XxXboboXxX

iTrader: (2)

Aight soo ive been having some trouble with my bass setup lately.. my set up is a 2 4-ohm 12" Kicker L7's wired down to 2-ohms being run by a kicker 1500.1 amp... Soo my setup was running fine for well over a year.. no problems at all.. then i was having some weird problems where the bass would cut in and out when my music was on lower volumes... i had to crank it up ti get full bass.. then it progressed to the bass just playing when it wanted to... sometimes it would work... sometimes there would be no bass at all, regardless of volume or whatever... then it just went to no bass EVER.. so i left it as it was for the end of the winter and now that it started getting nice out started to dive in and try to figure out what the problem is... ive checked, disconnected and re-connected all the wire connections and that didnt fix anything.. amp appears to be fine powers on and power light stays green, no protect mode and doesnt get hot or anything.... still no bass.. When i took out the back seat to check all the wiring i did notice something weird however... the power cable for the amp is 4 gauge off the battery and splits down to 2 8 gauge wire to the amp??? dont know why the shop who wired it did it that way but i know i def should have at least 2 - 0 gauge power wire cause im running 1500 watts.. also the ground wire off the amp are 2 8 gauge ground wires.. weird as hell

i mean the setup ran problem free for over a year so although the wire sizing seems inadequate, would it just stop working like that??? anybody have any ideas of what could possibly be wrong?? im already in the process of rewiring the power and ground wires because it needs to be done anyway.. but id like to hear suggestions before i go buy a new amp or some new subs!!

thanks for any help

mattastick

Well, first of all, if your subs are D4's, then there's no way your amp's wired at 2 ohms... If everything is paralleled, it is running at 1 ohm, which I didn't think those amps were stable down to. But you said it's powering on and not going into protect, which it would hopefully do if the low impedance was the problem.

What's the gain setting look like? I'm curious, and I've seen that if the gain is set too high, it can cause the amp to go into protect, which would cause the intermittent shutting off, but not necessarily why it took a year to start...

XxXboboXxX

iTrader: (2)

i dont remember what the gain setting knob was adjusted at cause i accidentally moved it when i was disconnecting some wires, figured id be able to reset it when i got the bass running again.. but as it stands the amp turns on.. full green light normal operation mode... but theres zero bass no matter how high you crank it.. the thing is when the bass was cutting in and out at diff volumes the amp never went into protect mode or shut off.. the subs would cut off/out but the amp always stayed on and had a steady green light

mattastick

Hmm... Have you checked the subs with a DMM? Just something to try.

Another thing to check is the actual output of the amp. Set the DMM to AC voltage and current (2 separate tests) to make sure you're getting both. If you're not, then the output section of your amp is no good. If you're getting both, then I'm really confused...

XxXboboXxX

iTrader: (2)

alright so how about this get into my car to go do some errands earlier.. and turn the radio on listening to a song and i noticed some weird viberations... out of no where bass just turned back on and started working again after months of not working... i reset the gain and bass boost and so far its worked fine for the rest of the day/night.. no problems... weirdest thing ever, i feel like its an aprils fools day joke so we'll see if it works in the am lol.. anyways my 0 gauge wires get delivered tomorrow so that should help alot as well... i swear i cant figure it out for the life of me!!

'03TL-S

iTrader: (10)

Have you taken out the subs and see if there's any loose connection there? Hope all goes well for you.

tangsauce

I would've suggested using a friend's sub and testing it out on your amp to see if its your subs or your amp that is the problem. However since both seem to be working now, it sounds like its a problem with your rca's since it appears to be a input signal problem. It works now after you adjusted gains and b-boost? Are your rca's custom made or store bought prefab's.
Prefab's - don't trust. Shitty tiny gauge wiring that could have pinched/stretched somewhere from installation resulting in signal strength/quality degradation.
Custom - Uncap your interconnects and see if your solder leads are broken/holding up.

If you have another pair of rca's lying around, test it out and see.
For reference if you ever hear a big blurp out of nowhere followed by silence. Your rca's are grounding out. Don't know if you ever had this problem but just just giving you a heads up. Hope that helps, good luck isolating the cause.

tangsauce

Oh regarding your power wire concern, don't go by how many watts to determine what gauge it should be. A better indicator would be what the max load or current draw is. Simply look at your amp fuses.
45A 8AWG min
80A 4AWG min
100A 2AWG min

XxXboboXxX

iTrader: (2)

well thanks for all the suggestions.. over the weekend i replaced my sub amp's power and ground wire with 0 gauge and a 150amp fuse.. i havent had any problems so far everything is running great since the bass turned back on randomly.. for now im gonna attribute to a loose wire or connection. not sure which wire it was since i completely through the system and disconnected/reconnected all wires... but for now its smooth sailing and the bass is flowing!!

thanks again!