zx450 Aux Out

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 1:37 am

Hello all,

So today I decided to actually move my basscube so that it wasn't just hanging out in the back of my car not secured to anything. So I move it and all of it's wires, and I go to test everything out, but I no longer have any bass. Not weak bass, absolutely no bass, like the amp is not turned on. But the amp is on. So I then spent the next 1.5 hours testing my setup to make sure it's nothing I did in the move.

I tested all my RCA cables, 0ohms on all of them, but just for shits and giggles I redid all of the ends anyways. Still no difference. I then took the rear input RCA's and hooked them straight into the sub amp and I got music. So the sub amps works, that's good. I then took the same cables and plugged them into to the input on the basscube, and I got music again. So it's not the cube, or the RCA's coming from the cube. I then redid my connections on the cable going to the cube, and retested them, 0ohms again. Plug it in, and I get no sound. So to test the amp, I took the cable that was going from the cube to the sub amp, and swapped it so that it was now going from my zx450 to the cube. I know this cable works, I just tested it, and I plugged it directly into the sub amp, bypassing the cube. So I took a known working cable and plugged it directly from one amp to the other, and no sounds from the sub

So at this point I have ruled out RCA's, and my sub amp it self not working, and all that leaves me is the zx450 aux out being broke

Has this happened to anyone before? I didn't apply any more pressure to the RCA plugs or anything, so is this "normal"? I mean it was working, I move the cube and now it's not, so something happened.

I have also checked and double checked all my settings to make sure I didn't bump anything or change a setting, and everything looks good.

I am kinda at a loss here, so any insight would be very helpful!

Thanks!

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 2:19 am

I should also add that when I do a AC voltage test on the RCA's coming from the zx450, I get nothing. Coming from the HU, I get readings, so ya...

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 2:50 am

This may sound silly, but could you have the signal coming from the X/O and it is turned down so low it isnt passing anything through? Try it on bypass more so it should be getting the full signal

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 2:58 am

joyride wrote:This may sound silly, but could you have the signal coming from the X/O and it is turned down so low it isnt passing anything through? Try it on bypass more so it should be getting the full signal

I did try that, sorry I didn't mention it. I tired changed the xover as well, still nothing. I have it on my desk in front of me right now giving it the once over...

dontlookatme · Post by **dontlookatme** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 3:01 am

maybe u pulled the ground out of the rca? just shooting stuff out i dunno

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 4:04 am

dontlookatme wrote:maybe u pulled the ground out of the rca? just shooting stuff out i dunno

I looked at it, and it was all good. I was thinking something like that as well, but I get no sound out of the sub, so the likely hood of them both being pulled out at once I find very slim. I was careful not to be rough with them when I was moving things around as well.

When I get home, I think I am going to try some different cables all together and see what that gets me. I have some PG cables that are just chillin' waiting for me to get around to putting them into my wife's car, so I will just grab them and plug them in and see what I get. That will at least narrow it down to not the cables, or it is the cables...

Other than that, I am stumped. It was working just fine before I moved things around, that's what really doesn't make any sense to me

str3atwarrior · Post by **str3atwarrior** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 4:53 am

Don't know if it could be it, but try your AC multimeter directly on the soldering point on the xover card. My ZX475 have bad RCA connectors, took me a while to figure this out! It seems like the RCA connector internal on mine went broke. If i push my RCA cable down on the connector and play with it, it end up working depending on the way i apply force. I checked soldering and even remade them but it didn't change a thing. I then tested with my DMM for continuity and i found out that from the soldering point to the bar lead going into the connector i have a good continuity, but from the soldering point to the internal bar it doesn't work unless i play with the connector a little.

Mine was really bad, the 2 sets are fucked up (the double rca and the quad rca) so i ordered 10 from a guy on ebay to replace mine. If this is your trouble, i'm gonna have 8 over so i'll just ship you one to fix it...

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:40 am

Ok, so after replacing all of the RCA's in question, I got my bass back

So apparently it was the cables. So I am going to replace them one by one and see what happens. Maybe I broke the coax when running it through some grommets?? I don't know, but I will find out real soon if the cables are usable or not. I just have to go work on it some more...

So ya after several hours, it was the cables

oh well.

Thanks all, for the help. I am glad it wasn't the amp, that's for damn sure!

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:55 am

Ok, so after cutting off several inches at each end to make sure I got a good connection, and then trying yet another way to redo the ends, teamed up with replacing one working piece at a time, I was able to get it all to work again. I just think that I must have not done the ends correctly the fist few times

Live and learn.

Here's the RCA ends and cable I am referring to:

http://store.daddario.com/category/152020/ST_Connectors

http://store.daddario.com/category/1520 ... lk_HD_Coax

The really cool thing about these RCA's and cables is that not only are the really high quality, they are reusable! I have now used the same ends at least 4 times. So now that I have 8 ends, I can make 2 sets of cables how ever long I need them, I just go buy more cable

I can get the ends for about $2.50/ea and the cable for about $1.50/ft, so it's not that bad. And if you are just installing, say a basscube and you just need short runs, these work out great, once you figure out how to put the ends on correctly

The reusable part is the cool part to me. Buy the ends once, and use them in all your installs, no matter the vehicle.

I guess I am lucky that I have a brick and mortar store I can go to get this stuff too. So I know where I can always get it.

The one thing I am confused about is that I tested my RCA's, but obviously not correctly. So how do you guys test RCA's? I would like to know how to do that to prevent this from happening again...

Anyways, it's all working now! Thanks all!

oldschoolfan · Post by **oldschoolfan** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 10:21 am

They look nice, I like where they are made too!

Post by **ttocs** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:47 am

I just bought a spool of stinger rca wire that is awsome cable made for audio and even cheaper then that cable. paid less then $1 a foot and it is the best looking cable I have ever soldered..........

I have about half a spool left if anyone wants some.

eulogious · Post by **eulogious** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 11:17 pm

ttocs, you have been talking about these rca's now for a while, you got any pics of them? I am curious to see what they look like. Is the wire you are talking about the twisted silver and blue stuff that was mentioned in another thread? If it is, that does look like nice cable.

I noticed today when I was cutting off the cable that it was Made in USA, so that made me happy

Post by **ttocs** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 6:55 am

I am waiting to finish up my project to post pics but it is the thickest rca cable I have seen. It has a clean insulation that shows the silver colored metal shield thought it and with tech flex on it looks prettry cool.