Trouble with rear speaker wires into amp...

So tonight I decided to dust off my old JL sub and my amp and get some better quality bass in the GP

I wired everything up with the exception of taking the wires from my rear speaker and sticking some RCA connections on the end.

The amp turned on fine etc but there was no sound coming from ANY of the speakers in the car. I turned the amp off and removed the input and the speakers worked again, but now they're distorted even at low volume.

Can anybody tell me whats going on and if I could have permanantly damaged my speakers??

Does this mean you joined RCA plugs to your speaker cable?

Speaker output from the HU is a higher power than the RCA as the HU is the amplifier to the speaker whereas the RCA is not amplified because the amp in the boot does that.

So if you took the speaker cable from the HU into the amp but putting RCA plugs on one end you would have put too much power into the amp and could damage that.

I don't fully understand what you meant by the above quote so can't be sure how relevant my answer is.

Basically I took the rear speaker wire, and crimped a RCA male connections on the end so that I could put them into the input of my amp.

The amp itself seems fine?

That's gonna put far too much power into the amp and i guess could damage the speakers and/or amp because its amping an already amplified signal.

You either need to run RCA cable from the pre-out on the back of HU into the RCA on the amp,

OR using the speaker out on the HU into a high level input on you amp if it has one, but that won't be such good quality and not all amps have one.

I don't thinl it has a high level input.

I have a separate low pass filter with a high level input on it lying around I could use that...

The speakers are distorted even with the amp disconnected. Is this lasting damage and if so does it mean new speakers or a new H/U??

Might be a good excuse to get some good ones.

If I'm reading this right, you put speaker power from your headunit into the RCA input of your amp?

If that's the case, you've more than likely knackered the amp.

What amp is it? Could have given more than the Peak Power of them. I have a BNIB set of these possibly for sale

http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/pro...s_id/5772.html

Unless your going to go for the big guns

HU should be unaffected, amp might be ruined and seems like speakers are already.

Yea thats pretty much what I did. The amp seems ok though, the protection light isn't on? Also even when the amp is taken out of the equasion, the front speakers are distorted and sound knackered.

And how much are thse type r's going for?


Honestly I f*cking hate car electrics. Give me an engine and I could bore you all day. Give me a crimping tool and I honestly want to cry.

your amp could well be fine, just won't know for sure until you test it on speakers that work! just make sure you run proper RCA cables from pre-out of HU!

I'm 90% sure the amp is fine, like you said I won't know until I try it.

BUT its the front speakers that are distorted, they are standard speakers that are running alongside the standard H/U, these haven't even been touched I can't understand why they sound knackered.

well from what you said i can't imagine the HU is damaged though i may be wrong. have you done anything to the wiring on the back of the HU? could wires have been crossed? loose connection? my front speakers used to crackle when it went loud thought i had blown one but it was just a loose wire.

I haven't touched the back of the H/U or the front speakers. I just simply took the feed from the rear speaker from the rear door card so to speak.

It does make the distorted noise my front speakers in my mk2 made when the wires were crossed.

a lot of things are coincidences. Front speakers happened to blow or become loose after connecting rear speakers to amp. could be completely unrelated.

could you have pulled wires loose when moving the rear speaker wire? disturbing wiring at the front of the car?

did sound come from the front speakers when you were testing the amp?

Its not coincidence, The rear speaker wires were taken last week then i wired the amp last night.

When I tested the amp, nothing in the car made any sound whatsoever. Then after I disconnected the amp the speakers were fooked.