Amp Fried Car??
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Amp Fried Car??
Whats up guys, I've been a member here for a few months and love reading up on the things you guys do to your max...and all the things I've learned from other questions answered. I have a question of my own....I recently bought a MTX 9500 for a great price and I matched it up with a MTX 1000xd amp. I already had a prior amp kit installed in the max which was a 6 gauge kit...I figured I needed an upgrade since I'm going to be pushing 1000 rms watts but I still wanted to see how it performed with the current cables (6 gauges). So I was putting the amp in, put the ground first to the amp and I connected the power cable to the Amp (even though crutchfield always says disconnect your battery out before doing so, I was told that was just for precaution) I seen a spark so I disconnected it really fast and noticed all the electricity in the car was not working for a few seconds...So now my eletrical system has been acting funny.....
1.I turned the car on and everything was fine until I switch the headlights on and the engine would cut off....so I had to leave the lights on then turn the engine on.
2. Sometimes my car will not have any electrical components on until I pop the hood and move the battery around a bit.
So I'm guessing I messed up the alternator or the battery is going bad? I only had it for a few months.
3. When I push the power windows down (only when its more then 1 window like the driver side and passenger side window at the same time) the car rpm drops really low and feels like its going to stall.
So guys do you think its the battery or the alternator? What should I do to fix this and hook up my sound system?
hopefully I didn't fry anything important sorry for being a newbie
1.I turned the car on and everything was fine until I switch the headlights on and the engine would cut off....so I had to leave the lights on then turn the engine on.
2. Sometimes my car will not have any electrical components on until I pop the hood and move the battery around a bit.
So I'm guessing I messed up the alternator or the battery is going bad? I only had it for a few months.
3. When I push the power windows down (only when its more then 1 window like the driver side and passenger side window at the same time) the car rpm drops really low and feels like its going to stall.
So guys do you think its the battery or the alternator? What should I do to fix this and hook up my sound system?
hopefully I didn't fry anything important sorry for being a newbie
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im going to autozone tomorrow and hopefully they can run tests on my battery and the alternator and see which one is causing problems....and then a mechanic and hopefully i wont be charged an arm and a leg...lol
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hmmm lol went to autozone to run the tests and everything came back right....the culprit happened to be a loose connection to the alternator and the battery, duuur I feel dumb now. I plan on putting a 1000 rms Watt subwoofer in there, you think the current alternator should be fine? I'll be using a 0/1 gauge wire from Tsunami with a 250 fuse.
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well i didn't want to start another thread but recently, my sub just stopped working. I went to work and everything worked fine. Came back home, and left later to go to the gym and the subs were not hitting. So I figured maybe a loose wire or something. Now I hear a static noise from the rear speaker and my mono amp in the trunk has a static noise coming out of it. HOW? It was working fine before whatever happened happend??! What should I do? The amp has a red light on but I forgot what color it turns to when it worked right so I don't know if its broken or not. Plz any help is appreciated.
well i didn't want to start another thread but recently, my sub just stopped working. I went to work and everything worked fine. Came back home, and left later to go to the gym and the subs were not hitting. So I figured maybe a loose wire or something. Now I hear a static noise from the rear speaker and my mono amp in the trunk has a static noise coming out of it. HOW? It was working fine before whatever happened happend??! What should I do? The amp has a red light on but I forgot what color it turns to when it worked right so I don't know if its broken or not. Plz any help is appreciated.
First, always disconnect the negative from the battery when working on any electrical things including car audio. This only takes 30 seconds to do. This step is not optional.
My guess is either you set the gain too high or you ran your amplifier at a resistance level that it was not rated for. Another possibility is you have a bad ground. What is your amplifier grounded to?
OHM LOAD: Did you wire your subs in parallel or series? A simple way to look at speaker wiring is to use crutchfield's speaker wiring guide.
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-4A6rd5g...rs_wiring.html Double check your wiring by putting a multimeter set to ohm (resistance) on the wires before you connect them to your amplifier. DO NOT DO THIS WITH THE WIRES CONNECTED TO THE AMPLIFIER! A simple rule with electrical engineering is that doubling the resistance level (ohms) halves the power, and halving the resistance doubles the power. When you halve the resistance you increase the amount of heat along with the amount of power.
