Alright guys, here's my problem, hopefully someone can help me out. Sorry for the lengthy explanation.

Let me start by saying I had no previous problems with my audio system prior to this. Last night I installed a Farenheit T-7000MHR screen in my cubby and an Alpine DVA-5200 dvd player in the stock navigation ROM spot. After hooking everything up and re-installing everything, I get very low sound output from my speakers with my HU volume at maximum level (tuner, ipod, cd sources all yield same results). My HU is a Alpine CDA-9856, I've got a JL e4300 amp running JL CSI components in the front and JL CXI coaxials in the rear. I've also got a JL e1400d amp powering a JL 12w3v2 sub.

I cannot figure this problem out for the life of me. I'm 99% sure it's not an amplifier voltage problem because I've got 0/1ga powering the amps, and I didn't mess with any settings on the amplifiers. I figured it might be the remote lead to the amps, so I tested the connection at one of the amps with my multimeter and I get 10.5V. Also, just for chits and giggles, I tested the power at the same amp and I get 11.8, so I hooked up the battery charger just to be safe.

The only other thing I can think of is that in some ridiculous way of uninstalling/reinstalling my cd player, something burnt out inside of it, and if that's the case, I'm going to be pissed. If anyone has ANY input or advice in dealing with something like this before, please send it my way, any help is greatly appreciated!!!

 

did you adjust the gain on the amp?

 

^^ What he said. Also, be sure that your filter mode switches are set to the "off" position.

The best way to set the gain is with a digital multimeter. Get a 1 kHz test signal at 0db and turn the gain **** until the multimeter display reads 13.4V.

 

everything worked perfect before this, and I didn't mess with any of the settings on the amp. I'm going to try swap out CD players right now, I think I may have burnt out the RCA channels in the HU itself.

 

Usually if you 'blow' the pre-amplifier it either makes no sound at all or a Pico fuse has gone (mostly in the Pioneer higher end decks). Still, it is quite possible that the amplifier output has been sacrificed. It may be time for a new deck if thats the case.

 

i think it's my amplifier for the speakers that took a dump. i ran test wires to the speakers right from the back of the deck and they came back to life, which leads me to believe that i'm in need of a new amp......great.

 

It could still be the preamplifier within the deck. Preamp and amplifier are two separate things within the deck. But yes, I would see if you can try a new amplifier in place of the old one. That is your best test.

 

I'm not quite sure I understand this. I didn't have the speakers powered from the deck before this happened, I had them hooked to a 4 channel JL amp. When I unhooked the JL amp and wired them to the deck (like factory), I had sound again. So that means that my JL amp would be bad, correct?

 

It is very possible that it is the amp. There are however, two other possibilities:

1) The RCAs are damaged, corroded or kinked (highly unlikely all four would be damaged at the same time.).

2) The deck's RCA outputs are not working properly (the pre-amplifier section of the deck.). Like I said, this section is separate from the deck's internal amplifier.

The real question is, did all four speakers go quieter at the same time or was it two and then two or what? If everything all of a sudden became quieter then it would be hard to fault the amplifier (all four channels going at the same time? Hmmm....). The circuit that runs the pre-amplifier within the deck may just go kaput which leads me to believe it COULD be the deck. Like I said though, test it with a different amplifier and/or different RCA's until you can narrow it down to one component. This is the reason why your local car audio specialist is a good place to visit so you don't have to bang your head agains the wall.

 

If i remember correctly, which im bad at (college + bongs ftl) i ran into this problem when installing my avic-d3. Be sure your remote amp wire has good connections and everything is grounded properly.

 

I WAS pretty positive it's my amp, but now you got me wondering again. All four speakers are quiet. I couldn't tell you if any of them went out at different times, but I didn't have the rears turned up very loud to begin with so if they went out before the fronts, I probably didn't notice, but then again they should still put out more sound than they do now, especially at max volume. I did wire up a different HU however (pioneer premier DEH-6500), and had the same results with the pioneer from my previous car. I also ran a different set of RCA's and nothing changed. I don't know if you're familiar with this exact HU (alpine cda-9856), but it has 3 rca outs, front, rear and sub. The sub still hits fine, it's the speakers that I'm having a problem with. My question is, is the sub output part of the same pre-amp as the front/rear speaker output?

 

Hope you got this fixed by now.. I'm interested in knowing what it was?

At first I thought it was possible that your fuse blew for the high amp and that it was currently running off the remote wire's voltage causing very low sound but you said you got power at the power wire/amp connection..

So my second guess would be the ground came loose on the highs amp...

 

To troubleshoot the system split it in half using your iPod.

You can get an iPod to RCA cable for about $1-$9 (dollar store to Radio Shack) and use your iPod to directly feed your amplifier. You'll have to unplug your headend's RCA cables, plug in the iPod, and use your headend to turn on (that remote lead) the amplifier. The iPod's volume control should be set as low as you can go. Start the music playing and bring the volume up gently.

If the iPod works there's something bad backwards towards the headend - the RCA cables are unlikely to all go bad at the same time, the head end could be all the way bad (rare), or my best guess is that there's a small toggle switch on the headend to flip the pre-outs from 1V to 4V and you've bumped it down to 1V.

If the iPod doesn't fire up the music it's something downstream. Check for 12 VDC on the output of the remote lead. Check your positive and ground connections to the amplifier. If it's got power and "go" signal you're amp is possibly fried.