Audio failing - help needed

[Stissy]

Afternoon Saxp,

We currently have an issue with the audio in our car which I’m hoping is a simple resolution. We have quite a heavy audio build (two Pioneer TS2503i co-axial speakers, a Kenwood KFC-W3514 sub and two dual channel amps - one for the sub and one for the speakers, both with their own wiring). Once we get to a certain volume on the headunit (around 15% maximum) the two Pioneer speakers die. Occasionally, when there’s not much bass, they come back to life again and work perfectly, but as soon as the bass comes back the speakers die again. We even managed to play a song which varies in bass and you can hear the speakers coming back on every third beat, before dying again when the bass comes in.

My initial thoughts were that the battery wasn’t powerful enough, so I stuck that on charge last night and will try again this evening. The car is currently off the road and the engine isn’t running, it wouldn’t take much to get the car running again, but as it stands we’re relying on the battery alone, so 12v or so.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the speakers are 4ohm impedance, 80W nominal / 420W peak, and the amp is rated to 4ohm per channel, 100W x 2 nominal / 300W x2 peak at 14,4V, so I assume there shouldn’t be any problem there as I don’t expect the speakers to get anywhere near 420W during normal use, especially not at 15% volume anyway.

Could the sub be drawing the power over the speakers? Could a power capacitor be used to fill the gaps? Hopefully it’s just because the battery was too low and the amp is expecting 14.4v to perform to that spec, but receiving 12v.

Any advice greatly appreciated. Cheers, Jack.

[Bedford126]

Un wire the sub and try the speakers on their own. Sounds like amp isn't powerful enough or is on way out, had a similar problem with my civic set up, turned out I needed 2 amps one to run the speakers and one to run the sub.

[Scottp]

Start simple first. Get the battery charged up, would be better if you could get it running or tested in a running car as it will be ~14v when running

[Stissy]

Originally Posted by Bedford126

Un wire the sub and try the speakers on their own. Sounds like amp isn't powerful enough or is on way out, had a similar problem with my civic set up, turned out I needed 2 amps one to run the speakers and one to run the sub.

I have two amps already, one which powers the sub and one which powers the two speakers. I can still remove power to the sub’s amp and see if that resolves the issue - I'll try tonight.

Originally Posted by Scott

Start simple first. Get the battery charged up, would be better if you could get it running or tested in a running car as it will be ~14v when running

Unfortunately I’ve not had chance over to the last couple of nights to test whether a fully charged battery has done the trick – will update in due course.


Thanks for the responses.