What to check for when buying used amplifiers?

[IsThisTaken 10+ year member]

Found someone selling a used 08 Kicker amplifier on craigslist. They asked to meet on saturday at an autozone. What should I look for before buying this thing?

He said it works fine and everything, besides a small crack by where you put the screw to mount the amp, as well as 2 screws missing from the casing of the front of amp.

Is there anything in-particular I should look for, or listen for?

I'm hoping he has it hooked so I can make sure it works fully.

Click to read more...

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

He won't have it hooked up. You need to hook it all up to make sure it all works well. Hopefully you'll have something in so that you can test it.

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

look for dents ,smell it to see if you can smell burnt wires and also look for any burnt areas around where the power wires go,and loose rca's

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

just hook up your pos and rem to the pos on your batt then the ground to the neg to your batt just to see if it turns on

 

[IsThisTaken 10+ year member]

So....

check to see if RCAs are loose.

Check for signs of burning around power and ground terminals.

Look and smell for burnt wire

Look for dents

 

[Why So Cereal? 5,000+ posts]

hook it up if u can.

Thats what i always do, i hook it up and let it play for about 30 minutes pretty high volume and see what happens...

 

[Fiendstolemyamp 10+ year member]

hook it up if u can.Thats what i always do, i hook it up and let it play for about 30 minutes pretty high volume and see what happens...

This

 

[05trailblazer 10+ year member]

^^ that rite there

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

we buy amps all the time online that we never power up or tested before it's mailed to us.

while you want to test it, you can't half-*** test it or you'll risk damaging it yourself and then you have a fight on your hands. wiring direct to the battery must be done very carefully and must be fused. the amp could have an internal short and you want a fuse to protect your battery.

it takes time to test an amp, time he won't want to spend. instead of meeting him at a store, go to his house. people are more honest when you know where they live.

you could charge a 1F cap and it'll turn the amp on if all you're looking for is a light. but that won't tell you if the outputs are bad.

missing screws are a big deal to me. missing case screws are a dealbreaker without a full bench test.

 

[matt_bennett05 10+ year member]

I know not everyone is readily capable of doing this, but I have a "test kit" I use to check amps out. I have a co-axial and a 10" sony sub I can test output with and 4 (and 8) ga wire readily available for testing. I use an RCA to aux splitter (through my droid) for the media player and I haven't had an amp checked by my "test kit" fail me yet.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

i just bench test them in my basement workshop or garage. i don't worry about testing something in a parking lot.

 

[Bassin Buick]

bring a DMM , set it to DC volts (something low like 2 volts) Something that will read millivolts and check for discrepancies between channels for DC offset. and any reading out of the very small millivolts readings means there is trouble brewing.

 

[Shinju 10+ year member]

Buy a new amp with a warranty and think nothing of it! If the used amp is missing stuff like sink screws chances are its been tinkerer with and a 08 kicker amps are everywhere unless its a rare old school amp worth repairing if burnt up.then I wouldn't mess with it personally.

 

[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

I wouldn't buy an amp off craigslist without powering it up......ever

Perfect example, I meet a guy in the mall parking lot to buy a hifonics amp from him. I take the 5 minutes or so it takes to hook it up (everything) to test it out and immediately it starts causing my sub to make a high pitched noise (obviously faulty). He says his buddy gave it to him as payment for a debt...yeah right, whatever, I don't care where/how he got it, the point is he was trying to sell it as fully functional and had I not tested it, I would have bought it and been SOL when I finally powered it up.

 

[Bassin Buick]

I wouldn't buy an amp off craigslist without powering it up......ever
Perfect example, I meet a guy in the mall parking lot to buy a hifonics amp from him. I take the 5 minutes or so it takes to hook it up (everything) to test it out and immediately it starts causing my sub to make a high pitched noise (obviously faulty). He says his buddy gave it to him as payment for a debt...yeah right, whatever, I don't care where/how he got it, the point is he was trying to sell it as fully functional and had I not tested it, I would have bought it and been SOL when I finally powered it up.

Just recently took someones word on a SS reference 1000S , luckily i paid 75 for it , a bostwick 2 channel (working) , a mcintosh d/a converter (sold for 100) , and a pair of cheapo 10's in truck boxes. And i traded the blown SS to a member on here who fixes amps for some other good stuffs. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif But yes , always check.