Rear amp gain knob controls front speakers and vice versa. Please Help.

[iCeNN 10+ year member]

I had a car audio store install a 4 channel Sony Xplod amp to power my two front and two back speakers. Today I noticed something odd however. When I turn the gain knob that says "Rear Level" it actually affects the front speakers. And when I turn the knob that says "Front Level" it affects the rear speakers. Is this anything to worry about? Also what could cause this? I also wanted to note that for some reason my front speakers sound less loud and powerful than my rear speakers, like as if there's more power going to the back one's, when both are at the same level on the knob. I can turn the gain knob thy controls the front speakers higher than the one for the back, but this concerns me. Are the back speakers sometimes louder than the front. Are they supposed to be(sorry for noob question)? Both pair of speakers are Alpine type E, the back ones being the 1725s a the front being the 1750s. Any help is appreciated. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

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[FamousMassacre 10+ year member]

Seems like they got the front and rear wiring switched.

 

[iCeNN 10+ year member]

Seems like they got the front and rear wiring switched.

Could this be the reason the back speakers sound louder?

 

[iCeNN 10+ year member]

Seems like they got the front and rear wiring switched.

Is this anything to worry about? Should I just leave it like that, or could this cause any problems?

 

[bigwyrm]

It's absolutely nothing to worry about. You could easily swap the wiring to fix the issue being careful not to mix things up. The amp will be putting out the same power to front and rear unless they are running different impedance or you have the signal faded. Do you have 2 sets of RCA's from your head-unit to your amplifier or is it just one input RCA signal?

 

[iCeNN 10+ year member]

It's absolutely nothing to worry about. You could easily swap the wiring to fix the issue being careful not to mix things up. The amp will be putting out the same power to front and rear unless they are running different impedance or you have the signal faded. Do you have 2 sets of RCA's from your head-unit to your amplifier or is it just one input RCA signal?

The Head Unit has one Preamp RCA Output and one Sub Preamp RCA Output (which I'm pretty sure is untouched).

 

[bigwyrm]

So both front and rear should be getting the exact same signal. If each front and rear channel has its own gain dial just tune them to where they sound even. Just be careful not to induce clipping of the signal.

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

I had a car audio store install a 4 channel Sony Xplod amp to power my two front and two back speakers. Today I noticed something odd however. When I turn the gain knob that says "Rear Level" it actually affects the front speakers. And when I turn the knob that says "Front Level" it affects the rear speakers. Is this anything to worry about? Also what could cause this? I also wanted to note that for some reason my front speakers sound less loud and powerful than my rear speakers, like as if there's more power going to the back one's, when both are at the same level on the knob. I can turn the gain knob thy controls the front speakers higher than the one for the back, but this concerns me. Are the back speakers sometimes louder than the front. Are they supposed to be(sorry for noob question)? Both pair of speakers are Alpine type E, the back ones being the 1725s a the front being the 1750s. Any help is appreciated. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you guys.

Where are you turning the gain knob, on the head unit or the amp?

If on the amp, stop doing that. Learn how to set your gains correctly. After you do that, just swap the front left and right speaker wires with the back left and right speaker wires.

If you're adjusting what you explained at the head unit, all you have to do is take the pair of RCA's that are going into the front two channels on the amp and swap them with the RCA's that are going into the rear two channels on the amp.

Or, just live with and know they are backwards. It's not going to hurt anything, and this is not why one set of speakers is louder.

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

Where are you turning the gain knob, on the head unit or the amp?
If on the amp, stop doing that. Learn how to set your gains correctly. After you do that, just swap the front left and right speaker wires with the back left and right speaker wires.

If you're adjusting what you explained at the head unit, all you have to do is take the pair of RCA's that are going into the front two channels on the amp and swap them with the RCA's that are going into the rear two channels on the amp.

Or, just live with and know they are backwards. It's not going to hurt anything, and this is not why one set of speakers is louder.

This ^^^

You shouldn't be fiddling with gain controls if you don't know what you're doing.

From the published specs, your rear speakers are more efficient than the front which means they'll be louder with the same power. Plus the mounting locations are different which affects the perceived loudness at your listening location. My rear 6x9's are louder on HU power than the door speakers are with 60 watts. I compensate with the fader control to drop the rears down. Sometims that's just the way it is.

 

[iCeNN 10+ year member]

Thank you for the replies. You guys answered my questions. Thanks again.