I've had this system for about 7 years and one day it just decided to go silent. I received sound for about a minute after I turned the car off/on, then silent again. Did this 2 more times then died all together.
The LED on my the Kenwood KAC-8404 amp lights up but I figure it finally blew a circuit so I replaced it with a Pioneer that has the same out put specs.... and NOTHING!!!!
the only thing I could possibly think of is the head unit has gone bad ...even though it still kicks out sound if I hook up the speaker wires directly to the unit.
I have tested the shield grounds to the RCA from the head unit and as far as I can tell (i'm not skilled in this) there seems to be no issue based on this article
RCA Shield Repair
Anyone else have an idea before I go spend money on a new head unit?
I am sincerely confused here.
P.S. I'm not sure if this is worth anything but I hooked up my iphone to both amps via 1/8" to RCA and didn't get any sound.... I feel like that should have worked
The LED on my the Kenwood KAC-8404 amp lights up but I figure it finally blew a circuit so I replaced it with a Pioneer that has the same out put specs.... and NOTHING!!!!
the only thing I could possibly think of is the head unit has gone bad ...even though it still kicks out sound if I hook up the speaker wires directly to the unit.
I have tested the shield grounds to the RCA from the head unit and as far as I can tell (i'm not skilled in this) there seems to be no issue based on this article
RCA Shield Repair
Anyone else have an idea before I go spend money on a new head unit?
I am sincerely confused here.
P.S. I'm not sure if this is worth anything but I hooked up my iphone to both amps via 1/8" to RCA and didn't get any sound.... I feel like that should have worked
Your RCA ground isn't always connected to chassis ground. Grounding RCAs like that will fry a lot of amplifiers. First thing to check is your power cables to the amp. Put a meter on your 12 volt and ground connections on the amp and see if you have full voltage there with the amp and head unit playing. If you have good power use an ohm meter and check your RCA cables to make sure they are still connected from end to end. If they are good you have a problem with the head unit. Also make sure the amp isn't going into protection mode. Usually the have a protection light or the power indicator will change colour if a speaker or wire is shorting out.
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To clarify, you read 0 ohms between the head unit's RCA shield ground and the case of the head unit. Is that correct?
The LEDs on the Kenwood don't tell you much about the condition of the amp. The amp could be defective and as long as you have good B+ remote and ground, the LEDs will light up. There is no protect LED on the Kenwood. You'd have to measure the voltage on various points in the amp to determine the condition of the amp.
Some pioneer amps won't produce output if the signal source ground isn't tied to the chassis ground.
The LEDs on the Kenwood don't tell you much about the condition of the amp. The amp could be defective and as long as you have good B+ remote and ground, the LEDs will light up. There is no protect LED on the Kenwood. You'd have to measure the voltage on various points in the amp to determine the condition of the amp.
Some pioneer amps won't produce output if the signal source ground isn't tied to the chassis ground.
Some pioneer amps won't produce output if the signal source ground isn't tied to the chassis ground.[/QUOTE]
Is it common for signal ground to be a chassis ground in todays car audio? My experience is with 25 year old equipment. I had a Soundstream Granite amp desolder a 2 watt resister because of a chassis grounded RCA connection.
Is it common for signal ground to be a chassis ground in todays car audio? My experience is with 25 year old equipment. I had a Soundstream Granite amp desolder a 2 watt resister because of a chassis grounded RCA connection.
Good to know. I'll have to be careful if I dig out some of my older amplifiers then. Most of them were tied to speaker ground if I recall correctly.
The RCA shield on the amplifiers can be tied to the non-bridging speaker terminals but can also be part of an active noise cancelling circuit.
I have never seen (some may exist) that would have a problem with a head unit with a grounded shield. There are instances where the transformer will short and drive 12v to the RCA shields but I don't know enough about the granite or the resistor that burned to say if that could be a problem with your amp.
I have never seen (some may exist) that would have a problem with a head unit with a grounded shield. There are instances where the transformer will short and drive 12v to the RCA shields but I don't know enough about the granite or the resistor that burned to say if that could be a problem with your amp.
Sorry to hijack your thread Shido181. I ran into problems with a couple of amps. I don't remember the models. One was a 4 channel Yamaha YPA series amp with a MEI grounded crossover. Blew all the ground traces off the circuit board. Alpine 3545 would buzz terribly. I was able to reconnect the resistor in the Soundstage and ran it for years after. Burnt a Sony CDXC760 head unit by grounding the shield.
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