Amp help

[99Suburban]

I think my amp is a little dead. I have a simple set up in my truck, Sony Headunit, Infiniti speakers, and a 10" sub with a 250 Watt amp. Lately though, my sub has been cutting in and out. When it cut out, it stayed off for a few minutes, and then it seemed to "try" to come back on. It would hit and then stop, hit and stop. Next day, everything worked fine. A couple days later, I put on some good heavy bass music and the thing pitters out again. And it doesn't seem nearly as powerful of a bass sound as it was before.

Can amps start to lose power? It seemed the more I turned up the amp control on my headunit, the faster the bass disappeared and the set up stopped working.

I hope everything I said makes sense. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks.

[TigerEyz3]

Check your connections to make sure that something hasn't wiggled loose. If all is tight, check the power/ground wires as well as the speaker wires to make sure something isn't shorting out there. If all is good with your wires, then check the amp - if you've been running it hard (and possibly incorrectly ohmed :dunno:) for any length of time, it may need repair/replacement.

[99Suburban]

I checked all the wires at the amp, at the speaker and there are definitely no loose wires. Also, with loose wires, it wouldn't lose power when I crank it up, it would lose power every time I hit a bump.

[///M5]

Does it only cut out at high volumes?

[99Suburban]

For the most part, yeah, I guess so. My headunit has a separate control for the amp volume and when I increase that the amp seems to give up slowly. It'll hit off and on and then just stop dead.

It doesn't work at all now. I don't know...

[///M5]

Did it get hot when it went out?

[99Suburban]

The first day it happened, i smelled what I thought was something electrical, but I had my windows open and thought it was something from outside. I've been feeling it each time it's gone out, and I can't tell that it's any hotter than normal...

[99Suburban]

Today I tested it a little. While I had the volume down everything seemed to work fine. I turned up the volume a little on a radio station (relatively weak signal) and the sub was punching lightly. After that, I turned on a CD with some good bass line and the the sub cut out almost immediately. This happened a couple times on the way home.

To me, I think the amp is shot...

[///M5]

Could be, either that or you subs all of a sudden have a much lower impedance for some reason than they did before. I assume this has worked for a while? What kind of amp is it?

[99Suburban]

It's been working for several months now. I bought the amp off Ebay, used, and the box I bought from Circuit City. (See link below) The amp is a Sony Xplod 250 watt 2 channel amp that is pushing a Kicker 10" Comp Subwoofer/Enclosure Package (07TC104)(link).


http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Kicker-10-Comp-Subwoofer-Enclosure-Package-07TC104/sem/rpsm/oid/171804/catOid/-13641/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

It happens everytime I turn the volume up, the amp starts cutting out. It's almost as if it gets weak. It'll hit and then fade out.

[///M5]

I'd stop worrying about it and get a new amp as it would be worthwhile to replace it anyways.

[99Suburban]

I just wanted to update you, if you still care. It's actually kind of stupid.

I pulled all the wiring for the amp and sub and found that it was all okay. I took another amp from another car and tried it out and the same thing happened. So, not the amp. I looked harder at the wiring and then decided that i should look at the power wire where I had it connected to the battery. It was burnt and in very bad shape. Go figure, last thing I look at. I've never had an issue with how I've connected the wire to the battery, but for some reason it didn't like it this time.

Oh well, I spent a long time reinstalling everything and connected it to the battery via an extended post and everything works fine now. Thanks for the help :)

[indelible5]

:rocking:

[dsponder]

my 10" did that i replaced the 20 amp fuse now it is fine