Help what could be wrong with my ICE?

[Stuey3D]

Hi all,

I got into my car to drive to work today and i was listening to my tunes at a low volume when all of a sudden i heard a crackling popping noise which sounded like my speaker had blown and the amp turned itself off. I turned the system off and on again and it came back on and worked perfectly all speakers sounded great. I drove along and approx 40 minutes later it did the same again, again turning off and on fixed it perfectly.
During the 40 minutes of use i had it at various volumes with no problems at all.

I dont think the problem is with the speakers as when it goes the sub suddenly looses bass and the both fronts pop and crackle and generally sound like they have blown before the amp cuts off, turning back on after a minute fixes the problem for a while.

My set up is a SONY MEX BT3800U headunit connected via low level RCA cables to a VIBE SLICK A1 4 CHANNEL AMPLIFIER which is connected on channel 1&2 to a pair of EARTHQUAKE FOCUS 4.0 speakers which have polyswitch tweeter protection, channel 3&4 of the amp are bridged to a JBL GTO804 SUBWOOFER.

I have had this set up for a few months from brand new and it has worked absolutly perfect so i dunno why it has started playing up all of a sudden.

Could this be the amp struggling to pull enough power from the car would a capacitor help or has my months of high volume use worn the amp out?

Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated, the cheaper the better LOL

Thanks for looking
Stu

 

[Stuey3D]

Just been out on my lunch break and listened to some tunes in the car (with the engine off) and all seemed to work fine for the 10 minutes i listened to it. Now im confused lol.

 

[volxstu]

It would seem something is over driving the amp causing the protection to kick in, or you have a short (maybe in the remote cable) that causes it to slowly turn off. It could be a number of things really do you just need to go though and check all cables and connections, ruling them out 1 by 1.
Where is your earth? A pic may be usefull.

Stu.

 

[Stuey3D]

I shall have a more in depth look at the wiring when I get a chance, I only had a quick wiggle of the positive and ground cables but couldn't replicate the problem.

 

[Stuey3D]

Hmmm i wonder, i think i may have found my problem.
Today i disconnected the front speakers from the amp and have connected them direct to the headunit, leaving the amp just running the subwoofer. I have just driven to work with the music very loud and the amp didnt put a foot wrong on the entire hour long journey. I have left the speaker cables in place and connected to the amp and reconnected the front speakers to the cars original loom so if the cables were shorting they would have still shorted this evening.

Is it possible that the front speakers could have sent some feedback to the amp causing it to trip the protection? The speakers work perfect and dont sound blown however could there be hidden damage that the amp is picking up and i am not hearing, or is this theory too far fetched lol.

 

[volxstu]

How have you connected the front speakers to the amp? Sometimes an aftermarket wire going through the door can get trapped, possibly when the door card is put on which will cause these kind of issues.

 

[Stuey3D]

The front speakers were installed in factory standard location in the dash and the cables were gently tucked into the kick panels on the floor of the car where the door shuts, saying that though I left the amp wires in place just without the speakers connected so surely if they were shorting then the amp would still cut out?