What the distortion?

[SRT8 10+ year member]

So I admit I'm not the smartest guy in town, that's why I'm looking for help. I just installed a Kicker dx250.1 and a Kicker 10c104 in a box I made. Box is .67ft3, minus driver, filled with a bit of polyfil. I believe they suggest 1 ft3 for this sub.

Hooked up from factory amp speaker outs to Kicker high level inputs with modified rca cables. Input gain is 3/10, bass boost off. Holy distortion, even at the lowest volumes. Sounds like paper being crumpled in front of the driver.

I did notice a small air leak from where I installed the speaker wire connector, so I'm fixing that now. What else is causing this, and how can I fix it? It sounds brutal.

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[groundpound4200 5,000+ posts]

How did you hook up to the high level inputs with RCAs?

 

[SRT8 10+ year member]

Clipped the plugs off one end. Tapped into driver door speaker, 2 rca neg's to neg of speaker, 2 pos to pos of speaker, plugged end of rca's into amp, set to speaker level inputs.

 

[All_Logix 10+ year member]

I am assuming you pressed the little high/low level input button for high, but if I had to guess without looking at it, I admit I don't know a huge amount about this amp, I would say your factory amped system may have a substantially high voltage potential which is to high for the amp's input...to test this grab a cable with a 3.5mm headphone on one end and RCA on the other, plug those bad boys into the amp input and see if it sounds clean...then you will isolate it to the HU, amp, or interconnects... at which point you can pretty much decide its the interconnects if the rest of the factory system is running ok

 

[HillBillyJoe]

I have a line to rca converter, got it at walmart, its schoshe but it works. Its a blue box bout the size of a crossover

 

[SRT8 10+ year member]

So I just dropped the sub into a store bought box, just to try it (The box won't fit in my vehicle where I want it). I think I've narrowed it down to my made box. I didn't even screw it in to the store bought one, just pressed it down, and almost no buzzing. The store bought one is probably .75 ft3, so isn't much bigger than mine. I thought maybe it's because mine isn't carpeted yet, so I threw some foam gasket around the circle of my made one and set the sub in again--same buzzing, no change. So I think it's the box. So what's the problem, air leaks?

Oh, and the button is pressed for high level inputs.

 

[SRT8 10+ year member]

Newest update: Seems most of the buzzing is from the speaker connector thing on the side of the box. I've siliconed it, backed it with carpet, screwed it in, still buzzing like crazy. Even made sure everything is tight, and not rattling out of the box. Any ideas?

 

[Tehgregzor 10+ year member]

I tried that blue schocse(sp?) connector once, it didn't work for bass for me. Your kicker amp has a high level input, so get rid of the blue box, and connect the signal to the amp that way.

 

[SRT8 10+ year member]

I tried that blue schocse(sp?) connector once, it didn't work for bass for me. Your kicker amp has a high level input, so get rid of the blue box, and connect the signal to the amp that way.

That's how it is set up.

 

[SRT8 10+ year member]

I tried that blue schocse(sp?) connector once, it didn't work for bass for me. Your kicker amp has a high level input, so get rid of the blue box, and connect the signal to the amp that way.

That's how it is set up.