Car Stereo People read here----->Trouble with sub

[twitchy]

Hey guys

well i fixed my brakes...now I have a coolant leak and a stereo problem

Heres the setup...Note I dont know a whole lot about stereos at all, all the equipment i have cept the deck are used..

Sony Xplod amp 200 watt
Kicker Impulse 10" sub in box with voice coil

Pioneer Deck

HERES WHATS HAPPENED:

The sub was cutting in and out for a while, like maybe an hour, then it stopped completely. All the lights on the amp are still lit up, the wiring is fine. The sub was hooked up to my friends amp to test it out and it didnt work on that one either, no noise, absolutely nothing. I had a friend take the sub out of the box, all the wires were perfectly intact, all the connections we could see looked good...but still, it just stopped working. There are no rips in the sub or anything. Im very confused!

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks

Twitchy

[Bill Roberts]

Hello again!

The woofer is probably blown. Since it does not work on your friends amp, lets do the "acid" test.

Take the woofer out of the box. Disconnect the wires from it. Find a 9 volt battery and connect to the woofer terminals. The woofer cone should move outward about 1/4 of an inch if the small end of the 9V battery is connected to the + terminal of the woofer and the big end of the battery to the negative terminal of the woofer.

If the battery is good...and the woofer does not move..then the voice coil of the woofer is "open" as in damaged and you need to replace the woofer. If the woofer has two sets of terminals (4 separate wires) then try each set ...as it is a dual voice coil type woofer. Take any old speaker and connect to your amp to test it. If your woofer is bad, take the fuse out of your amp and don't use it until you replace that woofer.

[zero.counter]

I have to agree with Bill on this one. It's blown, the clipping was most likely due to a shorting connection or you somehow exceeded its specs. The process of elimination has done you justice.

[Nissan240SX]

Voice coil is blown. Trust me on this one but do as Bill said and try the Acid test. You may have to buy a new sub. Another reason why you don't buy used.

[russian]

Originally posted by twitchy
Hey guys

HERES WHATS HAPPENED:

The sub was cutting in and out for a while, like maybe an hour, then it stopped completely. All the lights on the amp are still lit up, the wiring is fine. The sub was hooked up to my friends amp to test it out and it didnt work on that one either, no noise, absolutely nothing. I had a friend take the sub out of the box, all the wires were perfectly intact, all the connections we could see looked good...but still, it just stopped working. There are no rips in the sub or anything. Im very confused!

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks

Twitchy



twitchy your sub is blown. this can happen if you have too little or too much power from your amp. you have 200wat, so i would look at something with a 150-200 Rms range. get yourself a single alpine type R for example. heres where www.ikesound.com (http://www.ikesound.com) ;)

[Bill Roberts]

Whats up with the coolent leak Twitchy??


I forgot to ask...Is the radio (head unit) playing the rest of the speakers and the amp is only running the sub?..or is the amp connected to the other speakers using passive crossovers to keep the deep bass out of them?

If otherspeakers are being used off of the amp..it is ok. Amplifiers HATE to be used without a load (meaning without speakers connected)

Also..for the hell of it..Look at the cat whiskers on the woofer..they are the wires leading from the terminals on the woofer to the cone (look at the back of the cone) and eventually to the center voice coil. If one of those came loose from its terminal..it may can be resoldered back.

You did mention it was intermidant so it is worth a shot to look at that feature..


Otherwise, I like the sledgehammer series of woofers available through www.madisound.com in Madison Ws.

[russian]

Originally posted by Bill Roberts
Whats up with the coolent leak Twitchy??


1)I or is the amp connected to the other speakers using passive crossovers to keep the deep bass out of them?

2)If otherspeakers are being used off of the amp..it is ok. Amplifiers HATE to be used without a load (meaning without speakers connected)


Otherwise, I like the sledgehammer series of woofers available through www.madisound.com in Madison Ws.


1) 200 watt amp pushin speakers and amp? hmm i doubt twitchy did that. then no wander it blew. its possiblw tho to wire speakers to one channel and sub to other (i think he has a 2 way amp). i wouldnt do it tho.

2) its ok but you runing a chance of blowing the speakers without the sub. just dont crank it beyond rms range.

[russian]

heres some info on stereos if you just started off. http://www.upgradeyourcarstereo.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=234b81e02390e396db7abbd9c19d14eb

[Bill Roberts]

Here is a kick butt forum..

http://www.caraudioforum.com/vbb2/

I was with Lee when he started it and a million plus posts later, it is still going strong. I actually worked with Lee over 20 years ago when he first opened his car stereo shop...when I took some time off my regular gig..

Good snizzle there..

[russian]

also the 12 volt forums.

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/

also has lots on alarms fiberglass etc all kinds of ****.

[twitchy]

thanks all very much

bill I will try your test in the morning, but it seems like the sub is blown..the amp is running only the sub.

The coolant leak...well im going to deal with it for now and take the car into the dealership later this week...my guess is the block heater.

Thanks again for all your help!

night!

