Front speaker issues on OEM head unit

[94GT]

So running into what I think is a clipping issue on the OEM head unit. On the front I have changed out the dash and kick panel speakers. In the dash are JBL Club 44F' rated at 3ohms and in the kick panel I have tried 2 other solutions JBL Stage 3 637s (rated at 3ohms). The front passenger speaker kicks out at about 70% volume but the front driver's side works as expected. I figured it was getting a low impedance so I swapped the Stage 3 637's with a Rockford Fosgate Prime R165x3, the issue remains. I put the OEM driver back and zero issues. On my meter the OEM shows 4.0ohms the RFs are listed as 4.ohm but show as 3.4-3.5ohms and the JBL 637 shows 2.7-2.9ohms...so it seems that I am hitting a threshold but what is odd is that it's only on passenger side on the driver side I can max out the volume with all the JBL's running a lower impedance than the RF/JBL combo on the passenger side. I can see they are running in parallel so at a 1.5 ohm load the driver side works fine but anything less than a 1.7 ohm load on the passenger trips the protection. I have also swapped the 6.5" wires (Metra connectors to a new set)thinking it could be a loose fitting connection to but still no joy.Anyone else ever encounter this?

Sponsored

 

[EOD98]

What year and is it B&O?

 

[Brian_B]

May be right at the threshold for the ACM protection for short protection. Have you hooked up a scanner and looked for a code? It will usually set one if it trips something protection-wise (I get it for "Speaker missing" all the time since mine goes to an aftermarket high input on an amp and not speakers any longer)

You say it works fine with the OEM speakers - have you tried just running a dash then just the kick panel speaker (disconnect one, then reconnect and do the other) - since the factory (non B&O) wiring runs them in parallel.

Also, may be a good idea to check ohms on the wiring harnesses with all the speakers unhooked - see if something got pinched or some such, since you are seeing a difference in Ohm values between the two sides with the same speakers. You should see something really really high with no speakers.

Finally - great excuse to bump up to an aftermarket amp.

 

[jwhisl]

If non-b&o, the dash and kick panels share a channel. That's part of the reason there are options in forscan to tell the acm what is there. So 4ohm dash and kicks SHOULD equal 2 ohm on the front channels. If you are running kicks and dash speakers that are lower than the original load, it's adding a bit of stress to the factory amp that is already underpowered. I added mods and tweeters in the dash locations for a 3-way but I used a passive crossovers. I still see clipping around vol 21 so I plan on adding a dsp amp that will provide a channel per speaker (8 channels)

 

[EOD98]

Before I installed the DSP, I had replaced all of the factory speakers. Immediately, sounds of clipping at volume 20’ish. With the amp/DSP, clipping went away completely.

 

[MKZoom]

the tweeters have a capacitor so its not a 2ohm load. it does sound like an over current issue on the headunit. you can ohm out the OEM speaker to see what its expecting. and you could use math to see how much of an LPad you would need on the speaker to keep it from clipping.

 

[Area51BS]

Did not mention if balance if skewed one way or the other. Skewed right it will do max out on the right with low impedance speakers not helping. And left would not reach max. Something to check.

Sponsored