Was sorry to note last evening that my new Blaupunkt rear deck speakers (they've been in place for three months) are basically silent. They used to sound great. If you turn up the volume high enough you can barely hear them. I checked the fuse into the Alpine amp and found it was good, plus I can still hear the amp kick on when the headunit powers up. But there is no sound from EITHER speaker. I figure the 13 year old amplifier has kicked the bucket. Short of sticking another known working speaker (and I don't have one) on the amp to test for output, can I put a voltmeter across the speaker output leads to test for output from the amp? Is this a valid test? o No: Thanks for your help guys.
Reverse the process... Hook up non amplified speaker wires to see if the speakers are good. you might also have RCA wires that have gone bad. Hook Up a meter and see if the AMP is drawing enough voltage... If there is a ground or power prob then the amp might turn on but not have enough power to run the speakers. Depending on the size of the amp will tell you if the Meter will test the terminls... I once had an amp shock me like a light socket:eek2: Talk about suprise. Have had all these things happen to me personaly over my years of IASCA competition. They all could produce what your having... but most likely... Its a bad amp:gt: :gt: PS... Just go to wallmart or Radio shack and buy a cheap $20 speaker to hook up... who cares if it blows, at least you will know if you amp is OK or not:TU: Good Luck
Well, since neither speaker is working, chances are good that there is a problem somewhere in the amp. The chance of both speakers blowing at the same time is completely unlikely. Most likely the amp is either not getting a signal (rca cables or headunit) or the amp is bad. Also check for a bad ground on the amp (may be good enough to power up, but not enough current capacity to drive the speaker well). Steve
why not hook th blaupunkts (one at a time)up to another radio or your home stereo... if you dont have a long piece of speaker wire .... a long extension cord will do good for a temporary test. mount a 110volt receptacle to one of the home stereo (left or right)speaker wires OR poke the wires through the prongs of the ext cord making sure they dont touch each other or anything else ... then make you a wire that will slip onto th blau terminals and at the other end of IT put a 110volt plug-in that is made for like a lamp so you can easily plug the speaker in. in this situation positive and negatives dont really matter the speaker should work the same either way.... you are just trying to get the speaker to play . keep us posted ....
I'm not surprised! A 500 watt amp will put out about 45 volts rms. (not the 120 I said before I edited the post... man, am I ever having an off day!!) Steve
Unless your Blau's will handle a true 500 watts (edit- actually, 3600 watts), this is a very VERY bad idea! You are guaranteed to fry them, if they aren't already. Plus, there is the possibility of frying the output stage of your amp if it isn't disconnected. (edit- ignore this nonsense... I thought he was recommending hooking your speaker to wall voltage. I didn't notice the stereo in between, ha ha) Steveou:
lets all bow down right now and praise the switching power supply and that the fathers of Audiomobile for breaking the 15 wpc barrier.
Absolutely! We would be bumming with only a 12V supply! But from an audio quality point of view, switching supplies suck! I would rather thank Edison for the vacuum tube... there hasn't been a better device for audio amplification produced yet! Steve
Hmmmmm lemme see..... the firstime i did this was ... about 20 years ago .... i have done it numerous times .... if you dont send 500 watts through the wire .. th speaker wont get five hundred watts to it. .... the home amp would love to run all day with no speaker hooked to it since it would have to do no work ... the only thing it would not want to see is the wires shorted together ..... steve is misinformed. where did he come up with 500 watts? an extension cord is made of the same copper that speaker wire is made from and will easily suffice for this test. using plug ins on each ends make sure that you have good connections. 110volt receptacles can handle 15 amperes with little of no problems (15 amps at 110 volts means they would handle1650 watts (steve)) ... like i said before .... make sure your connections dont touch each other or anything else. turn the home stereo off each time you are working with your connections. these are all good reasons to have an old car stereo around with that can plug into a cig lighter receptacle.
correct .. when tubes are in the house channelin tunes to you ... aint nothin better ... but with th top down at 70 mph i need power and my jl 500watt class d mono NEVER complains ... you ever been in a car with tube amp while it is traveling on a bumpy raod .... it aint pretty(they were milberts) . ... i wish someone would make a durable tube amp for car use that had some serious power and wasnt 50 bux a watt......untill then....
I thought you were saying to hook the speaker to line voltage with an extension cord... sorry, I seem to be having a very off day!ou: Actually, my calculations were all back assward too... putting wall voltage to a 4 ohm speaker would put about 3600 watts into the speaker. Steve
no problem steve ... i hope tomorrow is a better one for ya as for the tube amp .... i aint holdin my breath. i have been using th JL amps for a couple years and they are about the smartest design i have found... i run th crap out of them and they never shut down or exhibit any gripes..... the built in crossover in my sub amp is very comprehensive. it has a variable infrasonic filter and precision crossover and 12 or 24 db/oct slopes. and if you were to hook it to a factory radio, you can have it turn on your other amps when it senses that your speaker wires are on..... all kinds o options. if you are lookin for somethin really cool to put into a car stereo system .... i highly recommend a neo car jukebox .... i am having a blast with mine ...i put a 160 gig HD in it so it can hold 20,000+ songs(mp3 @ 320kbps). its pretty neat.... well designed. but their FM modulator is crap .... hook it in one of the other ways.
speaker test I generally just take a 9 v battery and put it across the poles of the speaker and it will move forward (or backward) then if you flip the poles around it will move the other direction. its also a nice way to check speaker polarity. when it pushes forward whatever wire that is on the positve of the battery is the postive of the speaker.
Alright, Since I have nearly the ultimate garage stereo system (15inch Cerwin vega subwoofer / Bose 401s/ Onkyo tuner and cd player) I just checked the impedance of the Bose speakers, saw they were the same as the Blaupunkts, popped the cables off the one of the Bose and ran it into the trunk. Bravo - the speakers are fine. That amp just isn't putting out sufficent power to drive the speakers anymore - they are muffled and generally unable to move with sufficient force to produce clean sound. I unplugged the amp since it is now likely to damage the speakers due to insufficient power. Oh darn - now I'll HAVE to buy a much better, much more powerful amp :Brow: rather than get by with that 13 year old hand-me-down from a previous car. Thanks for all the advice.