Most of the time you will run two subwoofers in parallel: For example, if you have two 4 ohm subwoofers and you have an amplifier capable of 2x 100 watts rms at 4 ohm, 2x200 watts rms at 2 ohm, or 1x400 watts rms bridged at 4 ohm. If you wired the subwoofers in parallel, the load that your amplifier will see is 2 ohms. This is if you twist both positive and both negative wires together and put the positive twist in the positive side and the negative twist in the negative side. This is exactly the same as if you ran them stereo style, if you were to just put sub1 into the channel 1 and sub 2 into the channel 2.
The problem arises if you have say two 2 ohm subwoofers and you wire them in parallel. Then the resistance is 1 ohm at the amplifier. The amplifier is not rated for a 1 ohm load so it overheats and either dies or catches fire. If you wired them separately in a stereo style like above, the amplifier sees two 2 ohm loads. If the amplifier is not rated for a 2 ohm load per channel, it will also overheat and possibly catch fire. Often newbies will operating amplifiers at low resistance levels that the amplifier is not rated for. The important thing to understand is that resistance level is more important than matching the "watts" rating between amplifier and speaker. If the subwoofer is rated for 1000 watts rms at 4 ohms and your amplifier is capable of a 4 ohm bridge at 200 watts rms, you will be fine (assuming you set the gain properly, see below). The same is true if your amplifier is rated at a 4 ohm bridge at 2000 watts rms. However, if you plug a 2 ohm bridged load into your amplifier, say by adding another subwoofer in parallel, you will have severe problems because you are asking the 200 watt rms at 4 ohm bridged amplifier to produce 400 watts rms at 2 ohm bridged, which it is not capable of doing without producing extreme levels of heat. Heat causes the circuitry to burn out.
However, if you added the second subwoofer in SERIES, you would be presenting an 8 ohm load to the amplifier. This means your amplifier would be producing half the power, and may actually be producing less dB volume.
If you have a dual voice coil driver, essentially think of it as two speakers in one. This allows you to run creative wiring with multiple speakers and/or amplifiers.
GAIN:http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/topic/3704-how-to-set-your-amplifier-gain/
to set your gain, follow this guide. The gain **** is not a volume ****. It is purely used for level matching, matching the input level to the output level.
Originally Posted by ANeonRider - SSA forum
Most audio equipment dies for one simple reason. Most people push their equipment beyond its limits. Whether it is the amplifier, subwoofer or full range speakers, clipping is the number one cause of failure. To prevent clipping, use this tutorial.
To figure out what voltage you should set the gains to, multiply the RMS power of the amplifiers output by the impedance of the speaker, then find the square root of that number. If you are using an amplifier that has an RMS rating of more than your speaker(s) can handle/rated for, then use the RMS rating of the speaker (instead of the RMS of the amplifier) to determine the voltage to set your amp to. This is also referred to as gaining down.
Gain Setting Equation
Voltage of the output = sqrt(RMS Power X impedance of the speaker)
To set the gain(s), you need two things:
http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/Input_Sen...ensitivity.html
Here is where you can download some test tones for system testing/gain setting:
http://www.ronelmm.com/tones/
http://www.eminent-t...imediatest.html
For test tones higher than 80Hz, download this program and you can create your own:
Adobe Audition Trial Version
It is best to use 50 Hz tone for a sub amp (unless you have bass boost, use the frequency that is boosted as the tone), and a 1kHz tone for a full-range amp.
This is a good way to set the gains, but if you have access to an oscilloscope, by all means use it. Then you can set the gains to their absolute maximum as you can see when the amplifier clips.
If you are wondering what exactly clipping is, and what it looks like, read this:
http://www.bcae1.com/2ltlpwr.htm
If you have any questions about this, post up, I�ll try my best to answer them.
Also, remember a sub can only handle what it can, if you set the amp to its RMS you have to remember that the sub can handle only so much. It is box dependant, but it is best if you are not experienced to follow the manufacturers recommendations.
Enjoy, and remember to thump responsibly!
To figure out what voltage you should set the gains to, multiply the RMS power of the amplifiers output by the impedance of the speaker, then find the square root of that number. If you are using an amplifier that has an RMS rating of more than your speaker(s) can handle/rated for, then use the RMS rating of the speaker (instead of the RMS of the amplifier) to determine the voltage to set your amp to. This is also referred to as gaining down.
Gain Setting Equation
Voltage of the output = sqrt(RMS Power X impedance of the speaker)
- Example
Say the amp provides 100WRMS into a 4 ohm speaker:
Voltage = sqrt(100W X 4 ohms)
Voltage = sqrt(400W*ohms)
Voltage = 20V
Again, that was only an example, use the ratings of your amp to figure that out.
