Ok you audio guys.. what now?

[bluestratos]

Lol... I have a 300 watt Rockford Fosgate 4 channel amp being driven by the hi level imputs from my stock radio. This puts out great sound and plenty of power as can be attested to by the 5 speakers I have blown (Polk 45 watt rms units) I have some new speakers coming that will be better suited to the power of the amp but in the mean time my bass woofer blew (had a 100 watt amp). It really rounded out the sound but had to be turned all the way up so I replaced it with a 300/600 watt unit.

I fired it up today and started adjusting the gain but even at full gain, full base boost and max bass volume it really puts out very little until the radio unit is pushed to max and then it is not adding much. I have the amp being fed by the same speaker inputs from the first amp so it it just Y's off the radio out put wires and it is going into the high level input into the base but it almost seems like it is not getting enough power from the head unit.

The amp has RCA inputs but to use these I would need to add hi level to RCA input converter. The amp does say it works best with RCA inputs so... what do you think?

[BLUEKNIGHT911]

I wish I could help you out but your system is way to complicated for me. As you know I swapped the OEM's for 2 OHM JBL's and couldn't be happier.....Sometimes simpler is well simpler ......:thumbup:.....Mike , Good Luck

[bluestratos]

hi Mike,

I really did not want to settle with the marginal sound of the radio and the JBL's simply don't cut, I gave them away. Small improvement in quality but not loud enough at highway speeds. Also, the challenge of getting something done right by own hands drives me. Not really complicated system by todays standards actually.

I wish I could help you out but your system is way to complicated for me. As you know I swapped the OEM's for 2 OHM JBL's and couldn't be happier.....Sometimes simpler is well simpler ......:thumbup:.....Mike , Good Luck

[Pirate looks at --]

Scrap the whole mess and get a blue tooth for your helmet and add some BOSE headsets tot he helmet. That way you don't disturb the rest of the world with music they don't want to hear, and you have great sound all to yourself.

[bluestratos]

I appreciate your oppinion, I do a lot of back road and long highway riding and I always lower the sound when appropriate in consideration of others so I like to have a good quality sound system. I think you may want to direct you concerns to the loud pipes on bikes, much worse than some tunes on my radio, lol.

[bluestratos]

Got the woofer working now, I had to take the hi power leads off of the first amp, use a converter to rca then into the bass amp. It really rounds out the sound. When the new speakers arrive I will be able to turn the gain up on the first amp, this will also allow more bass for two reasons, the higher gain will increase the incoming signal to the bass amp and the new speakers are can run full bass off of the head unit since they are designed to allow full base through them, in turn, more base signal to the amp.

[bluestratos]

CD Gold Speakers ship Wednesday, with any luck I will have by the weekend, if not I will have to wait untill the following weekend to install and let you know how it sounds.

[Bob Denman]

:opps: I'm about as ignorant about high-powered stereos; as hogs are about the Sabbath... :opps:
Is there ANY way that you could have cooked the radio's internal amplifier? :dontknow:
(Asking about this, to try and stomp some of my own ignorance to death!)

[bluestratos]

No, the amplifier I have to power the bike speakers works great, but the woofer I put in the frunk did not work until I went to the output side of the first amp. It is work well now but I wont know for sure until I get the new speakers and can turn the gain up on the first amp. The new speakers can handle double the power and should blow away the Polks quality wise. I get alot of questionjs about my sound system so I hope I can help others once I get the last wrinkle out.

Take care

[Pirate looks at --]

I appreciate your oppinion, I do a lot of back road and long highway riding and I always lower the sound when appropriate in consideration of others so I like to have a good quality sound system. I think you may want to direct you concerns to the loud pipes on bikes, much worse than some tunes on my radio, lol.

Soooooo true:banghead:

[PMK]

I was uncertain about your equipment when you first posted.

As I read it now, it appears you will run fronts, rears and sub. The fronts and rears are driven by the ??? (oem unit) and the sub is driven by a second amp?

I have not looked close at the entire system, but was under the impression the reciver and amp on the oem is the unit under the passenger right hand grip.

What is a bit confusing is that it seems you are driving the second amp off outputs rather then preamp. I would believe this will overpower the second amp input.

Can't quite envision this setup, seems you would need to open the oem amp and find the inputs. Route those out and drive the aftermarket amp.

PK

[bluestratos]

Hi Badboy,

My stock radio goes to a Rockfort Fosgate 300 watt amp. The subwoofer picks up the power off the highside but it first goes into a high level input/RCA adapter. The subwoofer amp is built into the slimline unit but for some reason, even thought the subwoofer has hi level inputs it just was not put out until I put more power in even though the RCA adapter steps it down again and then into the RCA imput. The base amp puts out 300 watts as well.

Right now I have the gains turned down to about 40% and 0 bass from the headset to avoid blowing speakers ( I blew 5 so far by having the gains at 50% and 4 bars of bass. ) The new speakers will handle the full 75 watts at each speaker so I can turn the gains up. Also the new speakers are full spectrum and apparently put out great bass by them selves. If enough I will remove the bass woofer but this is all speculation untill the speakers arrive on Monday.

[PMK]

Not sure on what exact amp you purchased. I researched one of the RF 300w amps. That amp I researched, had the ability to use low or high inputs. Sounds similar to yours.

When I looked at the Spyder troubleshooting, they give the outputs for the oem system. You should confirm, but I do believe your amp can be powered as low input direct from the oem system.

From your description, you are running the oem output, into an RCA step down to low, then feeding the amp. Sounds like one more item for distortion or limiting the system.

With 300 watts peak, into low ohm speakers, that system should work pretty well.

PK

[bluestratos]

Ahhh, so the imput from the radio can go directly into the low imputs on my amp? Is the same wires as the speakers outs on the radio, I did have had the BRP radio out and did not see any other wires other than the high output leads from it. I will take a look at the wiring diagram to see if I can locate the wires. You probaly seen the right amp, it is the small "punch" PBR300 and it does have RCA inputs. It came with a Y cable that you cut if you have to use high imputs but since I thought I lacked low level out I followed the instruction and cut the cable as shown.

[PMK]

Please check your oem output with a good meter before hooking the amp up. The Spyder repair manual provides output voltage at 1/2 volume to troubleshoot. You could easily confirm the max output of the oem system and ensure it is within limits of the amp.

PK

[bluestratos]

I will check into it. Can you check out with a standard meter, I asked but was told it is an ac current but a standard AC volt meter will not work.


Please check your oem output with a good meter before hooking the amp up. The Spyder repair manual provides output voltage at 1/2 volume to troubleshoot. You could easily confirm the max output of the oem system and ensure it is within limits of the amp.

PK