I have a small amp and sub hooked up to my factory hu through an loc. Yesterday I adjusted my treble setting and the sub stopped working. When I made the adjustments the volume was low. I have troubleshooted all possibilities. I have checked the fuse on the amp and the power cable and both are good. I have made sure that all of my connections are good including the ground. I even thought maybe there was something wrong with the loc so I put in an after market hu and still not working. I have a spare amp lying around that I know works and I connected that one andbstill nothing. The power light comes on for both amps and is red. Not sure if that is the color it should be or not but I am confused as to how this is happening. I could see the original amp going bad or something but the second one should have worked. I am a little frustrated. Any ideas?

 

Did you check your remote turn on wire? (most cases blue) put a test light or a mulit meter on the end by your amp. You should get 12-14V from that when the key is on.

 

Yeah that is working fine.

 

hm... if power is good and ground is good... its gotta be either RCA's or Remote Turn on wire. is the red LED on your amp always on or just when you turn your key on?

 

just when I turn the key on

 

your amp(s) might be going into protect mode. you should download the manual for the amp and see whether it should be red or another color. It might still be the ground, you said you checked it, but how is it hooked up? it should be striped of all metal and grounded to the chassie with a star washer. another reason your amp could be going into protect mode or not working is due to incorrect wireing on the subs. if you wire up the subs in a two or one ohm load, and your amp is a four ohm amp, then the amp will protect itself. also if you ground out a speaker wire together or to metal that could to the same thing like if it rattled loose in the sub box.

 

This has been my set up for the past 8 months with no issues. I have the ground set up exactly how you said and I have checked all my connections and fuses and they are all good. I even tried new RCA's and still nothing. I am so frustrated with this and deparately want it to work. I do know that the light was always green. this is the first time I have seen it red .

 

Do you have access to a multimeter?

several things you can do:

1: turn car off, unhook sub and meter the subwoofer for impedance. depending on the setup it could be a 4 ohm sub or 2 ohm. if you get any other reading, its possible the sub is blown. after metering it, use a 9v battery and attach leads to the battery and then touch them to the speaker leads. the speakers should react and pop inward or outward. this will insure that the speakers internal motor is working.

2. Turn the car on, hook the sub back up, play the stereo at a moderate volume. Put the meter on AC voltage and meter the speaker wire either at the amp or sub box. you should have a range of voltage ranging from 1-150 volts. If you are not getting this voltage the amp isn't getting a signal from the RCA's

3. verify all your voltages at the amp and check for any protect lights

4. Check you LOC. and meter AC voltage at the speaker.

If i were to make a guess, i would say the LOC took a dump on you.

 

That is exactly what I thought which is why I put an aftermarket stereo in that way the LOC was eliminated but I am still having the same issue. I have tested the sub by connecting it to a friends am and it worked just fine. I also tried new RCA's to see if that was the issue but it didn't change anything.

 

Bump and other ideas?

 

Which aftermarket radio did you go with? Sometime the sub pre-out has to be turned on, which isn't always default out of the box.

If you have verified the radio has output on RCA, new RCA cable in place, Verified power in respect to the main fuse and remote. my assumption the amp took a dump on you.

Last ditch effort, take the amp out of the car and power it on the workbench with a separate battery and signal source and see if the problem still occurs, then you can be 100% sure that its dead.

 

oh, forgot to add. for shiggles, replace the main fuse anyway. I ran into 1 issue a few years back that it was enough to turn the amp on, but couldn't supply the current needed.

electronics are weird, i had a JL 300/4 die on me at low volume from un-pausing the radio from a telephone call.

 

well I tried another amp that i know works and the same things happens. I am not using the same fuse either.

 

that red light means that its gone into protect mode. so the first thing you can do is take the amp down to best buy and for $20.00 thay can bench test the amp for you. by doing this that means ground and power will be correct not saying your isnt but this way you can be shure. if they hook it up and its still in protect mode then something internal has shorted or made contact with something it souldnt have. this problem is very common with kenwood amps. was the amp brand new 8 months ago or used?