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My system:

Pionner 7600MP HU
Infinity 60.5cs Components
Rockford Fosgate Punch 2-way 6x9s
Alpine 340W 4-channel amp

I installed everything except the amp (Circuit City)

After I had finished my install, everything sounded great. The components produced distinct highs, and the 6x9s produced enough bass to fool some people into thinking I had a 10" in the trunk. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed my system did not sound as good as it originally did. Now, the bass sounds really distorted and doesn't hit half as hard as it used to and the components are producing a lot of hiss. Another weird thing happens when use the fade on my HU. When I fade it all the way to the front, all the sound disappears, but when I fade it all the way to the back, it seems to almost get louder in the front than the back. I replaced the rear speakers today but it sounds almost worse. I have messed with the gain and the bass freq on the sub and it doesn't seem to help. I'm stuck as to how to fix this. Is my amp blown? Need help.

Thanks.

 
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that would also be my guess.

 
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ditto.

 
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i guess start trouble shooting by disconnecting the front or back speakers

since you already tried the rear ones, try disconnecting the front speakers to see if the rear ones will go back to normal...i thinks if the front ones are blown and are shorted out, they might cause the amp to go into some protection mode which will sound like crap...

if none of that works, i guss it's either the amp or even the hu...

i guess if your amp is in the trunk you can use a discman's line out to connect to the amp's input. that will let you know whether or not it's the HU.

 
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I hooked up a second stereo to test out the HU, and it wasn't that. I got in my car to go to Circuit City to see if they had any ideas, but the damn thing sounded better when I started up my car, no hiss, no distortion. It still isn't quite as good as before.

Does anyone have any ideas why it's fading the way it does? It goes silent when I fade it all the way the front, but it gets louder in the front when I fade it all the way to the back.

 
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Check your signal cable connections. When mine are loose, they do wierd things that are hard to explain. Hiss is among those things as well as wierd fade/bal problems.

Considering you say it sounded good when you took it to the CC, I am guessing it is in fact a loose connection. The connections in question for my car were behind my glovebox and when I would close it or open it, sometimes it would knock the connection loose.

That would be my first guess as to where to check.

 
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it will take some time but check all the wire hookups on the head unit to the speakers to make sure they are right so that the back it truly the back and that the front is really the front then check your gain it should be down all the way at max 1/4 up because your headunit may only be 4 volt preout instead of 6.5 like some those require gain all the way down to not hear any distortion

 
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Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try those when I get the chance. I'm also going to borrow an amp from a friend of mine and hook that up and see if that makes any difference.

 
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Your speakers will sound like that if one of the terminals on a speakers is grounding to the car. They will still play but sound terrible. Make sure to check and make sure the terminals arent touching the metal in your doors or rear deck.

As far as the fading goes, are there 2 sets of rcas run from you deck or only 1 set with the input set on 2 channel? Its probly only hooked up to the rear output of the deck so when you fade forward the amp gets no signal so when you fade back the amp comes back on. The reason your fronts are louder if that is the case is that the gain on the fronts is turned up more then the rears.

Not saying its the right answer but a good guess.

 
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i agree with a terminal shorting out
i thought i had hu probs then amp problems and
it all came down to my 03 and its extremely small mounting holes and
one terminal slapping on the inside of the door
one month to figure this one out
because it only did it sometimes and i could not
duplicate it

 
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I agree too. Another thing to check is the ground for the amp. it may have come loose, and that would cause your system to do strange things. but the speaker shorting to the metal in the car sounds more like the culpret.

 
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I just finished testing out my system with a different amp. This time, I used a borrowed Hifonics to test it out. The bass response still sounded the same (not as deep), and it still did the weird fading thing when I gaded to the front and I made sure it was set to four channel mode. The ground to the car looked pretty secure and it doesn't look like any of the speaker wiring is making contact with the metal of the car. I will double check all of this just to make sure though.

Thanks.

 
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The speaker wires weren't making any contact with the interior of my car, the grounding wire is firmly tightened and properly covered. I did notice one thing, when any pressure is applied to the input rca wires on the amp, the signal will cut out. CC zip-tied all the wiring directly below the amp, so the wires are pretty much being pulled constantly. I wonder if this wiring has become faulty because of this. I'm going to CC the next chance I get and see if they will do anything about it. I didn't buy the warranty but I've only had it for about a month and a half. Could this problem cause actual sound distortion?

 
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If the RCA connections are bad it can cause some really bad noise

If you feel comfortable doing so, open up your amplifier and check the condition of the RCA connection to your circuit board.

 
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So you think if there's a problem with the RCAs, it's more like the terminals than the actual wires? I noticed if I bent the wires, the sound would come back.

 
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Sounds like a wire is broken, try a different RCA

 
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DONT OPEN YOUR AMP! CC will void your warranty in a second. They are gonna give you a hard time because its been over 30 days but just make sure you bitch and tell them its their fault because of the install. Install has a lifetime warranty. If the roadshop manager doesnt want to help you then get the store manager and then if that doesnt work tell them you want the number for the cool line and then they should take care of it. If not then call the number and bitch and it will get taken care of.

Trust me i know.

 
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i wish you would come to my cc and bitch about a fried amp saying it was the install
thats the reason **** is so ****ed up ...and the reason i dont do favors for anyone
if you come in nice and talk to me like a human ill go above and beyond for you but like the saying goes
you catch more flys with honey than vinegar.....try the nice route
and its only 30 days unless you didnt buy ext service
you still have 1 year manafacturer
and yes i am a manager of a cc roadshop

 
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I guess my logic would be this that CC owes me something: they zip-tied the wires so tight that they're malfunctioning, not me. Also, they scarred my dash removing the CD player, plus they never called me back when they were done with the install when they said they would, and the fading has been screwed since day one. I'm not the kind of person who will start with a bad attitude because I deal with customer service at my job and I know a conflict is best resolved with a cool head. But I am still of the position that CC didn't give me the best install they should have.

 
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If they scratched your dash, ideally they SHOULD pay for it, but if they want to be **** suckers, they probably won't, especially since it's been so long.

You are definitely entitled to new RCA's, they broke em, they should buy em.

 
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agreed