Speakers cutting out.... not sure if its an amp problem or a power problem

[Rkrajnov 10+ year member]

Ok well let me just say I've been having a rather weird problem for some time now. I want to give all possible information so that you guys can rule some things out so I'll start from the beginning.

I installed a car audio system a little over a year ago that consists of an audioque 1200d hooked to a fi q 12" and a jl 300/4 bridged to some hertz hsk 165s. Now, for the first 8 or so months I had virtually no problems. System worked fine. Then my I blew my sub (from having the gain too high) and around this same time I noticed my speakers began cutting out intermittently. Now, this continued sporadically for some time. Sometimes, I would not have the problem for weeks and other times it would happen multiple times a day. Sometimes, it would even happen over and over repeatedly for a few minutes and then finally stop after maybe 5 or so minutes of doing this.

Now, I have just recently put my subwoofer back in and here are the key things to note:

-The subwoofer remains playing at ALL times (never cuts out)

-The RCAs should be fine, I actually had to switch them for other reasons a few months ago but I was having this same problem on the old ones

-My gains are now set correctly using a multimeter

-This problem still happens sporadically, it doesn't seem to matter if I'm playing a really loud bass intensive song or a nice acoustic song on a moderate level of volume. It seems to strike randomly. I've played very loud dubstep songs on my system for hours straight since putting the sub back in without experiencing the problem once and out of no where it might hit while I'm playing a song not even on max volume

-My car shows the battery voltage on a small screen up front and the problem seems to happen more when the volts are lower (high 12s - mid 13s). It rarely happens when my volts are reading at 14 or 15 volts.

-The few times (and I must note very few times because this usually doesn't happen) where it cuts out repeatedly for minutes on end, I notice the volts tend to drop low on my battery meter (never below 12.5 though).

-This problem frequently happens when the car is off and when it is off it will happen consistently and continuously once its starts

-Amp doesn't seem to be turning off at all and the grounds look fine (as far as I can tell).

Based on all this, I'm guessing its some kind of power issue. But why did it never happen for so long? And why does it seem to happen so randomly? You'd think that it would happen during really heavy bass drops, but all in all, it seems to make little difference how much output is coming through the speakers when it cuts. Also my alternator and battery are both fairly new (replaced both shortly after install of the system). Could this potentially be a remote turn on issue? Maybe the amp is just going off for very short durations of time (and due to this the light never goes off)? I'm using a wire soldered off another wire to turn on both amps (the sub amp has a wire coming from the headunit remote turn on and I soldered another one into the middle of this wire to turn on the other amp). It seems so weird to me though. Maybe it's because of my lack of experience with how electronics truly work, but the problem seems to be random at best. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out and just can't seem to figure out what would be causing this.

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[Rkrajnov 10+ year member]

Alright so I think I've found out something important. With the MM I just recently bought I finally tested the direct volts to the amps. For the remote turn on wire it was matching the car voltage read up front but for the 12v power source it was reading low, like only around 11v and even lower when the sound cut out. I had tested it last week and it was reading much higher than this (around 13v and this is when I was having no problems with my car audio system for like a week). It has been cutting out a lot all day, is there some reason that these voltages are reading so low? It seems weird that my alt wouldn't be powerful enough, its 135 amp and it worked fine for a long time. Also, it evidently still works fine sometimes for days on end and then this will randomly start happening and I don't know why. Could there be something else causing this power problem? I have 0 gauge wire running from my battery to a dist block with 4 gauge to each amp. Also both amps are reading the same voltages at the 12v power but only the speakers cut out (not the sub).

 

[dappa5 10+ year member]

amperage

basically your sub amp has a lower cut off point than the other amp and electricity follows the path of least resistance

need to check you alt for amperage and prob do a big three (will help overall electrical system ) you may need a larger alt.... while this one has been fine you may have been putting stress on it and it is just wore out

 

[Rkrajnov 10+ year member]

How do i check the alt for amperage and what value should i be looking for. Sorry im still new to all this stuff. I know i upgraded the battery ground to 0 gauge. What else does the big 3 encompass?

 

[dappa5 10+ year member]

How do i check the alt for amperage and what value should i be looking for. Sorry im still new to all this stuff. I know i upgraded the battery ground to 0 gauge. What else does the big 3 encompass?

to check for amperage you will need to set your dmm for amps (value will depend on output of alt)

also includes o gauge ground from the alt (case or mount) and upgrade the charge wire (frm alt to batt)

 

[Rkrajnov 10+ year member]

to check for amperage you will need to set your dmm for amps (value will depend on output of alt)also includes o gauge ground from the alt (case or mount) and upgrade the charge wire (frm alt to batt)

Now I could definitely be wrong but I feel like big 3 is not the problem (though I'm sure it would be good to do it anyways). I say this because my car usually reads pretty high volts (high 13s - low 15s a lot). To test the alt with the DMM do I do that at the alt or at the amp?

 

[dappa5 10+ year member]

amperage basically your sub amp has a lower cut off point than the other amp and electricity follows the path of least resistance

need to check you alt for amperage and prob do a big three (will help overall electrical system ) you may need a larger alt.... while this one has been fine you may have been putting stress on it and it is just wore out

^^^^^^^^^^

check @ alt