Just Installed ******** 12" Box, Plug and Play Harness and Amp Rack

[FRANK121]

How did you hook up your cables? I just hooked up my X3 harness and I'm getting a horrible high pitch from the speaker box and the sub does not work?

High pitch goes away when I unplug the RCA cables. Speaker tested fine inside?

[mrray13]

Originally Posted by Steve@********

I noticed mine did this at first, but once I backed the gain off, it reduced it significantly. So that would be my first recommendation.

This was going to be my first suggestion. Followed by making sure the ground is good (yeah, I say that a lot, but it is a cause for a majority of issues) and maybe adding a ground loop isolator. Turn off/on pop is common with systems retaining the factory head unit, although with the harness and using the factory remote turn on, I would have thought it to be a little less of an issue.

[Steve@Subthump]

Originally Posted by mrray13

the harness and using the factory remote turn on, I would have thought it to be a little less of an issue.

The problem is the signal and remote power are not shut down simultaneously with this system. I belive the signal gets shut down first and then the remote voltage terminates a second later. Which means your aftermarket amp stays powered up for a fraction of a second after the signal disappears. This is akin to pulling out a rca cable out of the amp with the amp still powered up and that's the noise you hear sometimes. The higher the gain, the worse it sounds. The kicker amp I'm using now doesn't do it at all. But like I said, it varies from one amp to the next.

[Hicompression]

Originally Posted by FRANK121

How did you hook up your cables? I just hooked up my X3 harness and I'm getting a horrible high pitch from the speaker box and the sub does not work?

High pitch goes away when I unplug the RCA cables. Speaker tested fine inside?

I hooked them up exactly as shown in Steve@********s youtube video. Click the link below.

[xxlbeerz]

Does one 12" sub way back there actually hit good?

[Hicompression]

Originally Posted by xxlbeerz

Does one 12" sub way back there actually hit good?

Let me put it to you this way...I had a JL stealthbox with a 10" JL sub in my 4th generation SS back in the day. With the 4th gens being a hatchback it was the perfect set-up for adding a subwoofer. My 10" in the hatch would hit harder than the 12" in the trunk of my current 5th gen...probably because the backseat in the 5th gen blocks out some of the volume. When I leave the backseat down it sounds muuuuch better.

[xxlbeerz]

Originally Posted by Hicompression

Let me put it to you this way...I had a JL stealthbox with a 10" JL sub in my 4th generation SS back in the day. With the 4th gens being a hatchback it was the perfect set-up for adding a subwoofer. My 10" in the hatch would hit harder than the 12" in the trunk of my current 5th gen...probably because the backseat in the 5th gen blocks out some of the volume. When I leave the backseat down it sounds muuuuch better.

Thanks, I'll go with the two subs to make sure it's loud.
Now I have to decide front or rear firing.


And I also have a special place in my heart for those PPI amps.

[Hicompression]

Originally Posted by xxlbeerz

Thanks, I'll go with the two subs to make sure it's loud.
Now I have to decide front or rear firing.


And I also have a special place in my heart for those PPI amps.

Get left and right ******** boxes, put them in the corners and have them firing sideways towards each other.

PPI =

[Topdown]

ooooh... PPI Art series... so old-school sexy! love it!

my biggest suggestion - replace ALL of your Philips-head screws with security screws - the kind with the pin in the middle, you'll thank me later.

a trim piece over that amp would be easy to make and you could make it look very very clean looking with a view-hole

the turn-off pop... always tricky to locate. could be a bad ground (if this is an SS, run ground straight to your battery), could be the timing between the signal and the remote power turn-on...

you could always go buy the Stinger pop-stopper, its under 20.00... its essentially a delay device that you wire in-line and it solves the problem for you.

Excellent looking install though, that ******** enclosure looks like it fits like a glove! Trim out that amp and you'll be sitting pretty! (dont forget to replace those screws!)

[Hicompression]

Originally Posted by Topdown

ooooh... PPI Art series... so old-school sexy! love it!

Thanks for the advice!

[xxlbeerz]

Originally Posted by Hicompression

Let me put it to you this way...I had a JL stealthbox with a 10" JL sub in my 4th generation SS back in the day. With the 4th gens being a hatchback it was the perfect set-up for adding a subwoofer. My 10" in the hatch would hit harder than the 12" in the trunk of my current 5th gen...probably because the backseat in the 5th gen blocks out some of the volume. When I leave the backseat down it sounds muuuuch better.

After staring at my trunk a bit, going to go with your set up. Just looks better, plus weighs less probably than a big box and two drivers.

Going to try a big amp and driver to see if it'll thump. Thanks for the pics/review!

[Hicompression]

Originally Posted by xxlbeerz

After staring at my truck a bit, going to go with your set up. Just looks better, plus weighs less probably than a big box and two drivers.

Going to try a big amp and driver to see if it'll thump. Thanks for the pics/review!

No problem. Post up pics of your system/install when your done!

[SuperH]

That's a Class AB amplifier on your subwoofer, right?

That pop is caused by the discharge capacitors on the push portion of the circuit, typically. A speaker cone is a highly inductive load. A purely inductive load is 180 degrees out of phase with a purely capacitive load. Since the inductive load remains, the capacitive load, when decoupled from the supply voltage, "fires" across the inductive load, causing a little "pop" after powerdown.

This is completely normal. Some systems do not do it; a lot of aftermarket headunits will shunt (ground) the analog (RCA) outputs; this will pull the capacitive drive from the input side of the amplifier, and will eliminate the pop (it will short to ground).

Some amplifiers are switched off, and the supply voltage is decoupled completely from the input side, either with solid state semiconductors, or relays/contactors. In this case, the residual voltage will take the shortest path back to the source, which is now "ground" - which is the speaker load.

Higher gains mean higher residual voltage, which is why the "pop" is louder when the gain is higher.

I'm installing my ******** gear this weekend. I can hardly wait! I'm using the ClassD zx400.1 offered by ********, to start with. It is a switched amplifier (square wave - ClassD), and thus should not exhibit the "pop" behavior.

If you've used ClassD before, this is why it is likely unfamiliar. It is an artifact of past technology.

Caveat: A ClassD amplifier won't touch a ClassAB amplifier, considering both are well designed, in terms of accuracy. ClassAB is almost as good as transistor amplifiers get. They aren't the most efficient, but they are very accurate, and can be very low noise. They are very cheap to implement.

[Hicompression]

Originally Posted by SuperH

That's a Class AB amplifier on your subwoofer, right?

I would guess that you are implying that the shut-down pop is normal for an amp that is close to 20 years old. The only deal is that the pop volume is the same no matter what the gain is set to. Some have stated I need to install a LOC since the wires coming out of the ******** harness are high level outputs whereas the amp has low level inputs. Maybe I will try that next.

My amp input sensitivity is 0.2 - 2.5 Volts. I don't know what voltage the outputs on the ******** harness are.