PROBLEM*** X200.4

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 11:29 pm

That does make sense... thanks man I will do that. Did you have a 60hz sine wave playing or whatever thru ur cd player? or ipod? Also why do we have to do the 60hz sine wave and not just a regular song? Maybe im dumb. Did you put the neg pos terminals inside of the RCA cables? does it matter where the pos neg terminals go so as to read the voltage from the line driver to the RCAs.

next update

I talked to PG repair team and they said that it is going to cost 185 bux for the repair of my xenon 200.4! Man that blows because I could just spend 40 more bux and get a brand new one! ROFL man just my luck. But when they fix it i hope its stronger and better than ever and i will not have any problems for a long long time. Including this is going to be my first amp that actually has a Line driver to it so i hope it increases the longevity of the amp. going to try to send it in 2morrow or thurs.

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:27 am

You use the 60hz sine wave because that is playing at -0dB at all times. A normal song will be playing at a lower volume than that, so you will be settings your gains higher than what you are supposed to.

The concept behind an amp gain (or line driver gain) is to match the amp to whatever head unit you have, since so many different head units have different output voltages. The way this is set is to have your head unit output the highest voltage (volume) it can without clipping the signal (hence the 5/8 or 3/4 volume when doing the testing). You will not achieve this if you play a normal song because, as you know, different songs are recorded at different volumes. The 60 hz sine wave is recorded at maximum volume (this is why your speakers would be going crazy if you listen to the 60 hz track.

If you want to see what voltage is coming out of the Head Unit or line driver, then you would set the DMM to AC voltage, and put one of the DMM probes on the inside of the RCA (the pointy thing, don't know what it's called), and the other DMM probe on the outside of the RCA (the metal part that holds the connection tight). This will give you the voltage the RCA is outputting. Mine is usually like .283V at 3/4 volume from my head unit, then 8.1V output from my TLD66. This doesn't tell you much about what your speakers will output, however.

You then hook up the DMM (still on AC voltage) to the +- terminals of the, for example, Left Front channel of your amp, set the amp gain all the way down, set the HU voltage to 5/8, and start moving around that channel's gain on the line driver until you get whatever voltage you want (on the TI400.2 you would want 20.00V, on the x200.4 you would want 28.28V). That will tell you that you are where you want to be.

Also, almost forgot... you need to flatten out all your HU EQs, take off the HU "loud" feature, if it has one, take off all of your amp's filters, and any other filters you might have along the signal chain (if any). I suggest you do not have your speakers wired up to the amp while doing this test cause it's not gonna sound nice.

After you get the voltage set on your Left Front channel, move to the next channel and do the same thing and so on until all the channels are covered. Once you have the gains set, you can put on your amp filters to not damage the speakers with frequencies they can't handle, set your EQs on your HU if you like (don't go positive on HU, just negative.. eg. You should not have +2 Bass, 0 Mid, +2 Trebble (simple example). It should be 0 Bass, -2 Mid, 0 Trebble, if anything).

This should be everything to have you set.

Credit goes to Stipud for teaching me most of that

.

Post by **stipud** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:18 am

This man is an expert now! Kudos for picking that up so quick.

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:00 pm

WoW WoW WoW!!! So I did EVERYTHING the tutorial said to do, and all i can say is wow...

hooked up DMM to RCA and got it to read 8 volts, then i hooked it up to the ti 400.2 and made it read 20 volts. So everything is a go. What a crazy difference. Now I love my 400.2 and dont wanna part with it back to my dad i told him to while i was riding in the car haha. Only problem is my sub is just totally bunk. I literally have to turn the sens almost 3/4 up and then go on my deck and set subwoofer to +15 just so the bass can be heard. Something has to be wrong either with my sub or my sub amp which is rsd600.1 maybe i need it to be hooked up to my SLD-44. For now i will try to tune it with a DMM so calculation should be
square root (600 X 2) = 34.64 So I will see if that is even getting that close. Thanks guys this shit is so sweet sounding.

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:32 pm

Ok so now I have another problem. My speakers are now doing what Capitol M was describing in making a sounds like a repeated static sound in my speakers. I'm guessing that a ground is bad. I will show by pic of my grounding.

