amp overheating.

the amp isnt faulty, the guy who wired it up is. He (she?) is asking it to do too much, much like overclocking a graphics card (when in rome), you can crank it up but it will eventually get too hot and fall over.
 
Rear speakers: Once you get the car back, if the rear speakers are now connected to the HU then they will work.

I'd be tempted to unhook the rear speakers if that is easy enough to do and see if you prefer it with all the sound coming from in front on you (like a band on a stage). You may prefer the sound, but other people prefer the sound from all around hence rear speakers.

I've done away with my rear speakers and I much prefer the way things sound now. :)
 
My £300 setup involves two 75W RMS Rockford Fosgate Powers up front (discount *** :D) and a 250W RMS 12" sub.

I wouldn't want an amp that was running at 100% powering my stuff, that's all :p
Out of interest what amp do you run?
When i got my sound system installed I asked about getting the rears uprated, the first thing they said was "It's pointless, don't bother"

Any audio installer should know that it's better to leave the rears hooked up to the HU. I wouldn't be using those guys ever again i know that much.
Well, no, leaving the head unit amp running with no load on the front outputs is not healthy for the output stage. When using an external power amp you are supposed to disable the HU's internal amp (normally a software setting or switch on the unit).
the amp isnt faulty, the guy who wired it up is. He (she?) is asking it to do too much, much like overclocking a graphics card (when in rome), you can crank it up but it will eventually get too hot and fall over.
The amp is running within it's recommended spec - the installer is not at fault, the amp is. I am going to run my Audison at 2ohm load when I can be assed to finish my install and I know for a fact it won't overheat and crap out on me.
Rear speakers: Once you get the car back, if the rear speakers are now connected to the HU then they will work.

I'd be tempted to unhook the rear speakers if that is easy enough to do and see if you prefer it with all the sound coming from in front on you (like a band on a stage). You may prefer the sound, but other people prefer the sound from all around hence rear speakers.

I've done away with my rear speakers and I much prefer the way things sound now. :)
For an easy life I would just do this. I don't have rear speakers in my system and it sounds great - you don't have rear speakers in a home stereo set up so why in a car? :)
 
The amp is running within it's recommended spec - the installer is not at fault, the amp is. I am going to run my Audison at 2ohm load when I can be assed to finish my install and I know for a fact it won't overheat and crap out on me.

I'm just very sceptical about the whole install

could you find me 4 speakers which have a load of less than 4ohms let alone 2?

I dont doubt the 2ohm claim, I doubt the load the collective paralleled speakers are presenting

call me a cynic!
 
My Audison amp is only 2 * 75 + 1 * 250 watt and is certainly 'half decent'! I don't know much about Planet Audio but I wouldn't write them off as crap just because of the power rating.

no, i quite agree. it's rating means nothing regarding its quality *or* what it can actually do.

The amp is running within it's recommended spec - the installer is not at fault, the amp is. I am going to run my Audison at 2ohm load when I can be assed to finish my install and I know for a fact it won't overheat and crap out on me.

we dont know this without knowing what those front and rear speakers are :)
 
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Regarding what impedance the speakers are showing the amp (from this page).

Assuming his front speakers are 4 ohm, which 90% are, and he's wired the front two channels like this, i.e. parallel:

impspkpr.gif


Which is showing the amp 2 ohms per channel. The amp is rated to run at 2 ohms so I'm not sure of the problem. I can only suppose that the rear factory speakers are actually 2 ohm, causing the amp to be shown 1.33' ohms which it can't tolerate.
 
no, i quite agree. it's rating means nothing regarding its quality *or* what it can actually do.

we dont know this without knowing what those front and rear speakers are :)
True - chances are the amp is either crap and doesn't live up to its claims(personally I've never heard of Planet Audio before..) or the speakers are presenting a lower impedance than we are expecting...

Either way just unplug the rears, they are probably crap anyway :)
 
called in today and he had a look at the amp and found it was putting out 12 volts instead of 8.5 to the speakers (i think) so the amp was running too high, he tweaked it and i went off to test it on the way home. its still doing the same thing so i went back and its now booked in on tues. they are gonna leave it running in the workshop to recreate whats happening then do what ever and try a new amp to see if the same happens.

these are the speakers i have in the front Link
 
called in today and he had a look at the amp and found it was putting out 12 volts instead of 8.5 to the speakers (i think) so the amp was running too high, he tweaked it and i went off to test it on the way home. its still doing the same thing so i went back and its now booked in on tues. they are gonna leave it running in the workshop to recreate whats happening then do what ever and try a new amp to see if the same happens.

That's just the gain, it doesn't change the problem and if reducing the gain had 'solved' the problem, it was simply masking it. These guys sound like buttholes.
 
To be fair to them many car audio manufacturer spec sheets can be pretty mis-leading, and some of the power ratings are on the verge of lieing... I'm guessing they the amp claimed to be 2ohm stable when in reality it is not!

If you're running the sub channel bridged things may still be pretty toasty though...
 
Out of interest what amp do you run?

I'm running a Jackson 1500W 5 channel amp.

As i've said previously, my sound setup is as follows:

2x Rockford Fosgate Powers up front (75W RMS Each)
1x 12" Magnat Sub (250W RMS)
Standard rear speakers are through the HU.

I can't even turn off the HU amp as far as i'm aware, and i've tried every option on the HU that i can find.

Currently getting rid of the amp as Channel 5 has borked leaving me running my sub on 3+4 at the moment. Probably caused by the PCs i lug round in the boot smashing into the amp when i go round corners a bit too enthusiastically :p
 
I'm running a Jackson 1500W 5 channel amp.
And you really think it is 1500 watts? :p
As i've said previously, my sound setup is as follows:

2x Rockford Fosgate Powers up front (75W RMS Each)
1x 12" Magnat Sub (250W RMS)
Standard rear speakers are through the HU.

I can't even turn off the HU amp as far as i'm aware, and i've tried every option on the HU that i can find.

Currently getting rid of the amp as Channel 5 has borked leaving me running my sub on 3+4 at the moment. Probably caused by the PCs i lug round in the boot smashing into the amp when i go round corners a bit too enthusiastically :p
If your amp is 5 channel, how come you are running the rears off the HU?(ignoring the fact one of your channels doesn't work at the moment as I assume it was when you installed it!)
 
No, it's 1500W max, not RMS. Won't be anything close to that as it's not a particularly expensive amp.

There was absolutely no need to power the rears off the amp, they're stock. It was just unneccesary wiring work, and would also mean tripling up the pre-out which would be a bit of a ball-ache i'd imagine.

Yes. All 5 channels were working originally (1&2 for fronts, 3&4 empty, 5 sub. Now sub is bridged onto 3&4).
 
No, it's 1500W max, not RMS. Won't be anything close to that as it's not a particularly expensive amp.
:) I think this was the point I was trying to make. Your 1500w amp in reality will probably be no more powerful than my Audison 1x250 and 2*75 watt RMS amp. Audison are just more honest in their advertising.
 
Many manufacturers even tend to be a little optimistic even with Watts RMS measurements these days, I've seen some measure Watts RMS at 0.1% THD, while others measure Watts RMS at 10% THD.

All I can say is check the spec sheet carefully before buying.
 
:) I think this was the point I was trying to make. Your 1500w amp in reality will probably be no more powerful than my Audison 1x250 and 2*75 watt RMS amp. Audison are just more honest in their advertising.

Maybe not, but as has been said previously, i wouldn't want a PSU in my PC that was running at close to 100%. I know my amp won't be much more powerful, even if it's only by 100W or so RMS, but i'd rather have overkill than something that maxed out at what my speakers did.
 
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