[kandyflip445]

Originally posted by russian
this can happen if you have too little or too much power from your amp. That's not exactly true. Having to little power to a sub will NOT blow it. If it did then you couldn't listen to your sub at low volume. The reason they say that too little power will blow it is, if you have an amp that won't produce the recommended RMS of a sub then naturally a person that is new to car audio will crank the gains up on the amp to make it put out more. The problem with this is that the amp will start to clip(with the gains set too high) and can put out a LOT more power then it's is supposed to. This continued behavior can burn the voice coil of your sub(due to excessive heat).

Anyways your sub is probably blown if it's not making any sound it might be the tinsel leads like Bill said. I've had a friend that that happened to his sub. Oh and here is a site with some more good info.Car Audio Tutorials (http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/)

[S15 Powered]

Originally posted by kandyflip445
That's not exactly true. Having to little power to a sub will NOT blow it.
Actually, it is true. Even in home audio, where gains aren't an issue, if you amplify a speaker with an amp that doesn't push enough juice, the speaker will blow.

[Bill Roberts]

The lowdown on power is this:

If a 50 watt amplifier is "asked" to try to deliver 100 watts of power (3dB over its design limit) then the 50 watt amplifier will "clip" the top and bottom parts of the waves resulting in "square waves" being delivered by the amp to the loudspeaker. Amplifier induced square waves cause excessive heat in the voice coil causing it to eventually fail. By the same token, if you ask a 100 watt amp to deliver 400 watts to a loudspeaker (a 6dB over the design limit of the amp) even a 400 watt louspeaker will eventually overheat and blow.

The only loudspeakers that are purposely designed to withstand clipping for long periods of time are musical instrument loudspeakers used for Public address, and instrument amplification. Even they can be blown given enough heat/time.

Now if you deliver 200 watts "clean and unclipped" power to a 100 watt loudspeaker (3dB over the loudspeakers design limit) then it many cases the loudspeaker will handle this quite well unless you overstress the mechanical parts of the loudspeaker (i/e Surround, spider, cone neck and voice coil bobbin)

It is ALWAYS better to have more power than you need than not enough power to stay "clean"

If it sounds nasty, mostly you are hearing amplifier distortion from clipping.

I have ruined a 100 watt loudspeaker with a 10 watt amplifier that was clipping miserably.

Every 3dB you double the power delivered to the loudspeaker
Every 10 db you increase power by a factor of 10

10dB increases sound output aproximately as "twice as loud" as we human generally perceive it.. 3dB increases are not very noticeable.

If your system can put out 120dB with 100 watts, you will need 1000 watts to effectively reach 130dB.

The more effecient the loudspeakers, the more output you have acoustically with 1 watt of power..meaning that super large amplifiers will work very easy, loafing along to play "very loud".

Effeciency of the driver is not the same as the system effeciency. Putting a woofer in an enclosure and then in the car raises the 1 watt level as much as 10dB

You can get a cheap radioshack SPL (dB) meter to test levels of sound pressure. OSHA will shut a factory down if the workers do not have adaquate hearing protection if the dB level is above 90dBA for an 8 hour period. It is 85dBA in Canada.

Ok..Hope this helps someone.

[RedlineRacer]

Originally posted by russian
heres where www.ikesound.com (http://www.ikesound.com) ;)

IKE Sound is great. I got my subs from there. They are even cheaper on Ebay, check out some of there stuff there. I got two Alpine Type S (dual voice coil) 12's for 150 shipped.

[kandyflip445]

Originally posted by Bill Roberts
The lowdown on power is this:

If a 50 watt amplifier is "asked" to try to deliver 100 watts of power (3dB over its design limit) then the 50 watt amplifier will "clip" the top and bottom parts of the waves resulting in "square waves" being delivered by the amp to the loudspeaker. Amplifier induced square waves cause excessive heat in the voice coil causing it to eventually fail. By the same token, if you ask a 100 watt amp to deliver 400 watts to a loudspeaker (a 6dB over the design limit of the amp) even a 400 watt louspeaker will eventually overheat and blow.

The only loudspeakers that are purposely designed to withstand clipping for long periods of time are musical instrument loudspeakers used for Public address, and instrument amplification. Even they can be blown given enough heat/time.

Now if you deliver 200 watts "clean and unclipped" power to a 100 watt loudspeaker (3dB over the loudspeakers design limit) then it many cases the loudspeaker will handle this quite well unless you overstress the mechanical parts of the loudspeaker (i/e Surround, spider, cone neck and voice coil bobbin)

It is ALWAYS better to have more power than you need than not enough power to stay "clean"

If it sounds nasty, mostly you are hearing amplifier distortion from clipping.

I have ruined a 100 watt loudspeaker with a 10 watt amplifier that was clipping miserably.

Every 3dB you double the power delivered to the loudspeaker
Every 10 db you increase power by a factor of 10

10dB increases sound output aproximately as "twice as loud" as we human generally perceive it.. 3dB increases are not very noticeable.

If your system can put out 120dB with 100 watts, you will need 1000 watts to effectively reach 130dB.

The more effecient the loudspeakers, the more output you have acoustically with 1 watt of power..meaning that super large amplifiers will work very easy, loafing along to play "very loud".