Now I have tapped into the power wire, ground, and remote wire of the stock wiring to feed power to my SLD-44 that is in my glovebox. To make it all go into the glove box I had to drill a small hole on the left of my glove box and feed the RCAs, and I wrapped electrical tape around the power,ground, remote cables and fed that thru the hole as well to give the SLD-44 everything it needs. Hope my picture makes sense.

Now I figure your gunna say its a grounding problem and I figured as much because it happens onnly when I turn on my car and when the car is off it is fine. I read someone say that running the power,ground,remote along the RCAs could maybe cause it but I had to have them all run in the same small hole to fit into the glovebox.

My ground in the back is grounded to my Chasis as I didn't know about grounding from the battery all the way to the back and that would be expensive for another 16 ft of 0 awg wire and I dunno if it would even fit along with the power wire running to the back.

I will try the trouble shooting amp noise tutorial 2morrow and see maybe if i can find the problem. PROBLEMS PROBLEMS PROBLEMS!!!!! AHHHHHHH

Post by **Bfowler** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:57 am

you dont NEED to ground back to the battery..

your picture isn't making too much sense.

so you tapped into the head unit factory wires to power the SLD44?

also, you need to describe the ground in the trunk better. is it connected to the frame? did you scrape the paint away?

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:21 am

so one of my x200.4s crapped out just like deathcloud's... GREAT.

I guess I got the same problem as his and got a crappy early prod amp. I'm trying to see what the warranty is right now see if I can return it. Looked up squaretrade (e-bay electronics warranty) and they say they provide warranty on anything that was in production less than 5 years ago. Does that mean the xenon is covered?

I'm testing the second X200.4 I got from the Houston place (the one that's on ebay now for like 250 for an x200.4) and i think this one is sounding good, but kinda skeptical now.

Post by **Bfowler** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:24 am

crap son...this is terrible. they must be from the initial run and nver went in for the recall

i would think PG would warranty them if the serial number shows this as they were aware of this common problem.

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 10:37 am

deathcloud -

I feel you about the problems... I also have the whining noise problem you're talking about... trying to troubleshoot that myself (and as stated above, also have a problem with my x200.4).

Question for you... you were able to get 20V out of the speaker terminals from your TI400.2 even though there's 8V coming from the RCAs? I thought the TI only accept up to 6V; meaning if you put 8V input, you'll be automatically clipping at the speaker terminals because even with the gain all the way down you're getting more than 20V - you might wanna double check this (I'm not certain cause I haven't tried my TIs with the line driver yet). Let me know your results too, it'd be interesting to know cause it'll help me plot my xenon/TI amp setup.

As for the ground... I haven't fixed this myself yet, so can't say much, but what I'ma try to do is connect the HU/Line Driver's ground wire to a 16 awg wire and run that to the back and connect it where I'm grounding my amps (instead of using the stock ground wiring that comes with the car). See if that works. Also, the SLD66 manual says for it not to touch any ground of a car, so I'm check into this also.

Just a couple of ideas.

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 2:25 pm

deathcloud wrote: For now i will try to tune it with a DMM so calculation should be
square root (600 X 2) = 34.64.

it's actually square root (600x4) = 48.99V. It doesn't matter with the xenon series what your subs are. The calculations are always at 4 ohms because of the XeLoad. Giving you a little more power

.

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 2:55 pm

Bfowler wrote:you dont NEED to ground back to the battery..

your picture isn't making too much sense.

so you tapped into the head unit factory wires to power the SLD44?

also, you need to describe the ground in the trunk better. is it connected to the frame? did you scrape the paint away?

Ok I figured that I wasn't clear at all. Yes for my SLD-44 the best buy guy tapped into the stock power wire, ground, and remote wire and ran it into my glove box. you know the wires that also power the head unit.

As for the ground, yes it is attached to the frame of my body in the trunk and was sanded down to the bare metal. I just got home from work and going to run errands then trouble shoot.

dako · Post by **dako** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 2:59 pm

For something like a line driver, is it kosher to tap in the head unit 12v or is it better to run a new dedicated 12v wire from the battery? I know as far as ground, it's preferable to have a central grounding point for the HU and other onboards (except the amps of course).

Post by **Bfowler** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:01 pm

ok...first off...i would try grounding your sld and headunit to the same place aas your amps. you can use speaker wire for this

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:02 pm

maka78 wrote:deathcloud -

I feel you about the problems... I also have the whining noise problem you're talking about... trying to troubleshoot that myself (and as stated above, also have a problem with my x200.4).

