ZSKCivic01

Hey everyone, I just installed my JL Audio XR compoents with my Alpine T-420. I have the gain less than half-way and I seriously doubt im even any where close to overpowering these speakers. Anyways, when I turn my volume up around 30, my tweeters start making this cracking noise everytime bass hits. My speakers, especially my mids, though don't sound distorted and im almost sure im not clipping the signal. Anyways, I have been told to check all the connections. The connections all seem to be secure, except for one thing that im not sure of. I had to exented the speaker wires so they would reach to the XR crossovers that I mounted so I had to use crimps. Now, these were pretty old and just sitting around in a box with alot of electrical stuff and I think they are just for general electrical use and not car audio. Could that possibly be the reason my tweeters are cracking when the bass hits?

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

So it's only when the bass hits? That's a tough one. Try hooking up the tweeters to the deck power and see what happens. Otherwise use higher quality crimps. Or the base might be sucking all the power from the electrical system and underpowering the tweets.

Regularjoe

I've never seen someone have so much trouble w/ components.

I would say that is distortion. If it is only when the bass hits then the components are trying to play too much bass for that volume level. Its most likely the components giving out far before the amp does. Same as w/ your other Hifonics amp. Bass is the hardest freq to play for those speakers. As the speakers are pushed louder and louder the bass freq are what is going to give out first.

Make sure loud is off, bass is at 0, gains are tuned properly, etc. Its gotta be one of those things. If all those are ok then that's the limit of the components ..... and that's as loud as they go.

ZSKCivic01

if you say how low I had my gain set then you'd see that im not overpowering these speakers or clipping the signal at all. The Bass is at 0, HP Filter on at 100, LP Filter off, the gain is two notches down from half.

01EXtc

iTrader: (3)

sounds as though the crossover point is too low if bass is causing the tweets to crack or distort. a tweeter should NEVER see any frequency that low, just like a sub should never see any high frequency.

Regularjoe

Well thats about right.

In my truck I have JL XR 5x7's and an Alpine T220. You have the JL XR 6.5's and an Alpine T420.

CEA-2006 Power Ratings:
T220 = 50x2 rms
T420 = 110x2 rms

I have my gain just over 1/3 of the way up. I could go up to just under half, but felt the speakers were straining. You have yours in about the same spot as mine. To me that would signal you have a bit too much power going to them. That is assuming our HU voltage outputs are roughly the same.

I have a Pioneer 7400MP. I wanna say its around 4v maybe on a good day.

Also remember that the gain doesn't control how much power the speaker gets. Even w/ the gain fully turned down the amp can output full power if the rca input voltage gets high enough.

Mystic3030

Let me off a different possible cause.

When I first installed my quarts, which have an very large basket, I screwed them in tight even though they werent flush on the mounting bracket due to the basket size, and it was making the speaker twist slightly, causing the cone and surround to be uneven, even though that wasnt visible to my eye. When I turned it up, I got a loud cracking sound out of my tweeters, but not the woofers. I simply backed the screws out untill the cracking went away, but the speaker was still tight. (side note: It took me almost 3 weeks to determine this as the cause of my problem.)

In retrospect, this could also be the cause of your woofers constantly blowing, if you had them installed with a twisted cone like that.

ZSKCivic01

That is an interesting though Mystic, my woofers are secured pretty tightly to the door panels so ill give that a shot later on and see if that fixes the problem. I am also going to switch the old crimps that I used to extend the wires with new ones that should be better overall. Tomorrow im also going to just go ahead and bring it in to a shop and get a professional to set the gain, since I am terrible at doing the tuning anyways. To you regularjoe, I have an Alpine CDA-7893 which has 4V outputs as well.

LudlamTheory

dude. you have so many problems with your setup, just give up on the DIY. go to a shop give them money, and have them fix it.

ZSKCivic01

You don't seem to understand, I know how to install all of this stuff fine, I may need to check a few of the connections at most, but everything is in place where it is suposed to be. Ill just have the amplifier tuned professionally. The only reason that my previus setup with the HiFonics amplifier didn't work out well was because I couldn't tune my amplifier properly. Even with it tuned though on the previous set of speakers that I had, since I listened to my speakers daily and gave them a little less than 150W RMS per side, they wore out quicker. Quicker being a year.

MrWong

iTrader: (4)

I can tell you right now, it is your cross over. As mentioned before, the tweeters are probally recieving some bass signals.

Save your money and check your xover, if need rewire it and then test it before putting all the panels back on.

ZSKCivic01

I have already check all the connections and everything is fine. The tweeters are wired in to where the tweeters are supposed to be, as well as the mids and the main inputs. I too agree that the crossovers would seem like the problem, but I see nothing wrong with the connections. Ill go back tomorrow, and disconnect everything and re-examine the crossovers and the connections just to double check.

Mystic3030

Doubt it. It's probably amplifier setting or as I mentioned, a tweaked cone on the woofer.

ZSKCivic01

No one can give me a definate answer and this **** is pissing me off so im just taking it in to a professional tomorrow to figure it out.

Mystic3030

I bet it's the cone thing! It sounds exactly like the problem I had with my speakers.

ZSKCivic01

Hey Mystic, I tried loosening up the speakers from the spacer and the tweeters still made the noise.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

I'm telling you, hook them up to the deck power. Then you'll know whether the tweeters are bad or the amp.

ZSKCivic01

That is a bunch of extra work that I don't want to do. The last thing that I can think of is that iim powering both amps off a 4G wire split into 2 8G wires through a distribution block. Am I providing enough power to the amplifiers? Besides that, im just going to pay and get my system fixed professionally so I won't have to worry anymore about screwing up my speakers.