RCA Distortion From Head Unit

ggieo said:

So I have a somewhat crappy aftermarket head unit (Boss 460BRGB) so that if my car is broken into and it is stolen it wont be too bad a hit. Anyways I recently installed a Hifonics Zeus ZXX-1000.4 amp for my 4 kenwood 6x9 speakers. The two door 6x9s are rated at 115w rms at 4 ohm and the rear 6x9s are rated at 45w rms at 4 ohm. The amp is able to deliver 125w at 4 ohm x4. I have the amp set at a low voltage until I am able to correctly set it. The amp is connected to the head unit through 2 sets of rca cables. For some reason when I turn the head unit past half way the speakers start smelling and burning up. There is no possible way the amp is delivering more that 45w rms at that low a volume. Before I added the amp the head unit by its self was able to hit 115db with the same speakers. The head unit can supposedly output 18w rms x4.  With the amp added the speakers start smelling at 110db. The only possible way I can figure this is if the head unit is delivering serious distortion through the rca output which is amplified by the amp and causes the speakers to rapidly heat up. This is quite annoying problem because I am now getting less out of the system with the additional amp and would prefer not to destroy my 6x9s. My question is do head units put distortion/ clipping into the rca outputs? Should I upgrade the head unit or upgrade the speakers to ones with higher rms rating?

Click to expand...

ggieo said:

I took your advice and got a Pioneer-DEH-S6000BS and installed everything correctly. This is the second day ive had it and it freezes up and wont even turn off when I shut the car off. The only way I managed to turn it off it disconnecting the battery. When I reconnected the battery it wont turn back on. When writing this post I havent managed to get it to turn back on even with the car on.

View attachment 2212

Click to expand...