I'm lost. Sorry for the wall of text, looking for any advice. I'll bold the important bits
hey, got a sundown SA12 subwoofer paired with a rockford fosgate r1200-d amplifier being powered by the cars stock battery. Hooked up to an aftermarket sony headunit. (xav-ax1000)
I have had this setup for a long time and never had an issue like this before:
Occasionally everything works perfectly fine. Bass hits like normal, amp is running fine, no protect light.
Other times (which is more frequent now) on heavy bass tones the protect light will turn red (from blue) for a second and the whole subwoofer will cut out and go back in. I've found the problem stops when I turn the bass down on the meter (which seems obvious but I have to turn it down to a point where you can barely hear any bass whatsoever, so its clear its something wrong). This also only happens on certain bass tones. Other bass tones hit fine like normal.
The only thing NEW new in this setup is a new sub enclosure, which I dont suspect is the cause of this
In terms of connection, everything seems really solid. I've gone over both ends multiple times and cannot any problems in terms of the connection. Using 4AWG power wire. It's all new wire, new ground, new power, even the speaker wire is new (all as of a month ago)
The subwoofer is powered from the stock car battery which is connected to a fuse. The fuse has not blown. The power cable is soldered to the terminal connector, so it's not a loose connection.
The ground coming from the amp goes to a factory grounding point in my trunk, which I have used a star washer on to dig into the metal for a more secure connection. The terminal connector piece is also soldered to the wire. I cannot imagine it could be a loose connection or a bad ground. When idling, the amplifier has a solid blue light, the bass meter never shuts off, etc. I don't believe it's a bad ground because of this.
What steps should I take to find the issue? I'm to the point where I want to take it somewhere because this is really frustrating, but I've been having trouble finding a shop that will help troubleshoot something I installed myself.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/my-subwoofer-in-my-car-cuts-out-at-high-volume.3099839/ this thread sounds really similar to my issue.
After reading this thread I thought maybe it could be the alternator, however when running the car for a long time without bass and then turning bass on, the issue persists.
Battery has been checked by autozone and it's supposedly in good shape. (this car is new to me as of two months so I'm unaware when the battery was actually purchased, but the setup is the same as I've always had it in a dif car) Never had an issue powering the car on, when I turn the key it turns on quickly.
hey, got a sundown SA12 subwoofer paired with a rockford fosgate r1200-d amplifier being powered by the cars stock battery. Hooked up to an aftermarket sony headunit. (xav-ax1000)
I have had this setup for a long time and never had an issue like this before:
Occasionally everything works perfectly fine. Bass hits like normal, amp is running fine, no protect light.
Other times (which is more frequent now) on heavy bass tones the protect light will turn red (from blue) for a second and the whole subwoofer will cut out and go back in. I've found the problem stops when I turn the bass down on the meter (which seems obvious but I have to turn it down to a point where you can barely hear any bass whatsoever, so its clear its something wrong). This also only happens on certain bass tones. Other bass tones hit fine like normal.
The only thing NEW new in this setup is a new sub enclosure, which I dont suspect is the cause of this
In terms of connection, everything seems really solid. I've gone over both ends multiple times and cannot any problems in terms of the connection. Using 4AWG power wire. It's all new wire, new ground, new power, even the speaker wire is new (all as of a month ago)
The subwoofer is powered from the stock car battery which is connected to a fuse. The fuse has not blown. The power cable is soldered to the terminal connector, so it's not a loose connection.
The ground coming from the amp goes to a factory grounding point in my trunk, which I have used a star washer on to dig into the metal for a more secure connection. The terminal connector piece is also soldered to the wire. I cannot imagine it could be a loose connection or a bad ground. When idling, the amplifier has a solid blue light, the bass meter never shuts off, etc. I don't believe it's a bad ground because of this.
What steps should I take to find the issue? I'm to the point where I want to take it somewhere because this is really frustrating, but I've been having trouble finding a shop that will help troubleshoot something I installed myself.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/my-subwoofer-in-my-car-cuts-out-at-high-volume.3099839/ this thread sounds really similar to my issue.
After reading this thread I thought maybe it could be the alternator, however when running the car for a long time without bass and then turning bass on, the issue persists.
Battery has been checked by autozone and it's supposedly in good shape. (this car is new to me as of two months so I'm unaware when the battery was actually purchased, but the setup is the same as I've always had it in a dif car) Never had an issue powering the car on, when I turn the key it turns on quickly.
Last edited: