Phoenix Gold Phorum

To make a long story short before I parked my van at work I turned up my system and it sounded perfect, then turned off my van and went in for a few hours. A few hours later on my my way home I turn up the system and it seems like I lost half my out put of my system.

I basicly spent all day checking everything sub , amp , basscube and the PG crossover. All look to be working. I thebn tested all the AC voltages coming from each rca and I was getting super low readings and all my levels on the cube and AX204A was all the way up and I used a 60 hz and 70 hx test tone.

I unhooked everything and tested the rca's coming directly from the Sub out on my Pioneer 3500 and checked the ac voltage running the 6- hz test and the volume at 3/4 and I got the same number on each channel 0.0484 mv.
The deck is rated at 2.4 volts.

What in the world could of happened to cause such a loss in voltage? I had the sub out turned on and everything but I just can get anywhere up to the voltage I was needing.

Do these types of things happen often with Pioneer decks? The only thing I can think of that might of slowly caused this problem was lately everytime I hit a small bump you might hear a slight thump from the sub but that also hapened when the deck was turned off.

What do I do now? Would resetting the deck work?

i checked behind the deck and everything is fine , the pg 800's are on there as firm as day one

Am I screwed?

I would get a line driver to boost the volts from the HU to your next piece of EQ. With a HU rated at only 2.4 volts you're not getting anything you really need.

I am using the ax204 and that seems to a add a couple of volts more , the problem is the deck has quit putting out the 2.4 volts to send to the AX204a crossover-basscube-amp

too add on to what might have caused this:

I checked the oild in my van and I skammed the hood like normal but if you can picture the front of van and how close it actually is to the deck that might have did some damage (nebver has before)

I think I will pull the deck tommorrow and through it on the test bench and get down and dirty to find out the true problem of why I can even get up to a 1 volt pre out

Strange you seemed to have lost half your power. That thump you are hearing can probably be fixed with a delayed remote to your amp.

When I checked my rca voltage from the HU to the 215x eq I am getting very little also and my HU is 8v preout. That's at max though. Were the 60hz 0db cda files and not mp3 format?

Did you check how many volts you were getting from the HU before this happened?

soth wrote:Strange you seemed to have lost half your power. That thump you are hearing can probably be fixed with a delayed remote to your amp.

When I checked my rca voltage from the HU to the 215x eq I am getting very little also and my HU is 8v preout. That's at max though. Were the 60hz 0db cda files and not mp3 format?

Did you check how many volts you were getting from the HU before this happened?

Very good questions ,

The format i am using for the test tone was a 60hz mp3 but in order for my HU to play it my computer had to make just a plain jane cd -r so I think my computers burning software converted the mp3 to a wav , could it of? my HU doesnt play MP3s.

Why does it matter what formats its in? Is it because a MP3 has degration of pure sound quality?

To answer your question regarding if I checked the volts of the pre outs before this happened no , not on the HU itself BUT I did check the voltage coming from the AX204A and I think I was reading normal and I got 1 reading of 5 volts after the bass cube.


Today I got down and dirty and pulled the HU , regrounded to a better ground on the battery and checked each channel with DMM and I came up to 2.58 volts AC but that was with a 60 hz tone and the Pioneer turned up to 40 which is a little over what I usually turn it to to get full output

NOTE: To achieve this 2.58 volts I had to turn the Bass levels up ect..

I am angry because I had the bass level on my deck before this happened at -1 and I let the ax204A and bass cube do all the work and I thought it sounded real nice

You may have just loosened one of the RCA's in back of the HU when you slammed the hood. I had a similar problem, one of my RCA's began to slide off from one of my amps.

that would not happen if you used stinger pro series rca's they let you tighten them on your female end! very nice

AVICJR wrote:You may have just loosened one of the RCA's in back of the HU when you slammed the hood. I had a similar problem, one of my RCA's began to slide off from one of my amps.

I am using 800 Series PG's and they grip onto the RCA terminal's for dear life , it actually takes me awhile and some force to remove the 800's from any of my components due to there superior grip.

I also thought when I slammed the hood I messed up something internally

UPDATE: This morning I burned a 50+ track 60 hz WAV format test cd to test all the components in my system (for a list look at my sig)

I started out with the Pioneer deck thats rated at 2.4 pre-out. I ran the deck to before clipping and both rca channels from my PG interconnects read 2.4 volts ac. I thought to myself , sweet maybe its a setting on my AX204A or Basscube.

I then went to test the output ion the AX204A with the gain and bass levels maxxed out and it read wayyy under 1 volt , ithink around 0.343 volts ac So I figured that may be the culprit.

Now I unhooked the AX204A and ran the deck directly to the BassCube and turned the Basscube remote all the way up to test. The bube's output also read a very low reading well below 1 volt , I think it read 0.633 ac volts.

Could this be that both my AX204A and Basscube are shot? I then turned on the van to get 14.4 volts going into the units and I still got the low reading

I dont understand , what i thought was my head unit the whole time was actually the AX204A and the Basscube.

Are these known problems with the 204A and the Basscube? IS there something I am missing? cause correct me if Im wrong the basscube puts out the exact volts thats pushed thropugh its inputs so it should be taking the Pioneers 2.4 volts and outputting to the amp 2.4 volts.


I am really bummed and I know alot folks are not on these forums on the weekend Any help of suggestions whatto try? test??? I do have a external power supply on my tech bench but what inside of these units do I test? Is this a freak problem between the Basscube and AX204A both failing around the same time???

I would like to add that the basscube still works and all but the output like stated above is extremely low as that of the Ax204A as well.

Well on my 406a the output rcas will only read around 1 volt. Now the imputs from my 215x shows around 7 volts which I set at that, didn't want to go to 8. The 406a will accept up to 8 or 9 volts, don't remember which, but for some reason it only shows 1 volt or so on the rca coming out from it. Go figure.

Now I do have my 2125 controls turned all the way down. I can turn the output on my 406a and I can tell power is then getting pushed to my mids. So it's doing something. Do you have to turn the gains up a lot on your amp to get the desired power? If so then get a line driver and place it between your HU and crossover/basscube.

I have found that I would rather take a very dynamic track that i'm familiar with than a 60hz and set the input gains that way. Last time I set the input on the 215x with a test tone I then listened to a few of my tracks and it was considerably lower in volume.

If you've not tried it that way, give it a shot and see how it goes, can't hur anything Just make sure you watch and make sure it doesn't clip is all

Kevin

I few days ago everthing was working good , my amp was set to a little over half gain and the AX204A and cube were working liek a charm! I even built me a lpl for the AX204 and was adjusting it to my liking and was happier than a June bug in June , I just parked it and later checked the oil and on my way home I had about half the output I once had.

I tested the cube on my techbenche's power supply with the cumputer supplying voltage and the volt's on cube are perfectly fine and the volts raised as I turned the remote ouitut on the Basscube remote up , so that works fine

Thebn I tested the Ax204 with and without the lpl and it still has issues. For some reason I thought that last time I tested my volts from the 204a a few weeks ago it upped my volts to around 5 , but that could of been dc


I check the ac voltage correct?

You might want to just take the board out of the 204 and inpsect for any visual damages on the back side. I just fixed my 406a last night, one of the traces was broken leading to the bandpass section of the right rca output. It had blown somehow because they was brown residue or smoke that had hit the white case in the back.

I'm pleased now though with the 406a, no noise whatsoever

How about the power and ground to those pieces? I agree it's kinda strange you would have a problem with both units at the same time. Are they sharing the same power and ground? could be something along those lines. Maybe a ground is working loose or getting rusty under the connection point. Maybe a fuse holder in-line may not be making good contact. I would look at the other things these units share. Maybe even the Rca that is feeding them from the head unit is grounding out on a metal edge that has worn thru over time?

gkitching wrote:How about the power and ground to those pieces? I agree it's kinda strange you would have a problem with both units at the same time. Are they sharing the same power and ground? could be something along those lines. Maybe a ground is working loose or getting rusty under the connection point. Maybe a fuse holder in-line may not be making good contact. I would look at the other things these units share. Maybe even the Rca that is feeding them from the head unit is grounding out on a metal edge that has worn thru over time?

Greg ,

The BassCube and the AX204A were hooked up along with my amps to a 5 farad capcitor which is is distribution style. I have since installed some new pg terinals on the top posts of my batteruy and plan to run those 2 components along with my deck direct to the battery.

The Basscube bench tested like it should , using .600 volts it put out over 1.23 when I turned up the Basscubes knob. The AX204A is still acting up , I mean the LPL still changes the level but not enough it seems. While messign with the 204A I accidentally touched the power and grounds and blew the fuse but I got that replaced(I am using a alrm harness as a power plug , before I was using alligator clips )

Quick question, I don't know if you've mentioned it yet because I haven't read through this very thoroughly... did you try testing the output with the LPL unplugged? I had a failing solder connection on my LPL and it caused my AX204 to have very reduced output. Just a thought.

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:Quick question, I don't know if you've mentioned it yet because I haven't read through this very thoroughly... did you try testing the output with the LPL unplugged? I had a failing solder connection on my LPL and it caused my AX204 to have very reduced output. Just a though.

Indeed , I have briefly but I will do more testing as I am building more than 1 LPL.

Thanks for the info on the solder oints , I will be sure to double check.

On a side note regarding the LPL. In the diagram on building one it sdays to use the black wire on the left and when I did it by the way of what Phoenix Gold said the adjustment worked backwads so I had to wire the yellow at the left solder joint and the black on the right