Question for you... you were able to get 20V out of the speaker terminals from your TI400.2 even though there's 8V coming from the RCAs? I thought the TI only accept up to 6V; meaning if you put 8V input, you'll be automatically clipping at the speaker terminals because even with the gain all the way down you're getting more than 20V - you might wanna double check this (I'm not certain cause I haven't tried my TIs with the line driver yet). Let me know your results too, it'd be interesting to know cause it'll help me plot my xenon/TI amp setup.

As for the ground... I haven't fixed this myself yet, so can't say much, but what I'ma try to do is connect the HU/Line Driver's ground wire to a 16 awg wire and run that to the back and connect it where I'm grounding my amps (instead of using the stock ground wiring that comes with the car). See if that works. Also, the SLD66 manual says for it not to touch any ground of a car, so I'm check into this also.

Just a couple of ideas.

Here is the thing, on the Ti 400.2, what I did was tried to measure the voltage of the RCAs that were being ran to the back. I wanted to make them all 8 volts to see if that would be best. So I had the 60hz track playing and then turned my head unit up 3/4 volume and started slowly turning the output up till it reached 8 volts via DMM. Then I did the same for the right channel. Then I hooked up the left channel to the amp first and I can't think of what it read from the gain all the way down, but i literally turned it up a tad and it went to 22 volts, then I had to SLOWLY turn it like minimal turn to hit my target of 20 volts which was hard to hit exactly 20. But it did it, then i did the same to the right chan and hit 20 as well. On the SLD-44 i would say its turned about 3/4 up to hit 8 volts, then the amp is turned up just a tad to hit it. NO PROBLEMS, NO CLIPPING, NO LIGHT DIMMING!!!!!!!!!!!!! And it sounds fucking sweet! way better than without a Linedriver. It rocks out so hard... just have to fine tune my sub and figure out wtf is going on with it. and also trouble shoot the ground noise as well... I like ur idea of using speaker wire ran from the ground block in the back and seeing if that fixes it. common ground BRING IT ALL HOME as HH would say hahaha

dako · Post by **dako** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:02 pm

Also, that really sucks about you guys getting bum amps. Hopefully some good comes out of that situation. Usually when I buy Tantrum stuff, it's under the premise I'll be sending it in for diagnostic/repair, so I definitely feel your pain. I pretty much wouldn't have it any other way though. Call me stubborn, but I won't stray from PG amps. Been that way since 1995.

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:04 pm

dako wrote:Also, that really sucks about you guys getting bum amps. Hopefully some good comes out of that situation. Usually when I buy Tantrum stuff, it's under the premise I'll be sending it in for diagnostic/repair, so I definitely feel your pain. I pretty much wouldn't have it any other way though. Call me stubborn, but I won't stray from PG amps. Been that way since 1995.

why not convert to xenon, i mean come on all the cool features Xe Load and just hotness 24db Linkowitz-Riley(sp) come on why are u loving the tantrums?

dako · Post by **dako** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:13 pm

it's all about the tantrum 1200.1 for me. 1500 watts out of a ridiculously small footprint. also the 24db x-over means nothing for me since the Alpine HU I'm running does all the active x-over work at any chosen x-over slope (flat, 6, 12, 18, or 24db). I actually do about 12db slope on the 63Hz low range, 12/18db slope on the 63hz to 2.5kHz mid/mid-hi and 24db up in the 4.0kHz.

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:46 pm

Ok so i haven't got time to trouble shoot ground noise, BUT what i did just do is try to tune my sub. it is a RSD600.1 and that means that I measure

squareroot of (600 X 2) since i am running a rsdc124 at 2 ohms

the answer is 34.64 so that means around 34 volts. We were only hitting 19 volts WITH the gain almost maxed. I have the EQ set flat, subwoofer is set at 0 when it can go to +15. So something is wrong because it needs to be 34volts. What could be the problem why it is lacking? Is it because I need a line driver? I am just tempted to hook it up to my line driver and see what volt i could hit. I mean it doesn't hit as hard as it should. It hits hard when I turn it up to +6 in the subwoofer setting BUT I remember doing that fucks up ur amp because every 3db it causes twice the work or something i remember. I don't + anything anymore after reading that if anything I lower settings

HELP!