To set the gain(s), you need two things:
- 1. A DMM (digital multi-meter) that is capable of measuring AC voltage (needs to be able to measure up to a range of 200V).
2. A test tone CD to use to set the gains at the correct setting.
- 1. Start the vehicle, and pop the test tone CD in the head unit.
2. DO NOT hook up the sub(s) or speaker(s) to the amplifier while doing this, just leave the outputs unused at this time.
3. Now, time to set up the head unit.- a. If the loudest you listen to your music at on a regular basis is 22/35 with bass @ +3 and treble @ 0 with MX (or any other sound processor) on, use those settings. NEVER turn the headunit above 3/4 of the maximum volume.
b. Remember to have the car turned on.
c. If you want to use bass boost on a sub amp, set it prior to setting the gains on the amp and use the center frequency of the bass boost (45 Hz for most amps) as your test tone.
d. Please remember that if you have a subwoofer volume control on the headunit and/or a bass **** for the amplifier, set it to the maximum before you set the gains on the sub amp.
5. Set the gain so that the outputs of the amplifier equal the voltage you found above. This is a MUST. - a. If the loudest you listen to your music at on a regular basis is 22/35 with bass @ +3 and treble @ 0 with MX (or any other sound processor) on, use those settings. NEVER turn the headunit above 3/4 of the maximum volume.
http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/Input_Sen...ensitivity.html
Here is where you can download some test tones for system testing/gain setting:
http://www.ronelmm.com/tones/
http://www.eminent-t...imediatest.html
For test tones higher than 80Hz, download this program and you can create your own:
Adobe Audition Trial Version
It is best to use 50 Hz tone for a sub amp (unless you have bass boost, use the frequency that is boosted as the tone), and a 1kHz tone for a full-range amp.
This is a good way to set the gains, but if you have access to an oscilloscope, by all means use it. Then you can set the gains to their absolute maximum as you can see when the amplifier clips.
If you are wondering what exactly clipping is, and what it looks like, read this:
http://www.bcae1.com/2ltlpwr.htm
If you have any questions about this, post up, I�ll try my best to answer them.
Also, remember a sub can only handle what it can, if you set the amp to its RMS you have to remember that the sub can handle only so much. It is box dependant, but it is best if you are not experienced to follow the manufacturers recommendations.
Enjoy, and remember to thump responsibly!
Last edited by ampire; Feb 13, 2011 at 09:05 AM.
Thread Starter
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 42
thanks for the reply.
I do have a 4 ohm subwoofer that has dual voice coil and I actually used the cruthfield website to wire them properly so that its parallel. negative to negative and positive to positive and then take a separate wire and get + and - each. Everything was working right. So I was pusing the subs at 2 ohms really and the RMS was still underrated with that. My amp was also stable at 2 ohms. I have no clue whats wrong. The amp power is yellowish/red and I can't remember what color it turns into when working properly so who knows. I was guessing maybe the Remote wire went bad? I have a separate control gizmo that came with the amp thats sits next to the driver seat that I can control the bass with and that doesn't light up anymore :/. And last, I had the amp always set to about 25 % of its potential so I don't think I was putting stress on it. ahhh how can it die for NO absolute reason!! Grr
I do have a 4 ohm subwoofer that has dual voice coil and I actually used the cruthfield website to wire them properly so that its parallel. negative to negative and positive to positive and then take a separate wire and get + and - each. Everything was working right. So I was pusing the subs at 2 ohms really and the RMS was still underrated with that. My amp was also stable at 2 ohms. I have no clue whats wrong. The amp power is yellowish/red and I can't remember what color it turns into when working properly so who knows. I was guessing maybe the Remote wire went bad? I have a separate control gizmo that came with the amp thats sits next to the driver seat that I can control the bass with and that doesn't light up anymore :/. And last, I had the amp always set to about 25 % of its potential so I don't think I was putting stress on it. ahhh how can it die for NO absolute reason!! Grr
Check your ground, and check your fuses.
You can also open the amplifier up and see if the board is burned, in particular around the capacitors. Of course, make sure it is disconnected!!!! Usually the amplifier goes red when it overheats. Remote turn on wire shouldn't matter, it just tells the amp to turn on. If the amp is on, the wire works. Also, make all changes with the negative wire disconnected on the battery.
