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Situation changed, will post later, sorry

 
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In 7 minutes? lol

 
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Sometimes, it takes only seconds.

OK son and I (I am the gofer in this situation) have just installed a new amp (power acoustik OVN4-1200) and speakers (alpine spr-17c and alpine spr-69c) in his 2003 civic ex. New wiring as well. He already had a clarion cz509 head unit and a power acoustik amp powering two sub woofers.

Bear it mind I know close to nothing about this stuff, but everything appears to be working with one possibly major exception - the front speakers are not only considerably quieter than the rear but the fader and balance controls on the head unit are non-operational. Is this what happens when you connect an amp? (I told you - I know nothing). Some kind of misconnection?


Any tips that anyone can provide to help us track down the problem would be greatly appreciated.

Edited to add - OK I believe that when you rewire then the balance and fader will not work, and that's fair enough. However we still have the much quieter front speaker problem, so I suspect it's something to do with the amp itself. Sorry this is a bit "stream of consciousness". Can anyone direct me to anything about troubleshooting an amp?

 
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make sure you hook up all the wiring properly to the correct terminals. all fading and balance functions should work with an amp. either the speakers are wired backwards (reverse polarity) or not connected properly to the deck with rca cables. its kinda hard to figure out what you have tho. are the speakers hooked directly off the deck, or are they amped? or are just the subs amped?

 
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I'm not surprised you're not sure what the system set up is: I'm not sure what the system setup is. I am very much the oily rag here.

Ok - the subs are amped from one amp, and they seem to be fine and the front and rear the speakers are amped from another. There are brand new cables coming from the HU to the amp, plus new cables feeding back to the speakers. As I said the sound coming from the front speakers is considerably quieter than the sound coming from the rear, but there IS sound coming from all speakers.

Does anyone know if a faulty connection in one of the speakers could cause this problem (it was truly a bitch getting those speakers in those doors) or is it more likely to actually be a fault with the amp (which is new so if it's that I could return it)? Is there anyway to test the functioning of the speakers ?

I'm not sure what it is, she says plaintively, but I can fix other things (ranges, washing machines), but this just confuses the devil out of me.

 
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its hard to say, could be loose speaker wires at the speaker location, or maybe the amp is not installed properly. basically im gonna guess and say you have a 4 channel amp for the speakers, and the deck has a set of rca plugs for both front and rear i hope. and a third pair for the subs. your speaker amp should have a total of 4 rca connections coming from the deck, and it should have 8 speaker wires (2 per speaker) going from amp to the oem honda speaker harness behind the deck. polarity (+ and -) must be correct for the speaker to operate properly.

 
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i had a similar problem when i installed my components the problem was i accidentally wired my crossovers backwards i hooked the tweeters to the mid range woofer and the woofer to the tweeters. also check and see if the hi pass and low pass settings are correct on your amp.

 
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Gearbox - you're exactly right about that. Hmm - it's possible that the polarity of one or more of the speaker wires pairs are wrong: I didn't do that bit Or are you talking about the RCAs - oh jeez - I feel an absolute moron about this stuff. I very much appreciate the help.

 
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here is the basics of how amps work. your deck has the original music signal that it reads off the cd or music file. now without any amps, the deck will use its own internal power to amplify and send the signal directly to the speakers using the oem wires. this is okay, but most decks are low power like 18-22w rms per channel. if you want a louder signal, you need a bigger amp. when wiring an external amp, instead of the deck sending the signal to the speakers, it first sends it to the amp. it does this using rca connectors. the deck outputs very low signal (usually 2-4v) because the external amp will be doing all the work of boosting the signal and providing crisp sound. once the amp recieves the music signal thru the rca connectors, it boosts output and sends the louder amplified signal back to the speakers using standard speaker wire that you must run from the amp to the speakers (or to the factory speaker wire behind the dash to save time). each speaker requires a + and - connection from the amp. if they are reversed, strange things start to happen like no bass, tinny sounding music, distortion, etc. one way to see if this is your problem is simply switch the speaker wire for a given speaker at the amp connection. just read the markings on the amp to see which pair is for which set of speakers. the rcas are kinda hard to mess up, they are all labeled so make sure they are matched up with the deck and amp.

 
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\/ \/ \/Read my other post first\/ \/ \/
I am sorry but I have to disagree. Switching the +and - wires going from the amp to the speakers will only make the speakers go out of phase with the rest of the speakers in the car. It would still be just as loud but it would sound bad. If you wanted to you could run all for the speaker wires switched and it would sound perfect.

