Hey guys, I'm kind of a car audio noob. I recently redid the entire system on my E36. I installed a Kenwood headunit, Pioneer amplifier, and JL Audio C2-525 component speakers with external crossovers.
I am not getting any sound from the speakers. The head unit and amplifier both turn on. I have full functionality on the headunit, all the controls work and my phone syncs to it. I measured the pre amp AC voltage thru the RCA cables and was getting 0 volts. I called Crutchfield where I purchased the head unit from, and they said that 0 preamp voltage indicates a faulty head unit. I have a replacement on the way.
Is there anything else I should check?? I want to be prepared in case a replacement unit doesn't fix the problem.
Thanks
New head unit did not fix the problem. No sound output to the speakers still. Double checking wiring connections and everything looks solid to the best of my knowledge.
Amp is getting 12V across its power and its turn on lead. The power light on the amp comes on. Head unit turns on and is fully functional. Tried adjusting gain, balance, equalizer, and volume settings. Tried swapping RCA cables.
Amplifier runs to the speaker crossovers. All the speaker connections appear to be correct on the crossovers.
Im stumped y'all im about to just pay someone.
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You could have a speaker grounding out which would make the amp not play sound. Also how did hook the speakers up on the amp? Did you use factory wiring? If so then you probably didnt bypass the factory amp. What kind of amp are you using? 4 channel? 5? mono? Check your amp output as well. Just unhook all the speakers and hook up one at a time. See if anything happens.
Heres my setup. Its not very pretty at the moment. Once I get it working ill tuck all the wires and shitt. Subwoofer amp isnt hooked up yet.
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Line outs from the amp to the x-overs. Factory wiring from the x-over to speakers. Looks like that yellow/red i have in the place of the left front tweeter should be yellow/black
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I would double check you speaker wires. Do you own a DDM? If so see what OHM load your are getting on each speaker. Or take a AA battery and pop the speaker wires. Have someone set in the car and see if the speaker pop when you use the battery on the speaker wires. Still no sound? Take the amp out go to your local best buy pay 25 bucks and have them test the amp. They have a test bench they can see if the amp is actually working.
^ + 1, but first, make sure there is no setting in the HU that needs to be enabled in order for low level outputs (RCA) to provide signal. All wiring looks good.
All headunits will have sound out of the pre-outs without you having to turn them on. Its rare that they are not on. Only setting that wouldn't be on would be the sub pre-out. If you still not getting sound. Take a RCA to 3.5 head phone unplug your rcas from the amp turn the car on so the amps turn on plug the RCA to 3.5mm head phone into the amp.. Plug you phone in and turn the phone up all the way then see if you get sound if you do then you have a radio or RCA problem. If you dont you have a amp issue. or speaker issue.
Still no resolution yet guys. I took the panels back off and checked the speaker wires. I can't see anything wrong with them. I checked the speaker voltage: 0V and I checked the speaker resistance and it read 6 ohms. I know these speakers are supposed to operate at 4 ohms. Any idea why the resistance is higher? Does that indicate a grounding issue?
Ok, have you made sure that RCA cables are plugged into the Kenwood deck?
check your 5 channel amp settings. Does the amp have variable settings? if so, check to ensure you have the settings (switches) set to your speaker install configuration. I had this same problem also, but turned out my 4 channel alpine amp settings were not configured to the way i had my speaker zones configured.
I have been ignoring this issue for a while now because it had me pulling my hair out. But I have taken another look at it and I have a fix. For some reason or another when I try and use the RCA cables that I ran from the headunit to the amplifier, I get zero sound. Not even static. But I wired in the speaker level inputs into the amplifier and now I have sound. It is faint but I can hear music now. So for some reason or another the RCA cables arent working. So I am forced to use the high level amp inputs instead of the low level inputs. I was so convinced it was an issue with the headunit itself or the amplifier. But I have tried multiple new headunits and amplifiers all with the same result. The only thing I can think is that the RCA cable ripped when I was pulling it thru the carpet. I will investigate later but for now I'm happy to have some music.
Last edited by XnWarden; 10-03-2018 at 02:34 PM.
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