03TLTYPES

I swapped out my front door speakers and now none of the door speakers work.

1. swapped out passenger door and all speakers worked fine.
2. swaaped out the driver side and all speakers worked fine.
3. put passenger door back together and still all was fine.
4. put the driver door back together and none of the door speakers worked. Only the sub and the HU.

I took the driver door apart, removed the speaker and notice the electrical tape was coming off of the negative speaker wire. If this touched the door frame what would happen?

Does anyone know what the Fvck I did.

Thanks in advance!

drcookie

03TLTYPES,
Are you still interested in buying the sub ?
what is your email address ? I can't seem to find your email address through this forum.

About the door speakers, I have no clue what went wrong. Can't help it.

Cheers !!!

2007AcuraRL

Not sure why you were using electrical tape. insulated crimp connectors and speaker terminal lugs usually do the trick much better. But anyway, if the speaker wire touched the metal door, it would have grounded out the output of the radio. If it was just for a quick second then you would probably be ok. If it stayed that way too much longer and/or you had the volume up pretty good on the head, you would likely fry the output transistors on the head unit, meaning the head is now dead to the world.

Southbound

03TLTYPES, I feel like it's my fault... I guess I should have OVER-EMPHASIZED the point about bending the new DX-6 terminal lugs up 90 degrees and putting some insulation around the bottom of the door frame cutout so that this couldn't happen.

This doesn't sound good
To avoid this potential problem, When I installed my new speakers, I made sure to bend the terminals up on the back of the speaker so that they weren't pointing down. I also went to the effort of unsoldering the crossover cap on the back of the positive speaker terminal block and cut off the tab that the cap was soldered to. I then resoldered the cap to the rivet point of the positive terminal spade. I was worried that the terminal that was sticking out sideways might end up hitting the door frame, so I cut it off with a pair of wire cutters. I also made sure to bend up the other small terminal that the other end of the crossover cap was soldered to as well.

THEN, I made sure that I insulated the bottom of the door frame. I put about three layers of duct tape smoothly all around the bottom of the door hole cutout. Even if this tape loosens up over time it is still held in place by the plastic speaker spacer that is screwed back down over it. I also used some dynamat. A WORD OF CAUTION to others that may do this otherwise EASY mod. If you use the new "Extreme dynamat" Be aware that it is coated with a conductive metallic cover. BE SURE TO PEEL BACK THIS METAL FOIL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CUTOUT TO JUST EXPOSE THE BLACK PUTTY DAMPING MATERIAL. I also used new crimp lugs on the speaker wire and insulated them with shrink tubing. The new POLK DX-6 speakers come with insulated terminals already mounted on an extension of wire. If you don't have your own terminals and crimp tool along with shrink tubing and a heatgun, then I would recommend cutting off the factory connector and splicing a proper length of the new wire with its insulated terminals as a hookup. Be sure to REALLY insulate the splice as well!

I'm not sure how you hooked yours up, but it sounds like you might have been in just a bit of a hurry without taking the time to make sure all of these conditions were met. You can't be too safe these days... I cut the entire back of the factory plastic basket off up to the rubber mounting gasket that was on the back. This left me with just a 3/4" beveled spacer. You might be able to get away with just cutting out the slatted ventilation louvers, but I wanted my speaker to be able to breath the best that it could inside an already marginally small door opening.

I'm not sure if you figured the color code out correctly or not because BOSE made sure NOT to mark the polarity of their speakers... So just in case, I'll pass the info on. It may also help others. As you know, it is important to have all of the speakers connected with the proper polarity or else they will acoustically cancel each other out and you will lose your center soundstage.

The Driver's front door speaker
+ Red/Grn
- Brn/Blk

The Passenger's front door speaker
+ Blu/Grn
- Gry/Blk

I haven't confirmed the rear speaker polarities yet. The schematic seems like it might have a typo in it? Because for the front speakers they call the #1 and #2 terminals plus and minus, respectively. And on the rear speakers they call the #1 and #2 terminals minus and plus, respectively???

