amp fades out?

My amp starts with full power and within 5 seconds fades down very low.  My amp is a MTX 6001 running two 15" JLw1 wired parralel. There is also a 1 farad cap inline.  This setup has been pounding out the bass for almost a year now with no problems.  It just started happening today on the way to work so I haven't been able to check each component seperatly yet but fear it is the amp.  I am praying it is the cap and not my amp, would a faulty cap give that sort of problem.  By the way I did a quick check of the wires and they appear fine.  Any Ideas?

sounds to me like a bad subwoofer.  Is the amp going into protection?  Are the subwoofers DVC or SVC?

Jason

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2003 Dodge Neon R/T
Alpine CDA9813, RF T2000.1bd, RF T162S, RFT142C, RF T600.4, RF T215D4
140.7 @ 28Hz

The subs are svc and I am not sure if the amp is going into protection mode.  I will find a online manual for the amp (it doesnt have a protection light but maybe the power light changes color in protection mode) and check on my lunch break.

I'm still not sure which amp you have.  Is it the Thunder 6500D or the 6501D?  Or neither of those?  Either of those amplifiers are only 2 ohm stable, so I'm pretty sure you have SVC subs wired in parallel to it.  But who knows!  I don't think there is a separate protection light on either one of those amps, so I would proceed as follows.  Disconnect the subwoofers, and assuming you don't own a DMM, connect one sub at a time and see what happens.  If one sub will play and the other one wont, you simply have a blown woofer.  Good luck!

Jason

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2003 Dodge Neon R/T
Alpine CDA9813, RF T2000.1bd, RF T162S, RFT142C, RF T600.4, RF T215D4
140.7 @ 28Hz

The amp is neither of those it is the 6001 and the subs are svc run in parrallel.  I was going to try hooking up one woofer at a time at lunch but will be unable to get time. So I will test when I get home.   I do own a DMM but it is at home, how would you recomend testing my problem with it?

Ok got home last night did some research on testing with DMM and did a few tests.  Unhooked subs and tested there impedance (Ohms) one read 7.1 and the other 7.5 so for the past 10 years I thought I had 4 ohm subs when really they were 8 ohm subs. Hmmm... I guess I wasnt as smart as I thought back then.  So anyway I moved on to testing the outputs on they amp. I didn't have a test tone cd so I put on a track with some nice clean low bass set EQ to Zero turned the gain on the amp down and turned down the bass boost.  The DMM showed the outputs jumping up to around 24-29volts AC when I increased the gain to about 3/4. So I hooked the subs back up and and played some bass and 2 seconds later no sound, pushed down on the subs and Yepp they are fried!  So I unhooked the subs from the amp and tried a different sub(small 10 inch 100w MTX). It FRIED right off the bat with the gain all the way down and the HU at low volume. So I tested the amps outputs again and I get no reading on AC at all no matter what the gain is set at BUT the DMM is reading 58volt DC no matter what the gain is at. I got a test tone cd today palyed a 50 Hz track tested the outputs and same results. Any Ideas guys I am thinking the amps fried but have never seen a amp and subs go at the same time.  Any Ideas Guys?  I don't want to hook another sub up to this amp till I know what is going on.

If you are seeing DC power from the output side of your amp you have big problems!   the amp is shot and it is sending DC volatge and current to the subs...not good.   You should be seeing only ac current and ac voltage, with that big of a DC current reading the amp is Shot!

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2009 0-1000 Trunk WR 154.0DB 2009 1001+ Trunk WR
2007 USACI World Champion
2007 World Record
2006 USACI Finals 2nd Place

Damn!!! That is what I was afraid of.  This amp is less than a year old,  any ideas on what would cause this to happen?