Effeciency of the driver is not the same as the system effeciency. Putting a woofer in an enclosure and then in the car raises the 1 watt level as much as 10dB

You can get a cheap radioshack SPL (dB) meter to test levels of sound pressure. OSHA will shut a factory down if the workers do not have adaquate hearing protection if the dB level is above 90dBA for an 8 hour period. It is 85dBA in Canada.

Ok..Hope this helps someone.


Thanks Bill. That's exactly what I was trying to get across without getting into it. Fact is, if it was JUST LOW POWER that blew the speaker then everone would have a blown speaker when they turned down their stereos when the cops roll by.

[twitchy]

holy crap

well I know alot about...er....making drinks and stuff! not about car stereos apparently

Im shopping around for another 10" sub right now, I suppose I can just put it into my old box

I hope it still has the punchy bass tht the kicker had.

[Bill Roberts]

Make this drink...

Frozen drink

1.5 oz bacardi rum
1.5 oz creme de coco
1.0 oz kahlua
3 oZ of vanilla ice cream
Once scoop of ice
1.0 oz of 151 barcardi rum.
Blend.

Yields about 16oz or so.

Enjoy the "bushwacker"

Tastes like a wendys frosty chocolate..Kick azz.

[twitchy]

heh...Ill try that one at home. I think "100 Georges" would loose its liquor lisence if I ever served that at work

(in canada, drinks can have 3 oz MAX of alcohol)

[sykikchimp]

Originally posted by Bill Roberts
Here is a kick butt forum..

http://www.caraudioforum.com/vbb2/

I was with Lee when he started it and a million plus posts later, it is still going strong. I actually worked with Lee over 20 years ago when he first opened his car stereo shop...when I took some time off my regular gig..

Good snizzle there..

Hell yeah! Caraudioforum rocks your nuts! There are some many audiophile nerds on that site, it'll make your head spin. A search will reveal SO much, it's not funny.

I spent a lot of time there when I just started getting into audio a while back. They helped my buy my entire setup.. It's all still sitting at the house in boxes.. 2 subs, 2 ams, a cap, wiring, and terminals.. Never installed it. Got bit by the Go Fast bug, and never looked back.. Stereo, and open tracking just don't mix at all.

[Bill Roberts]

Yep...very large database indeed. Lee has "quality car stereo" in Pensacola Florida. He started in the stereo field in 1978, I started officially around 73/74..yep I was very young when I got into it. In 1973, I put a pair of 15" woofers in my plymouth valiant...it rocked loud. One of my buddys "Curt" had a 79 Grand Prix and in 81 we put in eight 8" woofers in a large box in the trunk, mated with 6" midranges in the small rear deck and tweeters in the dash. Back then, Fosgate and Sanyo was the only thing with big power then and shortly after, Linear power in 83 was the hot set-up. He tri amped his system in 1982! Kenwood had an electronic crossover.

I cringe at the though that we all started that nonsense..lots of blown ears due to loud car stereo. I think the dB drag race stuff is rediculous..with the one tone 170+dB levels..we sought out high-end sound then...using focal and dynaudio drivers in the car.

I always went for sound quality rather than volume. The 240SX ..I have not got around to making it sound good...because like you say Sykikchimp, drifting and speed is a hell of a lot more fun...and you cannot weigh your car down with a buch of stereo crap. I cut my adapters for my door panels for the 5' 2 way speakers (dynaudio/Morel) and a single 10" in the spare tire well will do the bottom..pair done isobarik is better. I found some really nice Coral 4X6's to do mid bass duty on the shock towers. Installed them this weekend.

How is that Alpine CDA 9805? I saw it for around 160. Since I have been out of direct involvement with car audio...does Alpine still sound real good like it use to??

I want that "Nakamichi" head end sound..at a resonable price, CD/Receiver and the AM needs to have great image rejection ratio..because the high powered Mexican radio stations cut on top of all the others at times. The AM needs to be "delco quality" if I can get it. I like the cigar show and the coast to coast AM shows at night..and 650AM Grand ole' opry show as well.

PS, Twitchy, cut the values in 1/2 and make a 10 oz smoothy. You will be under the 3 oz and you can omit one of the rums :)


Sykikchimp: Look at this old azzed thread...

I am the Audiowizard back then while I had big money and was married..hehehe.

http://www.caraudioforum.com/vbb2/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45395

[sykikchimp]

I have a "Nak" sitting in my closet. 6-disc in dash changer. INCREDIBLE sound. Way too finiky though. It likes cars with plush suspensions. BMW, Audi, etc.. I had it running MB Quart components up front, and 4x6's in the rear.. was going to add 2 dvc 15" infinity Kappa perfects with 600w from a JBL mono amp, with a 1 farad cap. I actually built a custom sealed enclosre that would fit in the hatch, Ran the cables, and everything. (I too am an SQ nut) Went to hook it all up, and the mono amp poped. scared the **** out of me. Sent it back, and got a new one.. Before the new one got back, I did my first track event..

All downhill from there. Never even got to see how the box sounded. It's sitting in my garage, collecting dust.

The alpine units are still very nice.. suprisingly, panasonic is making a move in the market, and is producing some very nice stuff these days. Pioneer is still the unbreakable workhorse.