Hey guys, I was wondering if someone might have some insight into a peculiar problem I've been recently.

The right side of my system has been cutting out lately. Like everything gets faded to the left side. Normally it happens when I hit a bump or something that seems to jolt the car.

Now I can "pop" the right side back on by cranking the volume all the way up and it seems to fill back in (usually temporarily till the next bump) or turn the radio off (which makes a popping sound just on the right side) then turn it back on again (but again a temporary solution). Lately it's become more prevalent and aggravating.

Before I take it back to the shop that did the work, I was wondering if you had any ideas. I thought maybe it was a loose connection somewhere, but I checked all the connections I could (except the head unit wiring) and reconnected everything and still the same result. Do you think it could be faulty wiring in the HU finally coming lose, a failing amp, battery issues?

The setup is a JL 450/4 running a sub and a JL 300/2 running a CDT HD-62 component setup up from with a midrange passive xover system and the stagefront system (midrange and 1" tweeter in the stock front door location and "super" tweeters in the stock dash tweeter location).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

ya, something is shorting out or not connected properly. take it back

 

When raising the volume "fixes" a dropout, it's often a cold solder joint somewhere.

It might be in the CDT xover box. I've heard this sort of thing happen in passive xover boxes.

Intermittent problems are the worst to solve. If it won't do it regularly enough at the shop to t-shoot, they may need your help.

I will often reverse the L and R RCA's and then ask you to note if the problem moves from one side to the other. If it does, it's in the interface OR a bad HU, if it does not, it's in the amp OR in the passive crossover box. Next step is swapping the L and R speaker wires at the amp and seeing if it moves. If it does, it's in the amp, if it doesn't, it's in the crossover box or in a broken speaker wire.

Good luck, keep us posted.

 

Could be a loose connection inside an RCA plug. Had something similar happen to me once - hit a bump and the sound either cuts in or out. The wire that connected to the center pin of one of my RCA plugs had pulled from the pin, but just enough so that it could still touch. Not saying that's you problem, just somewhere to look.

 

i have a similiar issue with mine, i know for a fact that it is a the wiring going into the HU because i can reach behind the HU and touch the wires and the problem goes away. I have wanted to have someone take a look at it but not sure where to bring it.

 

Thanks guys!

I'll try checking the connections to the xovers again to make sure that they're solid and switching the rca inputs on the amps to what happens. Don't know if I can get to the RCA connections at the HU since it's all behind the Nav unit.

If nothing else, I'll try the amp rca's and speaker connections and see what happens. If nothing changes, guess I'll have to take it to the shop to get behind the HU and/or locate a bad wire.

 

Any shop..

 

If you had the install done recently I'd take it back to them ASAP.. I wouldn't touch anything becuase they can, in turn, blame you..

 

Nah, I think that AudioNutz is not gonna go there. How hard are the RCAs to reach, serge?

 

Um... I dunno. I was thinking if I can just work with removing the center console i could do that. But if it involves getting behind the HU, I dunno if I'd have the patience to dismantle all that. But I guess if I had decent enough instructions I could do that and poke around back there.

I don't know where the splicing and connect occurred.

Hey eldude, if it is some shorting out stuff, it wouldn't have anything to do with the miswiring of the remote wire with a line out?

 

No, I doubt that, you should have had the problem since day one if the original shop had toasted the HU.

I seem to remember Dwyane saying he went to the amp, but it was a long time ago, I don't know.

It seems easier to swap L and R RCA's at the amp.

 

HA HA HA HA HA! I have no skills.

Okay so I finally got around to checking out what was up with the system this past weekend. I don't know why I didn't think to look before but before I did any of my testing I decided to just check on the connection to the subwoofer amp. Sure enough, when I lifted the amp cover I saw a bunch of copper wire shavings. I guess over the course of my spirited driving, one of the wire connections had been stripped loose to the point where it wasn't even terminated securely (read: I could pull the wire out with no resistance so it must have been just brushing up against the terminal when shorting out).

So I cut off a bit more of the wire jacket to expose more of the wire and terminated both connections (left and right) very securely (tugged a little to make sure it didn't come loose or give any). While I was at it I reconnected all the other speaker out wires to the amps, just to make sure.

System's back to sounding like the beauty it was supposed to be. Went out for the whole day Sat driving (gas hurt though) to test for any cutting out. Everything was and continues to be solid. Even the care feels like it's performing better! HA HA... no really, I put on new poly bushings for the rear sway bar. But it's nice not having to be frustrated with the speakers cutting out.

See, I knew it was just a loose wire. I was just testing y'all! J/K. Whew, I'm just glad it didn't turn out to be faulty hardware. Seems rather odd though, that the subwoofer connection was causing the shorting of the right side component speakers. I guess the whole maintaining a circuit thing?

Thanks for the help though!