Ok so after a few times of this occuring I am curious. My car currently sits outside when its parked and when driving to work at cold temperatures (about 35 degrees) if I turn my stereo up to past 30 my amplifier (Infinity Kappa 5) will go into protection and shut down for a few seconds. Turning the radio down below 30 and it will play the whole way to work no problems. I have only noticed this at those temperatures and when the temperature is not as cold the amplifier runs perfectly fine and I can max out the volume without any problems of going into protection. I was thinking maybe the temperatures in the trunk when I start the car might be too cold for the amplifier to operate properly and causing this to occur or maybe the signal and power wire being cold doesn't allow enough electricity/signal to flow to the amp for full 100% operation. Has anyone else experienced this or could it be a possible problem with the amplifier?

 

The cold shouldn't hurt anything. The only thing I can think of is the slight decrease in suspension compliance of the cold sub. However, you should not push the stock system past 30, there's a ton of distortion after that point. 40 will hurt things eventually unless you're pulling signal before the stock amp. I set my gains so that I never have to go above 20-25.

You could turn it up and check output voltage when cold and when warm and see if the voltage changes.

 

Signal is before stock amp, I have my gains adjusted so that I can hear distortion start at about 37-38 to not have to worry much about overpowering the fronts. I guess I need to check the voltage of cold vs hot then, it just seems wierd that it only occurs at cold temperatures and at warmer temperatures the amplifier runs perfect at the same volumes.

 

I'm honestly not sure how electronics respond to the cold other than never having any issues either way. I try and run a ton of head room meaning way more power than I'll ever use to avoid any problems. That's good your signal is pre-amp, much cleaner at high volumes.

Checking the output voltage cold vs hot at the same volume is all I can think to do. "Majofo" on here in an EE I believe, he might have some insight into the problem. I remember seeing a similar thread to this over on DIYMA recently as well.

 

My gains are set where I never go past 30. 25-26 is loud as hell. Most of my daily listening is at about 15-20. Not sure what it'd help to set gains at a lower level (less stress on HU?) but just a thought...maybe try that along with some of the other things mentioned or that you think of.

I don't have issues with my audio in heat or cold. Obviously extreme heat plus driving the amps hard for a good period of time isn't the way to go, but nothing non-ordinary. I will say that my navigation works about 75-80% of the time in warm weather and around 10-15% of the time in cold weather. Kinda weird.

 

I adjusted the gains like that for two reasons, 1 being that my goal was to get loud while still being clear, I like turning the knob all the way and running into little to no distortion and 2 my baby moma drives my car as well and knowing her when I'm not around she will turn it all the way up and if I have the gains adjusted differently I'm worried what might happen with her at the controls. I am definitely looking for an amp with more head room now I'm leaning to a seperate sub/front end amp combo instead of the 5 channel currently installed.