Hey everyone,
I'm a rookie DIY installer and I thought I knew enough but apparently not. I recently bought 4 ch alpine amp (MRP-F300 from CF) based off others reviews and the value it offers. I planned on using the speaker-level inputs because I have (and want to keep) the factory HU.
Some background about the car...97 Cadillac DeVille D'elegence w/11 speakers, non-Bose. It is factory amplified. Infinity Kappa 52.7i's in each door. Kicker 6x9's on the rear deck, polk 4x6 in the dash. JL 10w3 in the trunk w/a JL A1400 amp.
I am trying to amp the 4 door speakers. I ran the wires that went from the original 4 door speakers to the trunk for the speaker level inputs. (and ran wires from the trunk back to up to the doors to carry the amp'd signal back = what a pain but o well). I hooked each of the original speaker wires (extended them to reach the trunk obviously) up to the alpine harness and plugged it in but nothing.
The weird part is that if I unplug the signal cable from the amp then plug it back in, the amp recognizes the input and the speaker starts to play the music... it is easy to unplug the speaker b/c I used the speaker harness from CF http://www.crutchfield.com/p_12071041/GM-Speaker-Harnesses.html?search=speaker+harness&tp=3097 to wire the extra length of cable needed to get the original speaker signal to the trunk.
I thought the extra long extension of wire needed to get the original signal to the trunk may be the problem...but if I place the door speaker in the trunk and plug it into the extended wire it plays fine...very bizarre.
I thought I maybe a line-output converter would solve the problem, so I got the Audiocontrol LC7 from CF (figured I might as well get a decent one, plus I wanted to use the signal summing feature to sum the factory tweeter and midrange into one...I'll do that once it everything else works regularly)
I wired up the LC7 to power & ground (no remote turn-on b/c it has signal sensing) and hooked up the speaker wires to the LC7 instead of the speaker-level inputs on the alpine amp....then used RCA's to connect the LC7 to the Alpine's pre-amp inputs. Still no music when I turn the car on. The amp and LOC turn on and no problems develop other than no sound. Adding the weirdness...if I unplug the LC7 terminals for the speakers & power/ground while the car+radio is on, then plug them back in, everything works great and sounds great.
This is not making sense to me....why would it not work unless I unplug/re-plug the stuff each time?! Do I need to delay either of the devices from turning on right away??
Like I said, I thought I had a decent understanding of audio in general but I am stuck. Please help, any advice is greatly appreciated!!
Thanks for the help TigerHeli. I ended up getting it to work. The trick was delaying the turn-on of the AudioControl LC7. It would turn on when I unlocked the car/opened a door. I bought a versatile little device made by PAC (Pacific Accessory Corporation). It is a universal trigger module, model # TR-7. It can do many things, one of which is a delayed turn-on.
You can program from 1 second to almost 5 minutes I believe. I programmed it to wait 8 seconds after receiving 12v power from an ignition-switched relay. I thought it was a long-shot that wouldn’t work but it was my only hope. Lucky for me, everything works great! All the stock controls work, including steering wheel controls, stock bass/treble boost, left/right balance, etc. I could not be more pleased.
If anyone else has an unusual need relating to car audio, the PAC TR-7 can probably do it. <MOD edit> The programming looks hard, but once you have the product in-hand to fiddle with, you learn quickly. Hope others can benefit from the PAC TR-7 as much as I did.
Since you purchased from CF, I recommend you contact CF's tech support at the number on your invoice (or the regular 800 number and they can look it up and connect you.)
GM likes data line wiring and CF doesn't show the factory amp, so that might be part of the problem, but ...
Hope This Helps!!!
Anyone else have suggestions?
2002 Ford Focus Sony CDX-GT410u Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Stock speakers, no amp, no subs
Glad you got that worked out - I hadn't heard of that problem before and wouldn't have thought that would fix it, but I'll try to remember it for future reference.
Hey,
The only way I figured it out was I would see the AudioControl turn on once I unlocked the car doors (it has signal sensing and wouldn't wait for the 12v relay from the ignition) Also, everything was getting power and if I unconnected the speakers from the amp then reconnected them, they'd work fine. So I figured if I could just delay the AudioControl from turning on until after there was a music signal, I'd be good.
If the car radio is off when the PAC TR-7 is finished the 8 seconds, then it won't work. I just leave the radio on all the time tho, turn it down if I want it to be quiet.
Just wanted to add an update, the PAC TR-7 is still working great. I had read some reviews saying the PAC TR-7 would randomly stop working after a while but that is not the case for me.
Maybe the JL Cleansweep + accessories would of made life easier... Either way, check out the PAC-TR7 if you have any type of unusual need relating to car electronics.