Hi, I have 2 audiobahn AW1206T subwoofers and whenever I turn the radio off, there is this LOUD bass sound from my subwoofers. It won't stop untill I acutally turn the car off and take the key out. Does anyone know what's going on?

 

is the bass just a loud thump?

 

No, it just vibrates for like a whole minute, or until I take the key out of the ignition.

 

I see you have a seperate amplifier installed (required for subs, of course). There's probably a problem with your turn-on lead. This is just a piece of wire that's attached to some output on the stereo head unit (usually it's attached to an unused power antennae lead or dedicated amp switch, but since I've never seen the back of an Acura stereo, I don't know what it's hooked to). It needs to be hooked up properly or the external amp will continuously run until the power is removed (i.e. turning off the ignition). The lack of an audio signal and the application of power is why you have the humming noise. Check the turn-on lead and see where it goes (did you do thie install yourself?). The amp won't work without one, so it has to be there. Check to see what it's hooked to up under the dash and if you need to, splice into another wire that's turned on and off with the stereo signal.
Fred

 

Well, I was looking for some other stereo stuff and happened upon this link from "LED Master". It's an excerpt from the TL service manual and shows which wire does what on the plugs for the rear of the stereo/stock amp.

http://www.nickandang.com/TL/AudioStuff.tif

Fred

 

OK. Last post tonight on this issue. I don't want to screw you up with any bad advice, so let me explain. You may already know all this stuff, but here it is anyway:

There are two kinds of power in a car. Constant and switched.

Constant power goes to things that are always draining power from your car regardless of weather the key is installed or not. Examples are alarm systems and clock memory.

Switched power controls most of what's installed on the car. These components will not recieve power unless the key is in the ignition and in the accessory position (or some variation of the like). Your stereo system recieves both kinds of power, but the constant is just for radio station memory and stuff like that. The actual operation of the stereo is through switched power.

Again, I'm not sure if you installed your amp yourself or if you paid someone to do it. It's possible that the power for the amp is tapped into some sort of switched power source (that would explain why it turns off with the key and not the stereo). This is incorrect for stereo amplifier installation. You want power for the amp to come directly from the battery (this is due to the high current that the amp can draw and the possibility that this current could damage any components that the amp is hooked to if not hooked directly to the battery). Well, with the amp hooked directly to the battery, it gets constant power. This is why external amplifiers have a power switch in the form of a "turn-on lead" that's hooked to the stereo head unit.

It's possible that someone has skipped this step and simply hooked your amp up to some sort of switched power source. That's bad and should be remedied. You won't kill your battery since the amp is turned off when the key is removed, but you could damage your car's electircal system.

Another possibility is that the power is hooked up properly to the battery, but the turn-on lead is hooked up directly to a source of switched power. Not as bad, but annoying. This would be an indication that the person installing the stereo didn't want to pull out the dash and find the proper position on the stereo to hook up the lead. Using speaker level inputs for the amp, it would not be necessary to ever dig into the dash during the entire install. You could leave it like this without danger to the car, but it's not good for the subs and sounds crappy when you turn off the stereo with the key still in.

Use the link from the post above from LED Master. You need to splice into the C11 position on page 5 with the corresponding diagram on page 3. That's your turn-on lead. You can use pretty much any kind of wire (I usually use a length of speaker wire ripped in half - just be sure it's still got insulation) since this is a very low power signal sent to the amp.

I hope this helps. I'll look here again tomorrow to see if you had any questions or complaints about my lack of brevity. Thanks for the paitence.
Fred

 

Hi, I know this might annoy you all, but I have no idea what you guys are talking about I had it professionally installed and I really don't know all that much about these things. If someone could explain it in a little bit more down to earth way, then I'll try to do it myself BTW, thank you for all of the quick posts!!!

 

Hey, no problem. Take a look at the amp and you'll see several wires hooked up to it:
There's a thick (usually red) wire - that's the power that should be hooked directly to the battery (if you look at the battery, you should see the other end of this thick wire hooked directly to the positive terminal with a fuze somewhere close - like within 18 inches of the battery).

There's another thick (usually black) wire - that's the ground and it's only a couple feet long and is attached to the car somewhere to ground out to the body or the frame.

There's the turn-on lead - that's a thin piece of wire (sometimes light blue, but not necessarily). This should be hooked to the rear of your head unit. It sends a signal from the head unit to the amp to tell the amp when it should be turned on and active and when it should be turned off and inactive - I think this one is your problem.

Other wires hooked up will be RCA-type cables carrying the audio signal from your head unit OR speaker wires carrying a higher level signal from your head unit. One or the other will be present, usually not both.

The last wires hooked up will go to the subwoffer. The signal from your head unit has been amplified and probably had the high frequencies blocked out to send just the bass to the sub.

That's everything hooked up to your amp.

Find the one wire that's hooked up to the turn-on. It's usually the only thin wire that's not paired to any others and is right next to the two very thick power and ground wires.

Try to trace this wire back to where it's hooked into the car's electrical system. It should go all the way back to your head unit and be attached at the rear. If it's attached somewhere in the vehicle's fuze box or to another accessory, it's hooked up improperly. You'll need a diagram of the pins on the rear of the stereo to figure out which place it's supposed to be hooked. Like I said above, either the it'll be hooked up to a dedicated amp turn-on position or if there's not one of those, to the power antenna wire. The diagram that I attached above is from a 2004 TL. Since you have a 99, I'm sure yours is different - even more so if it's also an aftermarked head unit.

If you're not a kind of person who likes to get elbow deep in this stuff, I'd take the car back to the guy who installed it and tell him what noise it's making. A properly installed sub and amp should not make any funny noises when they're turned off with the car running.

I hope some of this helps. Probably just take the car back and tell the guy you think the turn-on lead is installed improperly. Adios.
Fred

 

Hi, does it make a difference that I am still using the stock headunit? I never got around to having my Pioneer DEH-P8500MP installed.

 

Shouldn't make a difference which head unit you have installed. You may need to find a copy of the service manual for your 99 that shows which pins do what in the back of the stereo. This would be a lot easier with the Pioneer, just because all that documentaion comes with the new head unit.
Fred