Why are my speakers distorting?

[Dirtrider4eva 10+ year member]

yeah i probably do. i havent wired 6.5" speakers before. and the gains i was tampering with so to say. any advice? its a week point.

 

[i2ain2thunder 10+ year member]

turn gain to zero, turn volume to 75%, turn gain up slowly untill you detect distortion, once you do back up gain a smidge untill no distortion at 75% volume.....not very technical but easy decent way to set gain. There are better methods, but I'm guessing you don't wanna calculate voltages.

 

[ChevyRidinLow]

if you say "Ground the RCA" it doesn't tell someone what to do. ground what? the center pin??? that would be a bad idea.
that's why I clarified how to do it. the purpose of grounding the shield on one RCA is to verify if something inside the deck (ahem, Pioneer) has failed resulting in noise due to a lack of continuity to reference ground. Really, it's just a Pioneer fix because of their silly diode. And since all RCA shields are internally tied to signal ground (not always chassis ground, and does not apply to balanced two-wire systems) then you only need to do one shield.

in the future, don't say "ground the RCA" since it isn't telling the whole story and someone could damage their gear trying it improperly. instead, provide proper advice by suggesting they "ground the shield of one RCA at the head unit). details are important when giving advice.

sounded to me like you wanted him to ground the shielding

 

[Dirtrider4eva 10+ year member]

thanks for the quick advice on amp gains. as for grounding the rcas, they werent an issue.

Are pioneer HU that bad? ive been debating on switching to an alpine, not aware of other companies that make decent ones. havent done my research.

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

Alpine but only the high end stuff. There entry level stuff is nothing special

 

[Dirtrider4eva 10+ year member]

yeah thats what i was thinking. Alpine Electronics of America, Inc. eh?

 

[i2ain2thunder 10+ year member]

Alpine is decent. I actually like Pioneer Premiums they are pretty nice. Panosonic's entry level ones come cheap with all the necessary features/ LPF/HPF/3 preamp outs, Aux input and costomizable EQ for like 100$

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

yeah thats what i was thinking. Alpine Electronics of America, Inc. eh?

That is the single din of what I have.. the only differnce is I can add on GPS, back up cam.. If you do decide on that one and you dont have your sound stage amped, I would recommend the KTP-445 power pack. Its cheaper then adding a 4 channel and puts out enough power for about any thing you would need

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

nvr mindyou are amped. thats why we have this thread. but if want to get a new amp that you dont have to worry about settings check this one out. It just plugs into the deck and the wiring harness. Took me 5 minures to install, I did it the parking lot of best buy

Alpine Electronics of America, Inc.

 

[Dirtrider4eva 10+ year member]

nice, ive actually checked one of them out, but thought it was too good to be true. well i'll keep that considered. Thanks

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

sounded to me like you wanted him to ground the shielding

that's the point. the shield on the RCA is what you need to ground. an equal solution is to ground the outer rca jack on the HU. when the pioneer diode "pico fuse" pops from someone messing with RCA's while the HU is on, you lose continuity between ground and the RCA shield. as a result, the amp receives a "floating" input which results in a potential difference between HU ground and amp ground.

what do you think "grounding the rca" entails and why you do it?

you never ground the center pin, that has the audio signal and could damage the HU output. if the center pin becomes grounded, the output won't work. that's why you measure your RCA continuity before you install them. measure along the length for both pin and shield, and measure between pin and shield to ensure there isn't a short. some come from the factory with a short. poor quality control. you only need to install a couple bad RCA's before you test them first.