Issues with installing amplifier

S

shadow191

Premium Member
Premium
Location
Atlanta, GA
Car
2007 FX35
I finally got around to installing a 5 channel amp using a USA Spec AOEM NIS-2 for the signal. Everything went in smoothly, but when I was testing, things got weird. Basically, when you first turn the car on, the speakers play very low. Then after about 20-30 seconds, the volume goes up loud, but the driver's side front and passenger side rear stop playing. It will do this every time in the same way. Also, the subs don't play, but there is signal since they thump when I change settings on the amp. Here's how everything is wired, let me know where I may have gone wrong.

- I tapped into the speaker outputs from the Bose and unplugged it.
- All the speakers do have sound so the amplifier is good (plus it's brand new).
- I wired the front dash and front door speakers together, should be a 2 ohm load (all aftermarket 4 ohm speakers). Amplifier is 2 ohm stable.
- To get the subwoofer inputs, I used RCA splitters on the rear speaker input.

I don't know if wiring the dash and door speakers together is causing an issue. I've done it before on previous cars where I wired 2 sets of components together into the same output. I thought about just leaving the dash speakers unplugged, but I thought the dash speakers would help keep the soundstage up high.

I tested the subwoofer by running both front and rear RCA's to it, but neither produce sound.

Any ideas? This is the first car where I've used the stock head unit and worked off that, I'm more used to aftermarket head units. So I don't know where the issue might be since I'm tapping into both the signal side and output sides.
 
Had something like that before in my previous install. The wiring was bad(short circuit). You will need to test it with a multimeter tool.
 
shadow191 said:
I finally got around to installing a 5 channel amp using a USA Spec AOEM NIS-2 for the signal. Everything went in smoothly, but when I was testing, things got weird. Basically, when you first turn the car on, the speakers play very low. Then after about 20-30 seconds, the volume goes up loud, but the driver's side front and passenger side rear stop playing. It will do this every time in the same way. Also, the subs don't play, but there is signal since they thump when I change settings on the amp. Here's how everything is wired, let me know where I may have gone wrong.

- I tapped into the speaker outputs from the Bose and unplugged it.
- All the speakers do have sound so the amplifier is good (plus it's brand new).
- I wired the front dash and front door speakers together, should be a 2 ohm load (all aftermarket 4 ohm speakers). Amplifier is 2 ohm stable.
- To get the subwoofer inputs, I used RCA splitters on the rear speaker input.

I don't know if wiring the dash and door speakers together is causing an issue. I've done it before on previous cars where I wired 2 sets of components together into the same output. I thought about just leaving the dash speakers unplugged, but I thought the dash speakers would help keep the soundstage up high.

I tested the subwoofer by running both front and rear RCA's to it, but neither produce sound.

Any ideas? This is the first car where I've used the stock head unit and worked off that, I'm more used to aftermarket head units. So I don't know where the issue might be since I'm tapping into both the signal side and output sides.
Click to expand...

On the first gen the Bose speakers are wired a little weird compared to other makes I worked on. The front/rear door and dash speakers are wired in stereo, however the center and rear panel speakers are wired mono, which gives a good sound stage but is a pain to work with. Are you tapping a signal from the Bose amp or Bose dash radio? Nevermind, I see that you are tapping the radio and amp outputs at the same time it seems. I would just use the outputs from the Bose radio and use the front and rear outputs to power the front and rear channels on the amp and splice off the rear to get the sub output. You could try to do a series/parallel connection with the front and center speakers, but I would just lose the center channel. I believe that your problem could be from you tapping the Bose amp rear pillar speaker outputs. I would just use the Bose head unit outputs instead.
 
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Maybe a bad PAC? Adjust the gains on the PAC and see if there is any difference to the sequence or sound you are experiencing.
 
I used the AOEM NIS-2 to get signal from the head unit, it's basically a box that plugs into the back of the head unit and allows for front and rear audio signals to be run parallel to the factory. I wanted to avoid splicing a bunch of RCA's if I could avoid it. Then from the amp, I tapped the speaker output to the speaker wires coming from the Bose amp. Basically I just unplugged it and used the wiring diagram stickied on this forum to splice in speaker wires. The only thing I can think of is that trying to wire each front dash speaker and door speaker together is causing a load issue on the amplifier. It starts outputting to all the speakers with very low volume, then switches over to only powering the passenger front and driver's rear at a much higher volume.

The output is actually very clear, no weird signal noises. I am getting a pop on startup though. The weirder thing to me is that I can't get the subs to work even though I know the RCA's are providing signal and the subs are getting power since they thump when I mess with the amp. They just won't play any music period, not low volume, no volume at all.

I will try to play around with the PAC tonight.
 
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