Drastically OT: What's wrong with my kids' subwoofer..? Chevy

[edco]

My 17 yo son has a Chevy Cobalt that he's been "pimpin" and I installed a subwoofer with 2 Boston 12" speakers, 2 2" tweeters and 2 2 X 5 horns.
It's driven by a Pyle 1000W amp and has been working great since March...

OK..so a couple of days ago he tells me that the subs aren't working..

Finally today was a quiet day and I got a chance to take a look..

Step 1) Amp working..power light / remote lights on. Took a working 12" that was sitting in the garage, attached it with clips to each side, and by golly it worked.

Step 2) OK must be blown speakers right..? Note the tweeter and the horns are working. I take the 12 screws for one of the speakers out of the cabinet, connect it to the speaker wire coming out of the amp.. sonofagun, the speaker works ! Try the other side..again, out of the cabinet, the speaker works..(and works WELL)..

Step 3) OK maybe it's the quick connect (you know the black and red clips that grab and hold the speaker wires)..Take it off..attach the wires directly to the speaker..no sound..

Step 4) Take the subs out of the box..maybe there's a overdrive breaker that popped since the amp is 1000 W and the speakers are a max of 400W printed on the magnet

Step 5) Throw cabinet back into trunk, tell son I've had enough for tonight !!!

Step 6) Post this note on Xoutpost..beg for ideas..

There seems to be a resistor and maybe a small capacitor inside the box (it was getting dark).. But I find it hard to believe that they would BOTH go out at the same time..

So as the title implies.." What's wrong with my kids' subwoofer?"

A million thanks for your feedback (unless you say something silly like "I dont know, take it to a pro..")

Ed in Jersey

[Brian-bmw]

The resistor in the low pass circuit fried.

It sounds like the subwoofer cabinet has a built-in low-pass crossover circuit in line to protect the drivers from high frequencies. My hunch is that the resistor fried. Put an ohmmeter on each side of the resistor and measure its impedance. I’ll bet it is infinite.

If you have an external active crossover that is only feeding bass, then this superfluous. I would just remove the resister and capacitor and run a new internal wire directly from the quick connect block to the drivers.

[edco]

Originally Posted by Brian-bmw

The resistor in the low pass circuit fried.

It sounds like the subwoofer cabinet has a built-in low-pass crossover circuit in line to protect the drivers from high frequencies. My hunch is that the resistor fried. Put an ohmmeter on each side of the resistor and measure its impedance. I’ll bet it is infinite.

If you have an external active crossover that is only feeding bass, then this superfluous. I would just remove the resister and capacitor and run a new internal wire directly from the quick connect block to the drivers.

Brian
Thanks for your nearly instant reply. It seemed (and as I said it was dark) that the crossover is being used for the tweeter and horns, so is it OK to remove the resistor and cap, since it looks like they are being fed a signal by the Cap and Crossover ?

Thanks sooooooooooooooo much..
Ed

[KiwiJochen]

Whatever you fix, it'll only be temporary.

When driving 400W speakers from a 1000W amp, you have 250% more power than the speakers can handle.

So start taking bets as to how long the repair will last until something blows again because the power levels are simply too high.... 2 days? 1 week? 1 month?

If you want reliability, then make sure the components are rated with appropriate power handling levels...... and always use speakers rated for more than the amp can produce.

[Weasel]

Originally Posted by KiwiJochen

Whatever you fix, it'll only be temporary.

When driving 400W speakers from a 1000W amp, you have 250% more power than the speakers can handle.

So start taking bets as to how long the repair will last until something blows again because the power levels are simply too high.... 2 days? 1 week? 1 month?

If you want reliability, then make sure the components are rated with appropriate power handling levels...... and always use speakers rated for more than the amp can produce.

Kiwi, keep in mind that this is a pyle amp, which is some of the cheapest pawn shop merch you can find. I'd be willing to bet if you looked up the RMS output at even 2 ohms it would be well under 1/2 of the claimed peak of 1000. My guess would be about 300 or less at 4 ohms.

(not knocking the pyle amp, it's all that's needed in a 17 year olds first car, I had that quality or worse in the early days )

[Tequan]

Definitely your amp.I gotta agree with Weasel,I had Pyle back in the day too,not high quality.Now I am assuming you ran the speaker wire from the amp straight to the speakers.Also their could be an impedance mismatch,I'd replace the box too,their construction is usually cheap and they tend to collapse under too much pressure.

[Weasel]

And I agree with Brian-bmw on the crossover being the problem, just saying that the actual output is only about 30-40% of the claimed output on amps like that.

[edco]

Originally Posted by Weasel

And I agree with Brian-bmw on the crossover being the problem, just saying that the actual output is only about 30-40% of the claimed output on amps like that.

Crossover was def the problem. I ran the speakers without the horns and tweeters, which you cant hear in the trunk any way.. problem solved !

Thanks !!!!!!!
ED