Amp trouble??????? Need advice.

[philwsailz]

So I did some poking around tonight and determined a few things.
1. I have to get some circulation in there. Its a sealed compartment and it is warm in there even when the sun hasnt been out all day.
2. The left rear speaker is not bad. I switched some wires at the amp and the dirty sound moved.
3. I think I do have a bad channel on my amp. Here's what I did after I put the speaker wires back where they were.

a. I put in the ground loop isolator that Dog recommended. Heard no buzz after that, but I had the access door open. We'll see it it happens tomorrow out on the lake.
b. I turned the HU to the full forward on the fade to isolate one amp.
c. I swapped the RCA's from one to amp to the other (there are two built in amps in my one amp). There was a definate difference between the two.
d. to check the rear channel I did the same thing with the HU tuned to the rear channel. Same result.

**one interesting note. When I had the "bad" amp on, and I shift the balance over to one side, so as to isolate one speaker, there is sound coming out of both speakers on that side. I triple checked the speaker wires and the RCA's and they are correct. If I switched back to the "good" amp the speakers acted as they should. also, on the bad amp, the sound was very distant sounding. Almost like when you have a short in a speaker wire. Also, to make sure I didn't have a bad RCA cable, I tried both kicker cables on both the front and rear channels. Both sounded the same.

Thoughts? Dog? Phil?? Anyone else???

Without writing a book, if the sound moved, just with switching wires, the amp channel is probably not the culprit. Go double check what you did against what I suggested above, and see where we are same and where we are different.

Double-check what you observed and wrote, think about which wires you moved, and see if you can;t determine it is something in the front end of the wiring, specifically in the RCA's or the H/U.

As for the sound being "distant"... Are you by chance trying to do some bridge wiring between speakers and amp?

[jleger98]

Without writing a book, if the sound moved, just with switching wires, the amp channel is probably not the culprit. Go double check what you did against what I suggested above, and see where we are same and where we are different.

Double-check what you observed and wrote, think about which wires you moved, and see if you can;t determine it is something in the front end of the wiring, specifically in the RCA's or the H/U.

As for the sound being "distant"... Are you by chance trying to do some bridge wiring between speakers and amp?

I thought about that, but wouldnt even know how to. Bascially I have the Front RCA's running to amp1, and the rear running to amp2 and the sub running to my other sub amp. Red to red, white to white. I'm no genius, but I'm pretty sure I have that nailed down.

Either way, right now I have the front channel runinng to amp1, and the rear not running to anything. I also disconnected the rear speaker wires from the amp, so now I am just running with two speakers which will have to get my through tonight. If I have time after we get back from the lake, I will try your suggestions as well.

[dogbert]

It wasn't real clear from your description of what you did. I agree with Phil, if you just moved the speaker wires and the sound didn't move, then it's likely a wire/speaker problem. If the sound moved when you switched the RCAs connecting your HU to your amp, then it's likely a problem with the amp.

Glad the buzzing sound was eliminated. BTW, if you think one of your amps is bad, see if your other amp is 2 Ohm stable. If it is, I'd just connect all 4 speakers to the good amp and call it a day. You won't be able to fade, but you will get more sound without spending additional $$.

[philwsailz]

It wasn't real clear from your description of what you did. I agree with Phil, if you just moved the speaker wires and the sound didn't move, then it's likely a wire/speaker problem. If the sound moved when you switched the RCAs connecting your HU to your amp, then it's likely a problem with the amp.

Glad the buzzing sound was eliminated. BTW, if you think one of your amps is bad, see if your other amp is 2 Ohm stable. If it is, I'd just connect all 4 speakers to the good amp and call it a day. You won't be able to fade, but you will get more sound without spending additional $$.

Dog, you have it backwards...

If when moving the RCA's the sound moved, the problem is in front of the amp, NOT in the amp. a functioning amp only makes louder what is put in it.

If one of the amp channels was really and truly bad, nothing done at the H/U, nothing done with the RCA's, nothing done with noise filters will make the bad sound move. The bad sound will always and ONLY come from the bad channel. If the bad sound moves around as a result of changing H/U, or RCA's, it totally points to a problem outside of the amp.