*As a tip... If you ever have a speaker that you don't know which is the positive or negative terminal... Take a 1.5 volt AA battery and momentarily connect it to the speaker with a pair of wires. When the polarity is correct, meaning when the positive terminal of the battery is connected to the correct positive terminal of the speaker, the speaker should move OUTWARDS. If the polarity is incorrect, the speaker will SUCK INWARD. DO NOT LEAVE THE BATTERY CONNECTED BUT FOR A BRIEF PULSE. IF YOU LEAVE THE DC VOLTAGE PERMANENTLY CONNECTED TO THE SPEAKER YOU COULD OVERHEAT THE VOICECOIL AND BURN OUT THE SPEAKER! A quick touch is all you need to see which way the speaker moves and this will not hurt the voicecoil. After you see which way the speaker moves, switch the battery leads around until the speaker cone moves outward. The wire from the positive side of the battery is NOW connected to the speaker's positive terminal and the negative connection of the battery is the negative terminal. Just don't use any higher of a voltage source either... because this may move the voicecoil too far. Any 1.5v AAA, AA, C-cell or D-cell will work just fine.

Now that I have cautioned others who sound like they are planning the same speaker replacement. Let's talk about YOUR PROBLEM...

I'm sure that the stock Headunit uses a bridged output stage for each speaker or at least each speaker channel. In a conventional single ended output stage the negative wire could be common with the chassis and cause no damage if grounded. However, if you build two push-pull output stages and invert one of them so that it is 180 degrees out of phase you can gain twice the voltage swing or 4X the power output by floating the speaker leads and connecting them across the two output stages. I would guess that this is what Acura Bose has done in our head unit. This arrangement will allow you to economically produce about 20 Watts rms into 4ohms as opposed to only about 5 Watts rms into 4ohms in a non-bridged single output design.

Having said that... If any one of the speaker leads touches ground or each other, they will short out the output transistors in the final output stage. This will definitely do serious damage to the final output stage (probably a heatsinked multi-pin power chip in this case) It may or may not be proprietary? Without some form of current limiting the output stage/chip would be destroyed almost instantly.

There is some possible good news to this bummer scenario... I am looking at the Stero Sound System schematic that I downloaded from some other nice person from this site. It shows the speaker leads from the Head unit being fed through under dash fuse/relay boxes. The left channel speakers say they go through the "Driver's under-dash fuse/relay Box". The right channel speakers say they go through the "Passenger's under-dash fuse/relay Box". However, they don't actually state the value of the fuses of if there are indeed fuses in line with the speakers. The leads my just simply jump through the fuse panel. But I would look to see if you can find any fuses labeled speaker or stereo, or radio, etc. If there were indeed in-line speaker fuses, this should have saved you. But what puzzles me is that unless they have one crazy design with both channels all inside of one chip... shorting out the left channel speaker line shouldn't affect the right side speakers. I would suspect that there are two if not four output chips for the respective speakers. They may be paralleling the front and rear channels off of one channel/chip. But I would expect to see separate output stages for the separate left and right channels.

Sooooo,
1. Either you shorted out BOTH channels by having the same thing happen inside of both doors. and you had TWO speaker line fuses blow (cross your fingers on this one) I would check this out in any case, because you will want to re-insulate things VERY WELL in both doors anyway just to be safe after this fiasco is solved. OR

2. More likely you only shorted out one speaker wire and it turns out that there really aren't inline fuses, and the short drew excessive current through the output stage and it blew the main Head unit audio fuse. I see on the schematic that there are two fuses for the audio head unit. There is a 7.5amp fuse located in the "Driver's side under-dash fuse/relay Box". There is also a 20amp fuse located in the "Passenger's under-dash fuse/relay Box". This would be the more likely one to blow if the output stage were shorted. The 7.5amp fuse may be just keeping on the level controls and line level electronics, etc.

NOW IF YOU ARE AS LUCKY AS YOU WERE IN COURT... the 20amp fuse just blew DID YOU SMELL SMOKE? This is important... If the output transistors blew and then took out the main supply fuse, you would most likely smell the damage. Stick your nose inside of the deck and around the back the best you can and see if you smell fried silicone? IF you do, you will find that you will replace the fuse and it will simply blow instantly again. and you will be back once again to your friendly well known dealer telling them that you don't know anything. "Honest, The stereo was playing fine and then it just suddently quit"... The Head unit would be under warranty as long as they don't discover that you shorted it out. EVEN in that case, I would remind them of your tranny and bearings issues. THEY STILL OWE YOU FAVORS!

I hope that this is not the case and that you can find a simple blown fuse that protected you before the output stage had time to fry. Try looking under both the driver's and passenger's side under-dash fuse/relay panels for the culprit. Where ever they might be? THEN GO BACK AND RE-DO BOTH DOORS SO THAT THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN...

