Help me w/my stereo!

[DrtyRat]

I have a pioneer stereo in my car. A while back I got an itch and decided I wanted to put an old punch amp, that I had sitting around, in my car for a little bit of extra sound. I hooked everything up and when I turned it on the speakers were crackling and the music was very low. I decided to take it all out, b/c I figured the amp was bad. So I ran all new speaker wire from the radio to the speakers. When I turned the radio on, there was no sound. The radio display shows everything is operational (antenna, volume, etc..) but I hear nothing, not even static. I decided to call it quits and left it as it was until I had some time to spend on it. When I ran the new speaker wire I connected the speaker wires directly to the stereo's harness. I figured maybe I screwed something up, even though its pretty straight foward.
Yesterday I decided to give it another go. I removed the harness, disconnected the speaker wire from it, resoldered(sp?) it back so that I could use the stock speaker wires again. I reconnected the back speakers to the stock wires, and then turned the radio on....same thing, no sound, display shows everything functional. I'm all out of ideas. This is not something too difficult to do(so I thought). Anyone w/any input on this? What else have I missed?
BTW....
-battery was disconnected
-I checked the little 10a fuse within the radio and its fine
-stock amps have already been taken out
-everything worked fine before the amp was installed.
I'm not a music junkie or anything but I'm tired of not having anything to hear but my exhaust and my odd noises coming from an 14yr old car.

[jrmiller84]

Sounds like you may have toasted the speakers if they were crackling when you turned them on initially. Something wasn't right then, perhaps too much power to the speakers fried them? Not sure of your speaker/amp specs.

[DrtyRat]

that's no problem if that's the case b/c they were pretty cheap. Is there a way to test the signal coming off of the stereo harness?

[jrmiller84]

A multimeter on those wires should show you some kind of voltage between the two leads for a particular speaker I would presume. You can probably look up the voltages that the stereo provides if you have any documentation on it or if they have a website(Pioneer should). I'm no stereo/electronics whiz though, I'm not sure exactly what to look for. There's a way to test the speakers as well. I think you have to check the resistance and compare it to the resistance the speaker has from the factory. If it's anything different it may be blown.

But don't take my word for it.

[projectRDM]

Originally Posted by DrtyRat

that's no problem if that's the case b/c they were pretty cheap. Is there a way to test the signal coming off of the stereo harness?

Take a known working speaker, one from the house, off a boombox, etc. and connect it right to the radio.

[jrmiller84]

Originally Posted by R240NA

Take a known working speaker, one from the house, off a boombox, etc. and connect it right to the radio.

haha, guess my method is a little too involved isn't it

[projectRDM]

Originally Posted by jrmiller84

haha, guess my method is a little too involved isn't it

It works too, but since speaker output voltage is variable it's hard to get an accurate guess unless there's nothing coming out at all.

[DrtyRat]

Just curious....wouldn't a fried speaker have some crackling or something coming out of it sound wise? R240NA...your sugestion is what I was thinking of doing. I'll update tommorow.

[Bryants95240sx]

Yeah you prolly fried your speakers, but still its odd that you arent getting any sound from them.But i would do what Russ recommended and go from there.

[Canaduh]

Did you make sure you didn't pull any wires from the deck? You said you ran all new wires, did you touch any of the wires behind your deck?

[Gnnr]

You can also try taking one of the speakers in your car and try hooking it up in another car.

[Dream240]

+1 for the additional wires. There should be three more wires not counting the speaker wires.

1 12v ground wire
1 acc power wire
1 main power wire

I would check your ground wire and make sure its grounded properly.

If that's good then go with the alternate speaker. If that doesn't work check for ANY power coming from the speaker wires.

If this still doesn't work then get a new deck. IIRC there's a way to wire up an amp wrong to fry the deck outputs so that it won't output sound.

[projectRDM]

A blown speaker can still produce sound. If the damage is great enough to blow the coil open then it won't make sound at all. Usually too much power/distortion will just overheat the voicecoil enough to make it sound ragged, that's because the heat has distorted the coil and causing it to drag through the magnet. A grounded out speaker or too high voltage will blow the coil 'open', where the windings actually break. Basically you look at it as an open circuit or a short circuit.

[delphis]

take a 9v battery and touch it to the terminals of the speakers and see if it pops in and out then the speaker in theory should be good if there is no reaction then the coil has gone bad and time for new speakers.