Hello, This is my first post. I haven't been a car audio enthusiast for too long so i don't know too much more than the basics. I heard a 150 watt JL system at a car show and knew I wanted one. I bought a few JL subs and spent 7 hours making a box for them. I hooked them up to my old amp and liked it, but new I needed a new amp. My friend sold me his JL 500/1 (not v2) amp. I hooked it up to my test speakers and to my shock the sound was horribly distorted. I then hooked it up to my car and had the same problem. I messed around with all of the switches and knobs with no success. I think I know what I was doing. I had the power and ground on it (tried with the remote ant. and with signal sensing) had the speaker wires lined up and had the RCA input cables in. I tried different subs and different wires to no avail. Does anyone know what is wrong with it or how to fix it? Anything would be tremendously appreciated.
I think having someone look at this is a good idea. It could be a simple wiring issue that can be addressed. If your impedance is off or if you are over/under powering your subs, you can get distortion. Of course, it could be the amp itself, but JL Audio amps are usually very reliable.
Hope you get it taken care of and good luck!
What subs are you running?
The JL 500/1 is 500W RMS at 2 to 4-ohms.
It won't sound good with a single 150W sub.
I'm not sure how you had it hooked to the test speakers and not to your car, but exactly how do you mean the sound was distorted, and did you try adjusting the gain?
Hope This Helps!!!
Anyone else have suggestions?
2002 Ford Focus Sony CDX-GT410u Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Stock speakers, no amp, no subs
Being that it's a used amp... Sounds to me like the amp is toast, but it's hard to say without knowing all of the details. If it were me, I would take the cover off of the amp and look at the board. If there are any burnt places, or broken connections, that means it's done-for. Some of the parts and pieces are really small so look closely.
I'm assuming your speakers didn't distort on your old amp. And it sounds like you know enough to at least get everything hooled up properly. So, that's my best guess.
Hope this helps
Good Luck
Loud and Nasty!!
I did pop it open last night and it looked perfectly fine. I hooked up a dual voice coil sub at a multiple ohm load, not sure which, i copied the wiring from a diagram in an owners manual for another dual voice coil sub. It will play all the pitches it is supposed to, but it is incredible distorted. I have bought many stereo parts from the guy I bought this amp from and have never been ripped off. He had it hooked up in his car and played it, and it seemed he was showing how powerful it was by having the amp level way down which makes me wonder if it was like that but I couldn't hear the distortion. I really don't know what to do. I think i'm going to take it into a car audio store tomorrow and just pay the $21 to have them look at it and diagnose the problem and see if they can fix it.