Sorry for the rambling post again, but It's just that I care about my fellow TLS owners. I also wanted to make sure that any other people who sound like they are going to try and swap out these speakers don't make the same mistake. I just received my second pair from the internet today. Did you have a chance to listen before the burnout? I hope you agreed with the improvement. Like I say, I'd give the stock system about a grade of "D". After replacing these front speakers I would rate it a "C+".

Keep me posted, I'll try to help, and Good luck!
Southbound

03TLTYPES

Alright, I peeked under the dash of both the driverside and passenger side and I did not find anything that looks like a fuse box. Does anyone know where I might find this?


Second, remember I told you all the service manager took me out for beers a couple times when I had all those problems with the tranny, well I just called him and told him to keep it real quiet but to ask his techs what could be wrong. He is going to find out and if it is something worse than just a fuse (like the HU) he said we'll get it taken care of under warranty on the quiet tip.

Fingers are crossed!!!!

03TLTYPES

Ya, shoot me an email at [IMG]jamesm@freg.com[/IMG]

jamesm@freg.com

Southbound

The fuse panels are shown in the owners manual on pages 297-301. They show their underdash location and how to take the cover off.

There is also a table of what each fuse does.
I don't see any that are specifically for the speakers. But there are two that I would check out.

On the Driver's side there is fuse #8, 7.5amp that feeds the accessory relay and navigation.

On the Passenger's side, there is fuse #9, 20amp that is labeled accessory/Radio. This is the one that I would suspect is blown. Just remember that if you pull these fuses out even to check them, you will have to reset the Radio code before it will come back on. So make sure you have your radio code handy. The manual describes the radio code procedure on page 151.

Hope you get lucky! Let us know what you find out. It's also good that you're beer buddies with the service manager

03TLTYPES

Ya, I checked those fuses, I was thinking for some reason when you said under the dash that there was another set of fuses besides the ones by the door. No luck yet. They did not have a chance to look at it yesterday so I will go back today or Monday.

zplyonz

03TLTYPES, What is the latest on your speakers shorting out? I am sorry to say I am now in the same boat as you. After three weeks of working great, tonight everything but the sub and HU have gone away. I wrapped the speaker hole with duct tape, used shrink tubing on my corrections, can't figure out what I did wrong.

Could you eventually fix your problem by finding/correcting the short? Was your head unit killed by a short, did the dealer swap it out under the table, or did you get it fixed?

I am afraid to turn on the radio now, in case I can save this. I am going on vacation in a couple of days and don;t have time to tear down the car. I would take it to an aftermarket place to find and fix the short, unless you tell me my HU is cooked.

I am kinda in a panic, I gotta tell ya...

heyrandy

I think that 03's window going down yanked off his speaker wires and they grounded out through the door.

What kind of speakers do you have?

I had a similar problem with my Polk DX6's where they worked great for a couple of weeks and then all 4 door speakers stopped working for a few days, then started working again for a day then nothing (except for the HU and sub).

My problem ended up being a short where the capacitor lead is soldered to the + terminal. The sharp piece of wire stuck down maybe 1/8" and ended up working through 3 layers of duct tape and grounding out through the hole in the door.

I took the door panels off, turned on the stereo, then started removing the Polks. Before I had finished removing the driver's side speaker, all of the sound came back!

Hopefully you will be so lucky. The HU is pretty good about handling shorts.

zplyonz

OK, turned out to be a simple short, despite my precautions of triple coating the speaker hole with duct tape, wrapping the (soldered, shrink-tubed) connections and bending everything up. A solder joint cut through all insulation and shorted me out.

The point is, if you lose all four speakers, don't panic! It is most likely the HU protecting itself from failure. Find the short and you should be OK...

broly

this site is the best

broly

had the same problem.

when you put in the hertz hsk165 you have to do a little cutting, even with the spacers.

in my case, on the driver's side, i have a few too many broken clips that allowed moisture to enter the wooden spacer.

the speaker was then conducting through the spacer and would, on rare-ish occasions, give this exact phenomenon.

i had to replace the spacer, slightly enlarge the enclosure at the bottom to ensure the wires weren't pinched too tight, and re-drill new holes (nbd).

thankfully i was testing with the window partially down, so the short was replicating itself and allowed me to figure it out. i should really get some door clips asap.

if you have sound in the sub and nowhere else: it's a short. heyrandy didn't believe it, i didn't believe it, but it is a short.