Something Went Wrong

Alright, I need to know if anybody possibly knows what happened here....

I have a 91 Honda Civic LX with a Panasonic CQ-1200U head unit, 6.5" 4way Pioneer TS-A1680R in the back, and a set of 2way Pioneers in the front (not sure of the model, but they are brown)....We recently put in custom 5 1/4"s in the back doors (Pioneer TS-G1340R), and thats when all hell broke loose.. I now have many problems with my system..The 5 1/4 on the driver side distorts and pops when played (we tested with other 5 1/4s so we know its not blown), the front driver side speaker now barely pushes any sound, and my back speaker on the driver side does the same...The middle speakers are connected to the back speakers, so thats how theyre being powered..Does anyone know what could've gone wrong??? Thanks.

****Note: I did not hook the speakers up, a friend of mine did for me, but I'll answer any questions to the best of my knowledge

How are you powering all these speakers? All off the deck?

If you are running 3 pairs of 4 ohm speakers off a deck, you are asking for problems! You will present an impedance load that is too low for the deck. The deck's amp is rated to only put out power at 4 ohms per channel, and is most likely not bridgeable. Disconnect those extra speakers!

What really went wrong, was you let your "friend" work on your car...

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I did disconnect them, the other speakers still acted up

then you might have perminately screwed the deck up?... try swapping out the speakers that are still acting up with new ones...

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As was asked by dwarren, how did you power the speakers?  Also, why do you think your front speakers are "blown"?

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I never said they were blown, i said that since one of the middle speakers were rattling and distorting,someone might think they were blown, but we made sure they weren't by testing another pair of 5 1/4s (which resulted in the same rattling)

Perhaps you are simply turning them up too high? You can't expect much from head unit power.

Do you have and cross overs in use? Are there any filters built in the deck, like a high pass or low pass filter?

And you still haven't answered the question of how you are powering all these speakers? The head unit or external amplification??

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They're being powered by the unit right now,and no I have not been turning them up too loud. My unit goes up to 45, I haven't turned them up passed 15 in a while

dwarren wrote:

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Do you have and cross overs in use? Are there any filters built in the deck, like a high pass or low pass filter?

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As was already suggested, you cannot use more than one 4-ohm speaker on each powered output of a head unit.  You may have permanently damaged the head unit.

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^^^^ actually you can if you don't push it too hard. To me it sounds more like an issue with one of the new speakers that were put in. It sounds much like a tinsel lead grounding out or perhaps a wire going to ground. This would affect all speakers in the system.

Friends don't let friends install stereos (or use Sony)


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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

Thanks for the advice, hopefully something will work

you say that the speakers were put in doors. how did you run the wireing thru the door jambs? maybe a speaker wire is grounding out.

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Sounds like you hooked too many speakers up to the head unit. What that basically dose is drag the impedence down and suck the voltage right out of the head unit. Since the speakers are forcing far more voltage they may have got it and so could your head unit. In other words, your headunit could be damaged for good. A side note to forbidden- only the alternator has a voltage regulator..... I don't know of any head units that seem to "auto bridge" between wattage and voltage. It also seems like you were trying to push atleast 6 speakers with that head unit..... that's how I fried my first headunit to be completely honest. It was a pioneer and I learnt my lesson the hard way.

the unit now goes up to as high as i want, we're gonna disconnect the middle speakers and see if that helps any

You guys might not be privy to some of the info that I am. Soundstream conducted a nice series of test on everyones head units (and manufacturers as well) before they brought out a line of speakers known as SPL. They were available in coax and component form and of course subs. A selling point of the coax and component speakers were the fact that they were all 2 ohm. Guess how many problems we had with a head unit powering 2 ohm front and rear speakers from cd players like Pioneer, Panasonic, Eclipse, Alpine, Driftwood.....not one problem.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

Good to know!  Thanks Rob.  I imagine the THD on those built-in amps went through the roof, though.

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alright, the middles are disconnected. the right side of the car still works perfectly fine, but the left side still is pushin about 3/4 less than the right side...any clue?

First, check your balance settings to make sure it's not simply biased to one side.  If that's fine, disconnect the speaker leads from the deck.  Now use a known good test speaker to check the outputs of the head unit.  If the problem does not present itself then, the problem is in the speaker(s)/wiring.  If the problem persists, it's in the deck.

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My ex once told me I have a perfect face for radio.

thanks, I'll check it out, cause I know the settings are fine on the deck