I picked up a used sub and amp and hooked up up today. I think i'm getting power to the amp b/c the ground sparks when I mess with it. Also, the fuse in the amp is ok. But nothing from the amp, the light doesnt come on. Am I just SOL or is there something else to check? Maybe something inside the amp to look for? Thanks.

 

hopefully you hooked up the 12v turn on lead

 

ya mean the positive in the positive and the ground in the ground spot? ya.

 

no, you're supposed to have three cables, Positive, Remote Turn on Lead (usually labelled 12v and is a smaller wire) and negative.

Must have 12v RToL connected so that the amp knows to turn on, otherwise it'll get power but just sit there.




Simple enough, right?

You're going to want to route that small wire (around 18 or so gauge) back to the headunit, try to keep them routed with the power cable and not the speaker wire . hook that up to your 12v red wire or the rather conveniently named remote turn on lead.
If you're still having trouble, pm me and i can direct you to knowledgable individuals that can fix and arrange your setup for a modest fee.

 

Thanks guys, that did the trick. I dont know much about car audio install, my last deck and subs were jacked a few months ago. I was just going by feel being that the wires were already there.

 

Alright new question: I significantly downgraded to the current sub/amp after my shit was stolen. When I turn up the sound the amp will cut out and the light on the amp will turn red. Between the sub controls on my headunit and the controls on the amp, what setting(s) will result in the most bass without cutting out

 

Red light usually means the amp is going into Protection Mode.
This is to keep the amp from basically starting a fire in your trunk/hatchback.

Since you said you downgraded quite significantly, you can only expect that your overall output will also be downgraded as well.

Your best bet is to keep your gains on your amp (bass boost and level, this all depends on what you have provided on your amp) as low as possible and just spend a lot of time fine tuning your sound system till you get to a point where you can make it loud when you want to but listen to it as clear as possible when you dont.

Until you can get better equipment, understand that you're going to have to live with the sacrifice of cheaper equipment.

Once you do decide to upgrade, click back in here and ask around and go to the sound meets we have every 2nd saturday of every month! Come by now if you want to, it doesnt matter if you have a good system or not, we can even try to help you get this one a little louder.

Asking questions is never stupid and most of us are here to help each other out.

Good luck to you sir and hope to meet you at Toby's shop meets one of these days

 

Sounds like the sub is presenting too low of an ohm load. How many voice coils does your sub have and what is the ohm rating on it?

 

its a 10" type S with a 200W or so bazooka amp

 

Don't expect much out of that.

That sort of setup is for ambience bass, not really anything thumping or loud.