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:51 pm

and if I get a x1200.1 to power a Rsdc124 will that be overkill? I am planning on getting eventually 2 rsdc124 and running them at 4ohms in the long run, but was gunna just run the x1200.1 in the meantime till i can get another rsdc124 and build a box. Will the x1200.1 burn/destroy my sub?

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:13 pm

deathcloud wrote:Ok so i haven't got time to trouble shoot ground noise, BUT what i did just do is try to tune my sub. it is a RSD600.1 and that means that I measure

squareroot of (600 X 2) since i am running a rsdc124 at 2 ohms

the answer is 34.64 so that means around 34 volts. We were only hitting 19 volts WITH the gain almost maxed. I have the EQ set flat, subwoofer is set at 0 when it can go to +15. So something is wrong because it needs to be 34volts. What could be the problem why it is lacking? Is it because I need a line driver? I am just tempted to hook it up to my line driver and see what volt i could hit. I mean it doesn't hit as hard as it should. It hits hard when I turn it up to +6 in the subwoofer setting BUT I remember doing that fucks up ur amp because every 3db it causes twice the work or something i remember. I don't + anything anymore after reading that if anything I lower settings HELP!

IDK if you figured this one out already, but here's what I think: If you can't hit the 34V you need (should be 36V though since the amp makes 650w RMS from my understanding), then you def. need a line driver. The problem here is that the amp expects the HU to give it more voltage, but the HU is not made to give it that much voltage, so you're SOL. I saw this happening with my HU - it gives off like .3V at the 7/8 volume, so I needed to adjust the gain to almost max on the x200.4. I then got a line driver, and can adjust the line driver (again, to almost max) to get the required voltage into the amp without the gains being turned up on the amp. I'm guessing these new PG require even more voltage input than the xenon.

Bottom line... you need a line driver or a different HU for this to work. Anyone think different, please chime in.

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:17 pm

deathcloud wrote:and if I get a x1200.1 to power a Rsdc124 will that be overkill? I am planning on getting eventually 2 rsdc124 and running them at 4ohms in the long run, but was gunna just run the x1200.1 in the meantime till i can get another rsdc124 and build a box. Will the x1200.1 burn/destroy my sub?

No... you can always reduce the power on the x1200.1 to match the RSDc's required power. People say don't use a too powerful amp for a sub because you'll blow out the sub... this is not true... you only "blow out" the sub because you're putting 1200w into a sub that requires 600w. Why not put 600w into a sub that requires 600w? Basically, when you're using the 1200.1 to power one RSDc, set the gain as if the sub is only a 600w sub. When you get two RSDc's, set the gain for the full power of the amp, at 1200w.

maka78 · Post by **maka78** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:35 pm

k, now my turn to ask a couple of questions related to the x200.4...

I decided to open up the 200.4 and see what I could make out of it and maybe fix it myself if it's a simple fix, instead of sending it in for repairs. I figure I did graduate last year as an electrical engineer (although not my career path), so I must remember something from school and might make sense of something here.

To recap, my x200.4 was working great, sounding amazing when I first put it in. I had it gain matched, with no line driver at the time, to 2 sets of TI6 Elites. One day, it starts making this white noise on my f/l speaker (with music still playing there too). It then goes into protect (blue light flashing) and no more. I tried unplugging all the speakers thinking there might be a short somewhere in the speaker or speaker line, but light still flashing. Tried to unplug, and replug in, light still flashing.

Is there some reset I can try to do on this amp? Can I jump anything to reset the amp, maybe that might work?

Attached are some pics of what it looks like on the inside. What are those jumpers there and those adjustable resistors? anyone know?

Thumper88 · Post by **Thumper88** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:17 pm

Pretty sure those potentiometers are bias controls, one for each channel.
Can't really say what the jumpers are for...maybe to measure the voltage drop across the emitter/source resistor of one of the audio output transistors (one for each bias control/channel) while adjusting the bias...just a crazy guess, and very well might be wrong here....
Hopefully someone knows for sure.

Post by **Rold Gold** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:38 pm

Actually dood......You could have bought a 200.4 for $140 at the sale

deathcloud · Post by **deathcloud** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:09 pm

FuzzyHoNutz wrote:Actually dood......You could have bought a 200.4 for $140 at the sale

yea i got shafted... I fucking found out about this amazing amp (except for my bad luck of getting a shit one) and the the F and F sale happens where I could of bought one for hella cheap.... DSFSJFHJSKDHFJSDF so dumb!