I am not farmiliar with the deck/speakers you are using but most aftermarket decks put out enough watts to push your mids and highs. You might want to try and hook up the speakers without the amp (throught the wires coming out of the deck) and see if the front ones are still alot quieter. Then you will know if the amp is the problem or not.

Or you could try switching the wires for the front and rear speakers at the amp and see if the rear ones then get quieter. That will also tell you if it is a amp problem. Your amp may have adjustments that you can make on it to balance between the front and rear speakers. Read the manual that came with it if you haven't already.

I am pretty sure it is not a loose wire. If it were a loose wire it would flicker on and off and would probably only affect one speaker not both. But when on it would be just as loud as the back ones.
\/ \/ \/Read my other post first\/ \/ \/

 
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thats just been my experience. switching + and - on my old car def caused a noticable volume reduction, and on the civic it made the sound lose all bass and clarity. its noticable even running from the stock deck, but amp is even worse.

 
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Ok, I researched it a little more. I was right and I was wrong. The speakers can all have the + and - backwards. But If they are not all the same the amp will cause dull and flat sound.

So switch the front speakers polarity (+-) and hopefully that should fix the problem. And make sure that all 4 have the same polarity. It doesn't matter if they are all backwards, only that they are all the same!

(It may only be one speaker causing the problem)

 
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Thank you for all the suggestions. Sorry not to have been back before - that car had a flat which necessitated removing everything from the trunk (subs etc) in order to 1) get to the spare, and 2) get it back (worse)... Groan.

Anyway, I am now reasonably certain it is not the amp - plugging a known good speaker into all the ports shows no difference in volume. However, when I disconnect all the speakers and then just plug in one of the front speakers it is still very quiet. I've also tried swapping the wires at the amp end - it still plays but with the same low volume.

I also plugged another audio source into the amp and got the same results, so it's not the head unit or the RCAs.

So now what? Please bear in mind I know nothing so if there's a really basic thing I might have missed, do not hesitate to mention it.

Many thanks in advance.

 
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maybe the wires are messed up at the speaker itself. i know those pnp connectors have a real problem and finally i had to just wrap the wire around the terminal directly and put some electrical tape around it. never had a problem since, but it used to be fuzzy and cut out all the time. so be sure actual speaker connection is not corroded.

 
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Sorry - pnp connectors? I tried googling but didn't find a definition. However, we did find those push on connectors kept falling off as we put the speakers back in the doors, so the wires are now soldered to them. So I think those connections are good. I am wondering if part of one or both speakers were touching something metal in the door could that cause this problem? As you know, those doors are a bitch when it comes to putting anything other than stock speakers in, so it's possible. However, I'd like to be reasonably certain that it's nothing else before I have to take the inside of the doors off again, since that's not the easiest job either.

The reason I am unsure about my proposed scenario above is that it seems a little unlikely that both speakers wiring is screwed up (unless, sigh, we broke them both installing them). At this stage, nothing would really surprise me.

 
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Also, I've just had a thought. You know how little space there is in those doors? When we installed the speakers we used the 3/4" honda adapter rings that came with the speakers, and then just put the trim back on. If the trim was touching the speakers, would that not muffle it a lot?

 
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you can use a utility knife to cut off the plastic "lip" on the door panel back side so the speaker has more room. but that would not really affect sound quality, its just to give the speaker extra space. also yes, if the speaker is not sitting just right, the wires can short out on the metal panel. make sure all your soldered wire connections are covered up with electrical tape. easy way to test is take the speaker out of the door and turn on the deck, see if the speaker plays normally. if it does, its shorting out on the panel when installed.

 
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Well, I've done what you suggested - removed the speaker from the door and it's giving out the same sound level as before. Sigh. I am now starting to wonder if it's not so much that the front speakers are too quiet but that the rears are too loud - when I set the volume to, say, 25 on the deck (range 0 -33) the front are plenty loud enough, but maybe my thinking is muddled. I could weep (partly because it's 90 and humid here).

 
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Whoa! Heat wave! That's just Spring or Fall to me. lol

 
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Yeah I know, but I was bred in England (classic headline "England sizzles in the seventies"). I wasn't designed for this, moan.

 
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Sounds like the amp might be bad. I would call the manufacturer or shop where you bought it.

Tell/show us exactly how it is wired.

 
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Thank you so much for all your help.

Success!!!

I "believe" it was a polarity issue. After I had checked the connections on the door speakers, (which were fine), I removed all the connectors on the speaker cables at the amp and reattached them, and then it worked. I suspect a stray strand of wire was causing my problems.

Again many thanks.

Jennifer

 
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Glad to hear it. Thanks for posting the success!