A quick troubleshooting guide
This article explains six common car amp problems and how to fix them.
If the remote turn-on wire doesn’t have power, your amp won’t turn on.
The power wire is the next thing to find out if you find no problems with the remote wire.
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This wire is thicker than the remote wire, and it should have battery voltage.
Check for power, as outlined above.
Then, look at individual components.
First, unplug the speaker wires.
If the light turns off, the problem probably lies in one of the speakers.
To determine where the problem is, visually inspect each speaker and subwoofer in your system.
A blown speaker could be the cause of the problem.
If you might’t find any problems with your speakers, check the RCA patch cables.
To check this, hook up a set of good RCA cables to the head unit and amp.
If that causes the light to turn off, replace the RCA cables.
Loose or burnt wires can introduce similar problems in cars.
Compare the amp’s power rating with the speaker.
This is an easy process if you have access to both the head unit and the amp.
Simply unplug the RCA cables from each unit and reconnect them with a good set.
If everything works after bypassing the installed RCA cables, replace them with a good set.
If the amp drives that, the problem is with the speakers or wiring.
If you still don’t get any sound, the amplifier might be faulty.
If You Hear Hissing or Other Distortion
Inspect the patch cables and speaker wires.
The same is true of the speaker wires.
Using higher-quality cables or wires with good shielding can also help.
If you still hear noises, check for a bad ground.
The problem might also be in the head unit or whatever else you use as an audio source.
First, eliminate problems with the speaker enclosure.
If the enclosure isn’t the right fit for the sub, the sub typically won’t sound right.
Seating the speaker properly to stop the resulting fart-like sounds.
If there’s nothing wrong with the enclosure, double-check that the woofer is impedance-matched.
FAQ
Todiagnose a blown car amp fuse, replace the fuse with everything turned off.
If the fuse blows, there’s probably a short between that fuse and the rest of the system.
Next, replace the fuse again with the amplifier disconnected.
If the fuse still blows, there is a short somewhere in the wiring.
If the fuse blows when the amplifier turns on, there is probably an internal problem with the amplifier.
The car amp could also be in Protect Mode.
