Help with aftermarket subwoofer cutting in and out

Nominal

Nominal

Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2018
Messages
49
Location
Fairborn, OH
First off, this is my first post to this forum. I have been lurking and using all of the super helpful information on here and hope someone can give me a hand.

So, for Christmas I got some new audio equipment for my 2003 TJ. Some shit boss audio speakers to replace the front speakers and the pods in the back temporarily. My main concern was the factory subwoofer, as it seems is common, it was rotted to pieces.

I replaced the front speakers and rear pods with no issue. Two days ago, I wired the new aftermarket subwoofer up and had no issues. It worked great. It is the 1 Ohm Kicker model that has been posted on this forum and others which is supposedly great, don't know the exact model right now.

On an hour drive yesterday, the sub started cutting out intermittently, and it seemed like the other speakers may have gotten quieter too.

Hoped this might fix itself on the drive home, but no luck. Strangely enough, it seemed like when I went uphill, the sub would come back or if I took a tight turn. Cannot replicate this today.

Cut to today, and I install my new headunit hoping this would fix the issue. Headunit is installed, and everything is working fine other than the sub. I know the sub is wired correctly to the new headunit, because it cut in for a second during installation.

I took the whole console unit apart again and checked everything to make sure all my wires were in good shape, everything looks okay. Tested the leads to the sub with a multimeter, reads hot. Also took a small 6x9 I have lying around and hooked it up to make sure the sub wasn't bad, didn't play anything through the 6x9 either.

Unhooked the positive and negative of the battery, rehooked everything up, still no luck.

I have tried about everything I could think of and really need some help from all you gurus on this forum.
Thanks for taking the time to read and try and help.
 
I am not end electrical guy, but it sounds like a bad connection or bad ground. That’s the only thing that can explain the sudden change, unless it was all in your head?
 
Chris said:
I am not end electrical guy, but it sounds like a bad connection or bad ground. That’s the only thing that can explain the sudden change, unless it was all in your head?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Chris. I'm not great with it either, but trying to make my way through it. Although a ground is what I think aswell. Don't know if anyone had an idea where else to check. I tried to hunt it down for 3 or 4 hours today and have had no luck.
 
Last edited:
So the stereo and sub still work, it’s just at a much lower sound quality?
 
The stereo works, but only through front and rear speakers. The sub will intermittently cut in, every now and again.. Last night it seemed like going uphill it would come back on until the road flattened out, but won't do this today.
 
Last edited:
I would take a wire and ground a mounting bolt of the amp or a dedicated ground coming from the harness out of the amp to a good known ground on the body/chassis. Where is the amp located?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
JeepKub said:
I would take a wire and ground a mounting bolt of the amp or a dedicated ground coming from the harness out of the amp to a good known ground on the body/chassis. Where is the amp located?
Click to expand...

I'm still using the factory amp, so it's located in the center console.

So you're suggesting that I splice into the ground that goes into the amp, and add another grounding point?
 
Nominal said:
I'm still using the factory amp, so it's located in the center console.

So you're suggesting that I splice into the ground that goes into the amp, and add another grounding point?
Click to expand...

I didn’t realize you could wire into the existing sub wiring, but my bet would be that’s just rubbish and should be replaced with a dedicated amp wired to the battery.

As far as I could tell when replacing my factory sub the factory amp was built into the head (or maybe I didn’t trace the wiring harness for it enough) - so it could simply be some brown outs when the sub draws power.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BoldlyGoing
rasband said:
As far as I could tell when replacing my factory sub the factory amp was built into the head (or maybe I didn’t trace the wiring harness for it enough) - so it could simply be some brown outs when the sub draws power.
Click to expand...

I don't know if it's a difference in year or not, but on mine the amp is mounted to the center console enclosure right behind the sub. Not my pic, but illustrates how it is mounted on mine.
66b263f810bf97d22d109518d6ae15c6.jpg
 
Last edited:
Nominal said:
I'm still using the factory amp, so it's located in the center console.

So you're suggesting that I splice into the ground that goes into the amp, and add another grounding point?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I missed the point about using the factory amp. Did you follow the instructions with the kicker to properly wire the dual voice coil to get the right Ohm rating that the stock amp is looking for? Trying to remember the details about the dual voice coil for that speaker, but thought you could wire it to be a 1 ohm or 2 ohm load.

Still sounds to me like a grounding issue. Outside of a wire being cut in the assembly process, not sure where to direct you to look. You could just run separate power and ground to the amp and splice into those wires.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The factory amp is not stable at 1-ohm. After an hour of play at 1-ohm, you probably burned up a component inside the amp. the12volt.com will have all of the possible wiring configurations for that sub with different ohm levels. To me it sounds like you need a new amp though. Make sure to find out at what ohm levels the new amp is stable and wire the subwoofer accordingly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nominal and skrelnik
Sounds like the factory amplifier is the issue and you may want to remove and bypass the factory amplifier to see if the factory amplifier or wiring is the issue.

Someone on the forum may know the answer to this, but I think the stock amplifier gets its signal through the main four speaker signals/lines. The stock amplifier possibly has a built-in LoC that drives the sub woofer.

If one of the four lines feeding the amplifier is bad, or the amplifier itself is bad, you would have the issues you are describing.
Regardless though, the stock amplifier is not a good choice to drive the Kicker subwoofer that you purchased.

What head unit do you have?

Things to do are; (i) Possibly wire the kicker subwoofer directly to the amplifier via a LoC, (ii) look for a mono-amp to drive the subwoofer, or (iii) look for a 5 channel amp to drive the entire system.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nominal
martygras13 said:
The factory amp is not stable at 1-ohm. After an hour of play at 1-ohm, you probably burned up a component inside the amp. the12volt.com will have all of the possible wiring configurations for that sub with different ohm levels. To me it sounds like you need a new amp though. Make sure to find out at what ohm levels the new amp is stable and wire the subwoofer accordingly.
Click to expand...
My mistake. It looks like the factory amp is stable at one ohm.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nominal
JeepKub said:
Sorry, I missed the point about using the factory amp. Did you follow the instructions with the kicker to properly wire the dual voice coil to get the right Ohm rating that the stock amp is looking for? Trying to remember the details about the dual voice coil for that speaker, but thought you could wire it to be a 1 ohm or 2 ohm load.

Still sounds to me like a grounding issue. Outside of a wire being cut in the assembly process, not sure where to direct you to look. You could just run separate power and ground to the amp and splice into those wires.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Sorry. Meant .5 ohm or 2 ohm with the 1 ohm DVC (parallel vs series VC wiring). With the 2 ohm DVC you can wire it for 1 ohm or 4 ohm. Like mentioned, only certain Amps can drive the lower ohm ratings and not sure the stock unit is up to those tasks.

The matching amp that kicker sells does a very good job driving the lower .5 ohm load of the 1 ohm DVC speaker you have. Provides 200w at that ohm rating. Lots of thump for something so small.

I installed that setup in my sons jeep and very satisfied.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nominal
Top Bottom
Back