[philwsailz]

OH, hey, I want to share with you guys, for sure.

I have a tendency to write books. My responses on this thread are an effort to keep the responses factual and SHORT!!!

I want to make sure nobody takes offense, I mean to offend nobody, for sure!!


SO... if it sounds like I am stepping on toes, it is just me working on trying to write SHORTER posts!!! Please do not take offense, and please let me know if I have been too short!!!!
Thanks guys; good to be here and try to help!

[dogbert]

Dog, you have it backwards...

If when moving the RCA's the sound moved, the problem is in front of the amp, NOT in the amp. a functioning amp only makes louder what is put in it.

If one of the amp channels was really and truly bad, nothing done at the H/U, nothing done with the RCA's, nothing done with noise filters will make the bad sound move. The bad sound will always and ONLY come from the bad channel. If the bad sound moves around as a result of changing H/U, or RCA's, it totally points to a problem outside of the amp.

You're right, I was having a brain fart. I was thinking of my set-up where I have multiple amps daisy-chained, but that's another story. I was thinking moving speaker wires while I was writing that. Sorry for the confusion.

[dogbert]

OH, hey, I want to share with you guys, for sure.

I have a tendency to write books. My responses on this thread are an effort to keep the responses factual and SHORT!!!

I want to make sure nobody takes offense, I mean to offend nobody, for sure!!


SO... if it sounds like I am stepping on toes, it is just me working on trying to write SHORTER posts!!! Please do not take offense, and please let me know if I have been too short!!!!
Thanks guys; good to be here and try to help!

No offense taken. We're all here to learn and share knowledge. I try to learn something new every day, even if it contradicts what I learned before.

[dogbert]

BTW, jleger, if the ground loop isolator fixed your buzzing, it's because you did have voltage build-up between your HU and amp. It's entirely possible that this could have damaged a channel in the amp, especially on cheaper amps. Not sure what you have, so don't read this the wrong way. Higher end amps tend to have protection mechanisms to prevent this.

This voltage build up issue used wreak havoc in the early days of PCs when the computers and peripherals were plugged into different outlets. It was only later when cables were better shielded and proper grounding improved things. It wasn't an issue for HiFi when you had tube amps, but now that everything's digital and the power has been cranked up, it's once again an issue. The best thing to do is make sure everything on your system is on the same power source/ground with nothing in between. That will give you the cleanest environment. Ground isolators are a good workaround, especially for the connection between the HU and your amps.

[jleger98]

Phil no worries. In this case, I NEED your expertise, and that of those others around.

To be more clear, I took speaker wires from one channel of the amp and switched them with the another channel. The sound in the speaker moved. That tells me that the problem is "in front" of the speaker wire.

Next I isolated one channel on the HU (front L/R). In the existing set up, I was getting bad sound. So I unplugged the RCA's for that amp input, and moved them to the other amp input. Sound was fine then.

To make sure it was not the HU then, I changed the RCA's at the HU to be the rear channels, and set the fade to rear. Same results as for the front. Because I had moved the rear channels to the "bad", I was now getting bad sound to the rear speakers. After moving those RCA's back to the "good" amp input the sound was better.

In my mind that proves that the HU is fine, and the one amp channel is bad. Do you guys agree? Does that seem like a good test?

Dog, is there no issue with putting two speakers into one output? Is that all the 2ohms thing is ? I believe the Kicker 600.4 is 2-ohm compatible.

This is the model amp I havehttp://cgi.ebay.com/KICKER-KX-600-4-...QQcmdZViewItem

[dogbert]

Your amp is stable at 2 Ohms (does 150W per channel RMS). Click here for some basic specs. That's what I have driving my tower speakers and they are loud!

[philwsailz]

JLeger-

Check your PM

[jleger98]

Thanks Dog. I'll try that as a stop gap measure. Taking it up north this weekend so that'll do for now. Phil, I'll get in touch.

[dogbert]

Be sure to wire them in parallel (i.e., both speaker positives going to the positive on the amp channel and both speaker negatives going to the negative on the amp channel).