Kerrdog

Okay, I have an odd problem that just started.

When I made my last post, all four speakers, both amps, and the sub were working beautifully. However, both the right front and right rear speakers suddenly lost most of their volume and now sound about a third as loud as their left side counterparts. The right rear also has a lot of interference, leading me to believe that there must be a grounding issue.

I've spent all day re-tracing my wires with a voltmeter and cannot find a grounding issue. I tweaked the settings on the back of the speaker amp and double-checked my connections at the amp. I pulled the head unit out and double-checked all those wires. I pulled the speakers out of their doors and checked their wires. The problem persists. What really has me puzzled, is that I went directly from the amp to the front right speaker so that I could bypass the short I had encountered previously. Since that connection is a straight shot from the amp to the speaker, there shouldn't be any issues whatsoever with the sound volume or quality; especially since I received very strong signals from the voltmeter on that circuit. However, the fact remains that even it is substandard compared to my left hand speakers.

I've only used the speakers three or four times since finishing their installation, and do not listen to them too loudly, so I do not think they could be damaged from too high a volume setting. I was going pretty easy on them since I had just installed them, and did not want to push them hard until I had run them through a good shake down period.

I can adjust my balance to equalize the two sides, but am worried that running the system like that may have adverse affects in the long run. Also, being something of a perfectionist, it bothers me that I would have to manually balance the two sides of the truck; my thought is that all four speakers should be equal from the start if I did the installation correctly.

Finally, the balance does not clear up the interference I am getting on the back right speaker, while both of the left side speakers sound crystal clear regardless of what I do the the right hand speakers or their settings.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I would appreciate any help I can get! I've run out of ideas and would like to avoid tearing out the wiring and starting over from scratch if it could be helped, although I am certainly willing to do so if it is necessary.

Many thanks!

Kerrdog

Okay, so I retraced the wiring to the front right speaker. When I previously said that I wired straight to it, that was not entirely true; I ran new wiring that bypassed the headunit and harness and stopped at the door's wiring tube. Rather than run new wire through the tube and into the door, I spliced into the existing wire.

Of the two right hand speakers, the front right is the easiest to tackle, so I just now cut the old wiring at the door, ran new wiring through the tubing into the door, and then spliced that wiring into the amp wire. Now I have a line of new, uninterrupted speaker wire going from the amp to the front right door speaker, without using any of the old wiring, equipment, or plugs. The problem persists though.

I'm going to start switching plugs on my amp to see if the amp may have a bad channel. It's unlikely since it is new, but it's the last thing I have in my bag of tricks. Does anyone have a suggestion on what I should try if this doesn't work? Is it normal for one side of a vehicle's sound system to sound quieter than the other side?

Many thanks!

Kerrdog

Okay, I rewired both of the right side speakers, checked all connections, tweaked all the settings, and still can't get the right and left side speakers to align in terms of loudness. Clarity is no longer an issue; I solved that by wiring directly to the speakers from the amp. I just can't get the speaker output volumes to align without manually balancing them via the receiver.

This is my first truck stereo installation. Is it okay for the speakers to be unbalanced and then corrected via receiver? Will that cause long-term problems down the road?

Many thanks in advance!

Kerrdog

So, I rewired the two right speakers but failed to solve the imbalance. I also tried switching the amp outputs so that the front left became the front right and the rear left became the rear right. I figured that since the left side was working so well, switching the speaker outputs should produce the effect of making the right side work well and the left side act quieter; in short, a mirror to what I am currently experiencing.

That didn't work. Regardless of the output, the right side is just quieter than the left. I really don't know what else to do. If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very happy to hear them!

Also, if I can't solve this, would it be a problem down the road if I were to simply fix the imbalance using my receiver's balance settings? This is the first time I ever installed a stereo system and my knowledge of such things is very minimal. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Kerrdog

If anyone has any advice they could offer, I would really appreciate it! I'm pressed for time because I have to head back to college tomorrow and won't have access to my family's shop or my tools for a while.

The amp I am using is a 4-Channel, 300 Watt MTX TD75.4. I've already reversed the inputs and the outputs with respect to the RCA input jacks and the speaker wires. There isn't any apparent change. I did clear up the interference I was getting, but still can't seem to get the Left and Right sides to balance.

Many thanks!

Wyo11Scab

iTrader: (1)

Sounds like you have eliminated everything except the amp. That must be the culprit. Or inside your HU.....Is it the stock HU? If it is it needs replacing.

Kerrdog

The headunit is an aftermarket Kenwood. I bought it at the same time as the speakers, so it's probably not the cause of the problem.

I was thinking that the amp may be at fault, so I switched the back right speaker with the front left speaker to see if there was a difference. My thought was that if the amp channels were faulty, then the front left speaker would go quiet while the back right would become amplified. That proved not to be the case though; the right side is quiet regardless of how I match the amp channels to the speakers.

It's really got me scratching my head. I even physically removed and switched speakers thinking that perhaps the speakers themselves may be faulty. Again, no difference.

If I cannot find a solution to this, is it okay to run the speaker system in this unbalanced state? I can use my receiver's balance feature to fix the imbalance, but I want to make sure that there will be no long term problems down the road if I do.

Kerrdog

I think I'm calling it quits now. After a lot of finangling with the system, I was able to close the balance gap from a +8 setting on my receiver to a +3. I had my Dad listen to it for his input, and he can't tell a difference between the two sides. I'll chalk up the +3 to my own hearing then and call it good.

Thank you all for the help and advice! I really appreciate and am glad to be here!