some of you might know that ive been upgrading the system in my car this year. i paid to have some speakers installed then paid to have a sub and amp installed. i think ive reached a point where i will need to buy some parts and just do it myself.
i think i need to swap the kenwoods with pioneers. should i be able to connect all 4 speakers and the sub to this 4 channel amp??? it seems the shop ran a left and right RCA from the head unit to the amp then is just using splitters. is that fine or should there at minimum be some sort 3rd channel for bass? the head unit is stock with no rca outputs. they used a converter.
is the above suitable for this install or should i swap out some parts?
i started having trouble last week, the sub would go out or the speakers would or something else. they "fixed" it last night. now theres no right audio, all speakers play the left audio. i am going to go back to have them fix this and to run the power cable on the opposite side. i dont know how that will go so thats why i suspect i will need to cut my loses and get this right on my own.
--------
back story (long read)
i first had all 4 speakers replaced. i put some pioneers in the front and kenwoods in the back. this was recommended by the shop where they were installed.
i think this was my first misstep. the pioneers are 70 RMS and the Kenwoods are 30 RMS. There was improved sound but no bass. after a couple of weeks i ended up opening my front doors and disconnecting the factory tweeters. this gave me nice sound but a bit underpowered.
after a few more weeks i decided to get a sub and amp/s. i had some recommendations from crutchfield on all the gear, power for the 4 speakers and a mono amp for the sub. i decided to put everything in the cart and hit a couple of shops up to find out how much it would be to install all this and to make sure i ordered everything they needed. i also wanted to give them the chance to sell me their own set up if all in it would be less. another mistake.
i ended up going with another shop and they sold me a 4 channel amplifier and sub. they said the 4 speakers would be powered by 2 channels and the sub by the other 2. there would also be a bass control knob. bet.
after they install everything i find out they "couldnt" install the bass knob because it would just turn the volume up and down on the whole system, not just the bass. uh what??? okay whatever, lets see how it sounds and if i even need to adjust the bass. overall it sounded pretty good.
then last week i start having weird sound. some parts of the music would be gone then everything would come back. at some point it wouldnt come back until i turned off the car. sometimes it sounded like the speakers would go out and the sub would keep playing sometimes the other way around. sometimes it seemed like something else.
so i took the car back in last night. we start playing some music, everything sounds okay, we turn it up then the bass drops off. the protect light did not turn on. they take it back around and start looking at the cables. dude tells me its probably the converter and tells me to wait in the front. 10/15 minutes later he tells me its ready. it was an rca cable...ok. test it out and it sounds good.
im still suspicious. i play some bass heavy songs loud on my way home. when i get home i decided to find some speaker test videos on youtube. when i get to ones that test for soundstage i see something is lacking. i play one that tests left and right and there is no right audio. all the speakers play the left audio. ugh.
so i decided ill take it back tomorrow (today) and go in. after a little while i get impatient and decided to check out the amp and try to see whats up. theres one rca that is connected to nothing, just taped up. theres a bunch of splitters so i dont know whats what. i start removing the tape and seeing where everything is connected. trying to see if maybe i can get the right audio working. after swapping a few of the rca's around i decided to try the one that wasnt connected to anything.
yeah thats the right channel. i found a way to get it connected (i didnt know what i was doing) where it seemed to sound mostly right. it just didnt sound as loud as the left and the bass only hit when the left channel was on. i know bass is mono but shouldnt it hit with either?? i dont know this is one area i need to understand. i figure i need to tune the amp and since i dont have tools or know what im doing i better just take it back and let them do it right.
so i try to connect everything the way it was. problem is i didnt take a picture and with all the swapping out i did i completely confused on how it was. i tried every combination i could but it seemed like the bass was too strong and sometimes the highs sounded weird. at some point i found something that seemed to work and went back in.
i then did more googling and youtube to try to understand how the splitters were working. basically it is just that a splitter. since its all left audio it really doesnt matter which channel i connect the splitters too. i swear it was making a difference but maybe it was just in my head.
so now im wondering why did they only use left? was it like this from the beginning or did they disconnect the right channel last night? i think thats what it was, they saw the right channel wasnt working and decided to take a shortcut. they probably didnt want to replace the rca cable for the right channel.
im still trying to understand if this amp can be bridged. how they hooked up the 4 speakers to it. i find a crutchfield video on installing a sub and amp. the first thing dude says is you run the power cable through one side and the rest of the cables through another. hrmm i need to check this.
so this morning i checked and they ran all the cables through the same side. thats probably whats been going on. the power cable is interfering with the rcas, maybe even with the speaker wires from the amp.
im definitely going to call them today and tell them theres no right audio. that i want the power cable to run through the other side. the amp seems to be working well but if theyre having to do this shoddy work because its not meant to be used this way then i need them to get the right parts in there.
i suspect i will need to end up redoing this stuff. i dont know how much of it im keeping. i dont really know how to do this stuff but they obviously refuse to do it right. i feel i could probably tune the amp and maybe even get the bass knob installed but i need to have them move that power cable. i think they probably tuned everything then remembered about the bass knob and were too lazy to tune it up again and run the cable for the bass knob.
im worried that the speakers being different RMS is not good and one of them will blow. so im thinking of getting another pair of pioneers. maybe even having them refund me for the amp and get the ones that crutchfield recommended. i just dont know what i will need to do on the head unit. i dont know if i will be able to keep any of the wiring they did.
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
General Discussion
