Mangonesailor

Crutchfield shows that your head unit has 4 pre-amp outputs. They're not RCA outputs?

azbanks

Nope, there is nothing coming out of the unit on those channels. The pins are dead.

No, this is "old school".
There are no RCA connections anywhere on the back of this unit.

Mangonesailor

I guess is to just start isolating the issue. Swap speaker wires coming from amp to test speakers, swap RCA inputs to check the amp, check that the fader or balance is not maxed to one side.

But surely you would've done all of this by now. Is the amp new? Did you solder the speaker outputs from the head unit to RCA outputs well? No cold joints?

azbanks

The amp is fresh out of the box. The wires and connectors are all new.
I checked every wire and connection and found there is no signal coming out of the head unit for front left and right rear. The head unit is not sending the signal.

If I connect jumper wires from the head unit pins to each of the four sets of wires going to the amp channels, here are my results(I checked each channel one at a time).

Front left pins to:
front left speakers = no sound
rear left speakers= no sound
front right speakers = no sound
rear right speakers = no sound

Rear left pins to:
front left speakers = sound
rear left speakers = sound
front right speakers = sound
rear right speakers = sound

Front right pins to:
front left speakers = sound
rear left speakers = sound
front right speakers = sound
rear right speakers = sound

Rear right pins to:
front left speakers = no sound
rear left speakers= no sound
front right speakers = no sound
rear right speakers = no sound

The only thing that is changing is the pins I am connecting the wires too. The wires work with all the speakers(when connected to working pins) so I know that the wires going to the amp and everything from the amp on is working. The only thing that doesn't work is the front left and right rear pins coming out of the unit.

TrevorW

I had the same head unit with the same problem. Might just be a defective unit.

Paul Waterloo

If you haven't already, make sure you go to the balance and fader control and make sure they are set to the mid reading vs. all the way to the rear and right. And if they are in the mid range, have a speaker hooked up and fade them all the way left/right front/back and make sure it works.

If it still has the issue, sounds like the head unit could be the issue.

azbanks

Playing with the fade and balance controls were my first clue about what the problem was.

I've been through every setting combination on every menu available on the head unit. I've read through the installation manual a dozen times and the operating manual 2 dozen.

Fade front, balance left = no sound
Fade front, balance right = sound
Fade rear, balance left = sound
Fade rear, balance right = no sound.

Mangonesailor

Well...

If you want to still use that head unit and not shell out a couple hundred bucks then I suggest you buy some RCA splitter cables (1 in, 2 out) and wire them to the speaker outputs that are working on the head unit and let the AMP sort it out so you have some decent, yet temporary, sound. Then work on finding a new head unit or how to fix it. Maybe a competent shop could get you fixed up...

azbanks

My goal is to do this right so the interior is apart for cosmetic as well as sound system issues. White Grey and Blue are the colors I am working with.

I'm having the speaker grills for the 10 speaker system powder coated to match the wheels. The plastic parts from the window switch plates to the climate control, etc will all be painted to match.

I am also powder coating several engine parts and some pieces of the Dynatech strut bar and some pieces of the Weltmeister antisway bar all to match the wheels. The actual Weltmeister bar is being powder coated a different color(Lindsey silicone hose blue). The parts of the Dynatech strut bar that are not powder coated are being anodized to closely match the color of the Lindsey hoses as well.

I found a Honolulu head unit that was rebuilt by midwest electronics when they were a Blaupunkt partner. I should have that in a few days. I need to work out the speakers I want and I have decided to put in a subwoofer in a box right behind the rear seat backs. That will be installed so it is removable when required.

A while back, I went with Boston Acoustics replacements for a couple speakers in the door because I did not want to use 20+ year old NOS speakers and I couldn't find anything else that would fit in that location.
I need something that will replace the factory speakers but put out big(and clear) sound for driving with the top down.

Any suggestions for speakers and a sub box? Should I run the sub off the Fosgate Prime or hook up the old Alpine 3531 that was in the car for running the sub?

