tons of questions..

[dmacf10]

"why does my amp blow a fuse after 5 minutes of use?"

The reason you're blowing fuses is because your amp (Kenwood KAC-7204), needs to have a speaker impedance of 4 ohms or greater when bridged. By having it bridged at an impedance of 2 ohms, you are asking your amp to effectively double its maximum output power, thus you blow the 40A fuse. With that particular amp, and your 2 ohm woofer you will have to wire it from either channel 1 or 2, but you can't bridge it.

PS: Don't put a bigger fuse in the amp. 1 of two things will happen, 1: the thermal protection kicks in a shuts the amplifier off, or 2: The thermal protection does not kick the amp off and you have a fire.

 

[gunn3rrr 10+ year member]

"why does my amp blow a fuse after 5 minutes of use?"
The reason you're blowing fuses is because your amp (Kenwood KAC-7204), needs to have a speaker impedance of 4 ohms or greater when bridged. By having it bridged at an impedance of 2 ohms, you are asking your amp to effectively double its maximum output power, thus you blow the 40A fuse. With that particular amp, and your 2 ohm woofer you will have to wire it from either channel 1 or 2, but you can't bridge it.

PS: Don't put a bigger fuse in the amp. 1 of two things will happen, 1: the thermal protection kicks in a shuts the amplifier off, or 2: The thermal protection does not kick the amp off and you have a fire.

wow thank you so much!

 

[Phoenix Risen 10+ year member]

and that smell that you got is the coil on the sub burning, that is not a good thing, it means you are either putting too much power to the sub or you are clipping it, considering the state of your electrical system your are clipping, effectively sending a square signal to your sub, and not allowing it time to cool, if you keep doing this you will have a dead sub on your hands.

 

[Wingsfreak9 10+ year member]

step 1: get a job

will continue my tutorial after step 1 has been accomplished.

 

[power-fanatic07 5,000+ posts]

1) how big is your fuse?2) dont waste youre money on a cap, do the big 3, if u dont know what that is, look it up. youre alt should be fine

3) you can replace the door speakers and run them as is if you cant afford a multi channel amp

4) its a possibility that youre batt could be killed quicker, but its not too likely unless you let your stuff play with the truck off. if u replace your batt get a deka g31 gell cell

5) bass knobs are unnecessary esp if you have sub control on your head unit

6) the distortion is prolly from your stock door speakers. but if its for sure your sub, turn the amp gains off, adjust your HU to max listening volume, and sub level, then slowly turn up the gain on the amp until you hear distortion come thru the sub.

7) search thru the classifieds here on this site, deals can be had on pretty good equipment.

and as far as the amp being bridged, it depends on the power your sub takes, and if the amp is able to be bridged at that load

Can't believe you actually read all that

 

[Phoenix Risen 10+ year member]

^^^^ this

audio costs money, in some cases a lot of money,

so many ppl want a bada ss system but dont want to pay for it.

 

[gunn3rrr 10+ year member]

I go to one of the hardest college preps schools in the state..if I had time for a job I'd be working as much as possible...having no money is absolutely horrible. But on top of the lack of time, my mom won't let me get a job during the school year..so I do what I can with what I have...

 

[AlterEgo99 5,000+ posts]

If you are a jobless teenage high school student, just how the fuck can you buy ANY car audio?????

 

[gunn3rrr 10+ year member]

birthday money and all that childish **** lol... and i've backed off my gain completely and the smell still persists? what should i do?

 

[justafifteen 10+ year member]

Don't play a new sub at full volume for the first week-ish, you need to give it time to break in.

Go to your local Napa or autozone and borrow a Digital Multi-meter so that you can measure the voltage you're giving your sub. If you need help finding out how to do this, you can PM me.

Your headunit equalizer shouldn't be extreme, like +10 low, +10 mid, etc. The "sub" level on your HU should stay at 0. Any gain adjustments should be made on your amp.

Play a song and hit the pause button on your HU. Then while it's paused, crank the volume all the way up to see what the maximum number is. Take 2/3's of that, and you have the highest you should ever turn your volume to.

