Help With Wierd Distortion

[Turk1]

Ok so here is my story.

Started my car, sound system was on low volume. Started driving and put up the volume and noticed the speakers where cracking/distorting, had no clue what could be wrong since everything was fine the day before.

Checked my amps, nothing seemed out of ordinary, checked setting on the head unit and everything was the same. Pulled out the head unit to find one of my RCA's where broken..no brainer here, I found the problem right? Went out to buy new RCA leads, plugged them straight in and it continued to make the same distortion.

So now it gets tricky and I ask myself is it my amp? I called my mate over and we plugged the RCA's into his amps so his speakers would be getting the signals from my head unit. Distortion continues to through his speakers. Now it has to be the head unit sending out crappy signals? I plugged in a whole new deck and the distortions still continued!

Sound systems can really do your head in sometimes lol but yes any help would be appreciated!

Cheers.

[Shiraz200SX]

fingered speakers/shit amps maybe?

[Carbon 34]

try to plug a ipod or something into the RCA instead of your radio as a source unit on your car ? does it still do it ?

no or yes ?

No , prob a rooted radio , or shorted wire on Radio to ground if one of the speaker wires is hitting ground the resistance skyrockets and the preamp cant deal with the load and distorts bad.

try wiggling the radio around on low volume, does it do it still ? crackle ? spark ?

Yes

then the amp or signal RCA is stuffed , RCA pinched under seat bolts is common

what brand of radio is it ?

your not using a factory high power to RCA converter are you ?

[Turk1]

The amp is a Soundstream Lil Wonder, so its new and it is a pretty good amp. The radio is a Sony Xplod unit, it is pretty old but I also put in a Pioneer deck which caused the same sounds.

I will give the ipod a go and see what happens.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

[mxracer]

make sure deck and amps are earthed properly , also check no speaker wires are touching earth

[nicr4wks]

Make sure iPod is turned right down before plugging it in, a lot of people seem to forget that an iPod at 60% volume plus their amp gains at 80% can do more harm than good.

[.:: GimpS-R34 ::.]

what about interference with elec.. in the wires.. if you've ruled out amp.. speakers.. headunit.. i would be looking into the wires you've run through the car

[Carbon 34]

what about interference with elec.. in the wires.. if you've ruled out amp.. speakers.. headunit.. i would be looking into the wires you've run through the car

^

all good points I think , but your description of speaker noises doesnt lend itself to electrical interference ?

cracking and distorting, is normally only on 1 or 2 speakers , when they get punched in/torn or burned coils, etc.(or if you carry crap in your door pockets that rattles)

if all of them do it , its in the signal path

if its more a whine or crackle then its in the RCA ,power/ground path most of the time

if it does it with the car off as well as on then you know its not the charging system , unless the battery is shithouse below 12volts

Soundstream Lil wonders fail, as does any amp

Sony radios fail same as above

you have ruled out the radio already so check the amp power and signal cables ? check the speaker wires on the amp, are they cross shorted on the terminals or pinched under or thru anything ?

who installed it a Pro or self ? have you installed or seviced anything else on the car since it started ?

if all else fails

GO SEE A PRO IN PERSON,, hard to see or hear what kind of issues you have beyond the forum and what was suggested already, hope that helps

[Turk1]

Just got back from a specialist. The amp seems to be on its way out, its a fairly new amp so I got no clue what's the go there. Going to do some last checks but yeah might have to get a new amp.