Mangonesailor

Use a separate amp for your sub and wire at least a .5farad capacitor into place to help feed the amp. Look at KLA's subwoofer boxes. I have their passenger side enclosure but my amp is only rated for 150watt (peak) while the 8" driver in there is rated, IIRC, to almost 175watt (RMS). So I'm leaving some thump on the table by not having a better amp and capacitor wired in, but it sounds really good the way it is.

That's my .02¢ on a SUB. I do not know about the 10-speaker specs and sizes, but glad to hear you have a rebuilt Honolulu on the way.

Cyberpunky

The cap is just audio jewelry, so don't waste any money on one.

In the pic of your pod with 5 and 3 inch, there appears to be a hole at the bottom of where the 3 is mounted. This will need to be sealed or speaker will distort like crazy at very low volume.
peace
Cyberpunky

Mangonesailor

I once had an audio system with 2 500w pioneer amps powering 2 12" Kenwood dual coil drivers rated for about 700w each. After installing and running my tone generator to tune the subs they kept kicking off. Sometimes just one amp or sometimes both and they weren't even turned up very high.

After installing a 1 farad capacitor that **** stopped. So, thank you for your opinion, but I have seen the difference of having one and speaking of seeing... it also prevented my headlights from flickering constantly.

azbanks

Speaker recommendations?

5.25(woofer)?
tweeter?
4X6(2way, 3 way?)?
subwoofer and box?

Cyberpunky

Myself and Pauly are both using soundstream ST4.6 in the doors and they were about the best I could find in this size. I had to remove the rubber boot from magnet, and use a 6mm mdf spacer(painted due to being a wet area) to fit them, due to window channel behind speaker opening. If you have 10 speaker set up I wouldn't worry too much about rears, as I have mine faded out anyway or on just slightly for fill.

They have a silk dome tweeter, where most 4x6's have a cheap polyester tweeter, and they also have a proper 2 way out board cross over, and can take a little bit of power.

I fitted the under armrest speaker pod from the 10 speaker system and fitted MTX black gold 5.25's(probably a little too big) but am thinking about fitting some Pioneer 5.25s I have as one of the MTX speakers has a crack and rattles on some notes. The Pioneers have a smaller magnet and so will fit a lot better and I think are a little more efficient so may work better, but not sure how they will handle the low freqs. Anyway I digress but I would suggest any decent 5.25 that doesn't have a massive magnet, from a set of splits. I fitted some 6mm mdf over the 3 inch speaker hole to help seal the pod to try and increase midbass output. I would just use the tweeter in 4x6's if you are fitting them to the door but if you have 10 speaker I would fit tweeter in factory location from splits.

The KLA cubby hole box gets a lot of good write ups and so would be an easy solution if not going custom set up.

azbanks

I picked up a Digital Designs LE-M08 Sub enclosure with an Orion Cobalt CO500.1 to drive it.

http://www.ddaudio.com/products/mobi...es/le-m-series

http://www.electronicsbonanza.com/co...=Orion-CO500.1

For the doors, I picked up a Lightening Audio LA-152-S 5.25" component set and for the rears, I picked up a set of Lightning Audio S69 three way 6X9's. I'll be doing some modifications to make the 6X9's fit.

http://www.lightningaudio.com/produc...7886&p_status=

http://www.lightningaudio.com/produc...n_US&p_status=

The Lightning Audio units are lower price speakers but they sounded good in the store. I'll try them out and if they don't sound good in the car, I'll find something better.

Now I need to figure out how to wire everything up. The Fosgate four channel amp will be running the door speakers and the rears and the Cobalt will be running the sub.
Can I use an RCA "Y" connector to split the rear channel outputs, sending one side of the "Y" to the main amp and the other side to the subwoofer amp?
The LA-152-S has included crossovers. Should I use those or use the factory crossovers?
What ohms are the factory door speakers?
What effect will the factory crossovers have on the load of the replacement speakers?