You should keep the HU turned to this volume while you adjust the gains of your sub. Of course, until you get a separate speaker amp, you won't be able to turn your headunit this high because you'll probably be distorting the hell out of your stock speakers.

Look at the classifieds here, you can find great 2 or 4-channel amps for hella cheap. Match it with a cheap pair of Polks or similar and you'll be fine and plenty loud.

Go to walmart and get a 4-gauge or 6-gauge Scosche wiring kit, 8-gauge is too small.

Read your amp's manual (or find one online if you don't have it) and find out the ways it can be wired, whether it's bridgable or not, etc.

In the end, you will probably not be as loud as you want, but it's either that or blow your sub

 

[xoutofmyheadx 10+ year member]

#1 did you rewire your sub? like dmac said you can not try running that amp 2 ohms bridged. the amp is wrong for that sub. the power wire isn't as much of an issue right now since you will only be running 250watts out of the 1 channel. turn your gains back where they were and run just the 1 channel, that is if you haven't blown something by now. your distortion could be from your amp since it's been wire incorrectly. obviously nobody here read the post or never checked to see what you're actually running.

after you do this and the problem is still exsists then you're screwed. you need to decide what if anything you're willing to give up (amount of backseat space). you have a 60/40 bench in the back? do you need all that room? here's what i did. i had a dakota ext cab. i had a 60/40 bench in the back, i took out the 60 side and slid the 40side over just a bit. went to the junk yard and found another 40side and put it in. which then left me room to put my 10kicker, and still fit 2 ppl very nicely(box made a great arm rest). now you're in a fullsize truck so you should be able to fit a 12 by doing that. if this isnt an option then you could either 1) get a box that holds 2 slim subs underseat instead of just the 1 you have, or 2) custom make a box and put 2, sa-8's in. getting another amp will not help you at this point, the sub you have can't handle all that much power and being slim it won't have hardly anymore output than it already has.

scratch that part bout turning the gains back where they were, since we donno where they were and you did wire the sub wrong. set gains like justa said

 

[gunn3rrr 10+ year member]

#1 did you rewire your sub? like dmac said you can not try running that amp 2 ohms bridged. the amp is wrong for that sub. the power wire isn't as much of an issue right now since you will only be running 250watts out of the 1 channel. turn your gains back where they were and run just the 1 channel, that is if you haven't blown something by now. your distortion could be from your amp since it's been wire incorrectly. obviously nobody here read the post or never checked to see what you're actually running.after you do this and the problem is still exsists then you're screwed. you need to decide what if anything you're willing to give up (amount of backseat space). you have a 60/40 bench in the back? do you need all that room? here's what i did. i had a dakota ext cab. i had a 60/40 bench in the back, i took out the 60 side and slid the 40side over just a bit. went to the junk yard and found another 40side and put it in. which then left me room to put my 10kicker, and still fit 2 ppl very nicely(box made a great arm rest). now you're in a fullsize truck so you should be able to fit a 12 by doing that. if this isnt an option then you could either 1) get a box that holds 2 slim subs underseat instead of just the 1 you have, or 2) custom make a box and put 2, sa-8's in. getting another amp will not help you at this point, the sub you have can't handle all that much power and being slim it won't have hardly anymore output than it already has.

scratch that part bout turning the gains back where they were, since we donno where they were and you did wire the sub wrong. set gains like justa said

i have it up and running now, bridging it was my problem for the fuses. i have a 60/40 back seat, but i built a custom under-seat box. everythings running pretty well now, i have the HU tuned pretty well with my factory speakers (-7db rear lmfao) with the HU sub crossover set to +7db to even it out so i don't loose all my low end. i still smell the faint electrical smell, but i think it's going away as my sub breaks in. that was a really good idea with the 2 40 seats, i'm seriously considering trying that when i get a little money, because after i get better door speakers i'd like to get a little more bass than the shallow mount offers. i was thinking a 12 inch rockford fosgate t1? >//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif thanks so much for your help, and all the others who chimed in, you litterally saved my sub.