Hey everyone, I have been going through the boards for help with my whole system, and got everything down pat, it seems. I used the search function as much as I could on this subject, but not finding anything at all. The amps are showing power, but the subs are barely barely audible. I already did the EQ bypass. I am using a PAC loc. It has 3 sets of wires, one grey, one white, one brown. I have the positive grey wire and positive white wire connected to the blu/grn that used to go into the stock amp, and the negative white, and grey wires, on the orange/blue. The bare wire that was inside the brown sheeth is not connected to anything. I am running two Coustic 4 channel amps (bridged) to two JL 10 inch W3's. Do the brown wires on the PAC need to be connected to anything? Did I perhaps wire the bypass wrong? I have one remote wire going to the Acc in back of the stock HU, the other remote is connected to the acc fuse on the drivers side fuse box. Any help would be much much appreciated, thanks for all of your help getting as far as I have, I'm just hoping the subs aren't blown or something. THanks guys.

 

No one?

 

Also, I noticed, on my JL W3's, on the very outer lining of the sub, the black foam part is falling apart. Does this mean they are blown?

 

So, you soldered RCA connectors on to the two wires in the brown cable going to the amp behind the rear seat? (Just making sure you know this is a preamp signal, not a speaker-level signal).

So, the rest of the system sounds okay, it's just the subs that aren't producing enough volume?

 

Derrick, hey, thanks for the response. Heres the thing, I am using a PAC brand LOC wired to the pre amp, nothing has been soldered. The door speakers (stock) sounded OK (did bypass), but the subwoofers barely vibrated. Amps had power though, and all gains were up. Than I tried to re-connect the stock amp, and run the LOC off the wires going into the sub. I wired the positive white and positive grey wires, the one black wire one red wire, and same with the negative white/grey wires, ran to the other two black and red wires. IT seemed to produce the same amount of sound regardless of which pairs of wires were touching which. After this, I got a fair amount of more bass out of the subs. But now, I only here any decent bass when the volume on the headunit is below half its max. When I turn the volume up past half way the bass goes way down, barely audible. I'm lost. I dont know what I wired wrong. Also, as I mentioned they very outer edge of my JL's black foam was verrrrry brittle and broke off in some places. Sorry for these long posts!

 

So the sub volume goes down with increased volume? Is the Bose EQ still hooked up? (That's one of the things it does--increases bass at lower volumes).

Okay, I've never used an LOC--I assume it's a line output converter, for converting speaker-level signals to preamp-level signals? If that's the case I don't think this is what you want. You want to just connect an RCA plug to the two wires in the brown jacket and run it straight to your amp's RCA input.

Can somebody else jump in here too?

 

Yea, soon as I turn the volume up past halfway point bass goes way way down, almost gone. Below halfway point, it thumps pretty well. I bypassed the EQ. I cut/connected wires B1-B3, B7-B9, and B4-B8. When you bypass these, you just connect the wires coming out of the black harness and leave the cut wires from the wiring harness as is, right? Yes, its a line out converter, and you are right on, it converts the signal to line level. So you are saying I should clip the two ends off my RCA cables, and use wire taps to tap them into the wires in the brown jacket?

 

Got the speakers working kind of, still having the volume problem, but im hearing a half decent amount of bass. Now, the entire outer black foam rim of the W3's have fell off and are crumbly. I think the humidity got to them, can this be repaired?

 

Well, I'm taking the subs to get repaired, the entire outer black foam part of the sub rotted off when some bass came through. Anyone know whether I should tap off the rear sub input for my RCA or should I use the brown twisty pair, which will have better sound? For the volume problem, should I just try adjusting my gains, could this help?

 

Not sure which way is better: tap off the stock sub with a converter, or tap the preamp signal going into the stock sub amp. I never tried either because I ended up replacing the HU. I tend to lean towards not using the stock amp, because you're amplifying a signal only to step it back down and amplify it again.

 

Derrick thanks, you seem to be the only person in the audio/video forum that has any knowledge of it.

 

Silver,
It sounds like you left the EQ wires floating, which WILL cause funky bass responce. There should be NO open ended wires for a proper EQ bypass. This is what you want:


Now for the sub signal.
You can wire it the way you have it, which is to tap the speaker level signal coming from the stock sub amp with a LOC. The problem with that is you are using a signal which has been amplified, then reducing it to line level with the LOC, and reamplifying with you aftermarket amp.

The better solution is to tap the brown sheathed twisted pair of wires going into the stock sub amp(which is behind the rear seat).

Peel back the brown sheathing and carefully unwrap the silver shielding that wraps the two wires. Next, connect the center post of one male RCA to the blu/grn(this is the +), and the center post of another RCA to the orn/blu(this is the -). the barrel of bothe RCA's will be connected to the wire sheilding that originally wrapped the two wires.

Hope this helps,
Iggy

 

Hey, Iggy, thanks alot! You are correct, I did leave those wires floating, crap. I have a pair of RCA cables, monster cables. Could I just cut the two RCA tips off one end, and use wire taps to tap into the blue/grn and orn/blu wires? Iggy thanks again man, I appreciate the help.

 

Also, initially, I tapped the LOC off the pre amp wires, but I was getting almost no bass at all, but from the rear speakers, I am getting a fair amount of bass, cutting the LOC out of the picture and just using the RCA's will give more bass than using the LOC off the rear speakers right?

 

Maybe,
I've never had great luck stripping sheilded wires. It can be a real pain to unravel the sheilding and then stripping the center wire. If you can figure out a way, go for it. It may require soldering rather than wire taps to get a solid connction.

 

Loc's are designed to work off speaker level signals and reduce them down to line levels for amp input. connecting a LOC to the pre amp signal(line level) will further reduce the signal which is why you got no bass.

Yes, take the LOC's out of the picture and wire some RCA's directly to the blue/grn and orn/blu wires.

Let us know how it works out,

Iggy

 

I'm a bit worried about chopping up my RCA's, esp. if the wire taps might not provide a good enough connection. I would solder them but I dont have a soldering iron or solder. Has anyone tried this with the wire taps successfully? As far as stripping shielded wires I've gotten pretty good at it, my pit used to love the taste of laptop wires when he was a pup. Thanks again Iggy.

 

Ok, I am trying to wire the RCA's up but I am confused. The RCA's I am using are monster cable, with two male RCA plugs to each side. Going to each male part are two very small wires, one orange one white, and than one bare wire. I have no idea how to wire this up, any help would be great, thanks.

 

Derrick, Iggy?

 

I usually use solder-on rca connectors from home depot or radio shack, but if you're using ones with pigtails, just use a meter to see which wire goes to the pin and which goes to the shield. if you have two rca connectors and only three wires, generally white is left pin, red is right pin, the bare wire goes to both shields (common negative).

 

Well the RCA's I have, are one connected wire, that splits into 2 wires on both ends, and two male plugs on each. After they split, going to each male plug are one white wire, one orange, and the bare wire. So, basically I have 2 pairs of each wire. I'm not sure if I just cut the tip off one male plug and use one white, one orange, and connect to the blu/grn etc. or if I need to cut off both male ends from one side and do it a different way.

 

Silver,
I just got back from a trip so I didn't get to help out much. Any luck?
Iggy