCan 10+ year member]

Hey- I just verified that the speaker wire connections between my amp and speaker where I get no sound are good. So now I am really confused about why I get no sound?

 

[Alpineinstaller 10+ year member]

is it all your speakers that are out, or just mid and highs, or just subs?

 

[ChrisCan 10+ year member]

The only ones that WORK are the tweeters, and the subwoofers. The two channel amp seems to work fine. It seems like something goes wrong between amp and speakers where there is no sound, so I checked the wiring between them and it seems to be good (I used an ohm-meter).

To clarify my setup more: I have eight speakers: 6 attached to a 4 channel amp (2 tweeters and 2 full range in front of car, they are on channels 1 and 2, 2 full range in rear of car, on channels 3 and 4); and 2 speakers attached to a 2 channel amp (subwoofers in trunk).

 

[ChrisCan 10+ year member]

More debugging...I decided to just connect a 6 ohm speaker from an old Aiwa component system I have in my garage. That worked. So it is my speakers....

BUT- what I don't understand is why all four of them would go out at the same time, after 13 years of use? That is why I didn't check them in the first place. They are the OEM speakers, looks like they are by Fujitsu...it says 15 W on the back.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[jrz126 10+ year member]

how do you have them wired to the amp? and whats the final ohm load?

 

[Alpineinstaller 10+ year member]

thirteen years is along time for speakers it was time to replace anyway.....

 

[ChrisCan 10+ year member]

As far as how they are wired- the front channels go to a set of components; I am not sure what is the load, I'd guess 4 ohms (can I check it easily with an ohmmeter?). The rear channels connect to the speakers I mentioned, so it is 4 ohms there. It is a pretty standard config, I'd guess.

Chris

 

[jrz126 10+ year member]

yes you can check the ohm load easily. Just put your probes on the speaker terminals at the amp (with the amp shut off too).

 

[ChrisCan 10+ year member]

Well, I got everything working by the time the sun went down. It turned out to be my speakers- I didn't check them at first, they seemed like they'd be the last thing (after amp, HU, wiring) to go bad- would have saved me a lot of work. And then, all four of them in my cabin went out around the same time, which I thought was unusual.

Well, I got a good deal on some Eclipse speakers (2 6 1/2 " full range rears and 2 4" for fronts . So now I have these + a pair of tweeters driven by a 4 channel amp (75 RMS per channel Audiobahn). I high pass all of them (I have the 2 8" subs in the trunk on a different amp for bass). It sounds really good, but I probably will fine tune the gain and HPF cutoffs a bit over the weekend. Will see how it sounds tomorrow on the way to work- now looking forward to that 25 mile drive!!

Chris