I am guessing you blew a fuse on your amplifier.
You can also open the amplifier up and see if the board is burned, in particular around the capacitors. Of course, make sure it is disconnected!!!! Usually the amplifier goes red when it overheats. Remote turn on wire shouldn't matter, it just tells the amp to turn on. If the amp is on, the wire works. Also, make all changes with the negative wire disconnected on the battery.
I am guessing you blew a fuse on your amplifier.
Last edited by ampire; Feb 13, 2011 at 10:36 AM.
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alright so far I opened the subwoofer box to see maybe if the wires are loose or disconnected. nothings wrong there. swapped out the subs to my old subs to see if their working and nope they're not. So either A. Somewhere in the wiring or B. The amp! :/
I wanted to swap the amp out to see if a different one works but my amp kit is a 0 gauge and its so hard to wire them back to my old amp because its so huge. so...right now I'm lost....My amp I had has 4 fuses on the amp and I had a 250 fuse next to the battery...how could it have broke?
I wanted to swap the amp out to see if a different one works but my amp kit is a 0 gauge and its so hard to wire them back to my old amp because its so huge. so...right now I'm lost....My amp I had has 4 fuses on the amp and I had a 250 fuse next to the battery...how could it have broke?
And the 5 fuses are okay, right? Red light usually means it is in protection/safe mode with most amplifiers. Don't know about MTX. Check the signal voltage on the RCA's going in with a multimeter, see if it is still sending, it should be 1-3 volts at normal volume setting depending on the head unit.
Also you can check the amplifier's output voltage with the multimeter, but be careful. Do this like it says in the gain setting tutorial above.
I would give MTX a call, 1-800-CALLMTX.
Also you can check the amplifier's output voltage with the multimeter, but be careful. Do this like it says in the gain setting tutorial above.
I would give MTX a call, 1-800-CALLMTX.
Last edited by ampire; Feb 13, 2011 at 01:33 PM.
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yea the fuses on the amp seem fine, no burn marks or any of them loose. So I unplug the RCA's that are supposed to be connected to the amp and see what they read? Hopefully MTX honors their warranty's because I bought this amp about 2 months ago brand new :/
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well I spoke to a MTX rep and he said it's stuck on protection mode...and asked me where I bought it from. Bought it brand new from a Best Buy outlet on ebay. I guess he said if I got it from ebay that they don't cover it. So lol I think I might just call back and say I bought it from Best Buy retailer...I wonder how or why it's stuck on protection mode...what could be causing it to shorten...grrr
Yeah definitely say you got it from best buy. Hopefully, whatever replacement you use doesn't have the same issue. Make sure you disconnect that negative ground next time , the zap might have been enough to kick it into protection. If they won't cover it you may be able to get it repaired locally if you look around.
, the zap might have been enough to kick it into protection. If they won't cover it you may be able to get it repaired locally if you look around.
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blahhh bump...YET another problem. So I got a new replacement amp from MTX everything was fine. Well yesterday I was bumpin some music at a low volume and the sub just stopped. I thought it was maybe a loose wire or something but I checked all the cables and everything and the Sub just stopped. Why? I don't think I blew them because I don't hear any noise when pushing them down with my hands and plus I heard these 9500's can take a lot of abuse and I barely have it up. ****! I don't know about MTX anymore...well if anybody can help, I would appreciate it a loooooooooooot
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So I've been reading a lot of similar things and a lot of people say you shouldn't run the power wire near your RCA wire and Remote wire. I Mean it's been working for so long...whats the chances that is what is causing it? : /
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You can run your remote wire near the power wire since they are both carrying 12v only. Most people run their signal wires (RCA) on the other side of the car. That is to keep noise at a minimum.
It sounds like you are having issues with MTX amps. A quick check of any reputable car audio form would have probably steered you away from MTX. Yes, they were great back in the day and you can still find some of their PPI built amps on Ebay. I rarely see anyone recommending new MTX amps.
It sounds like you are having issues with MTX amps. A quick check of any reputable car audio form would have probably steered you away from MTX. Yes, they were great back in the day and you can still find some of their PPI built amps on Ebay. I rarely see anyone recommending new MTX amps.
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amp is good, checked with an ohm meter today and looks like the sub went out because I'm not getting any readings from them....idk HOW!! These are supposly the biggest and baddest they got but apparently not, wow. MTX just lost a customer
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