Hey, all. I got some great help previously on this forum when doing the installation of my system. Now I'm back needing some help troubleshooting what may possibly be a bad amp. As a novice I'm not confident in my diagnostic skills, so I really appreciate any help you all can provide.

I have a 2 amp 4 speaker installation with a BLX44 powering WDXMotos in the fairing and a B52 powing SVs in the lowers. Got a bit too happy on the volume and blew one of the Moto's. Swapped in a spare, retuned, and that pair works fine. Disconnected the uppers to check tune on the lowers and noticed a lot of what sounds like distortion to me in the SVs, even with gains turned down relatively low. Assumed the worst and swapped in a set of MMAT 601.4s I had on hand and got the same result. Ran a jumper to the WDXs to test them on the B52, and again got the same result.

Then I ran the jumpers to the test the SVs off the BLX44 and they worked fine. By my logic that leaves me suspecting either the B52 or the wiring for that part of the system. The B52 does play music to any speakers I hook up to it, but only at reduced volumes with lots of distortion even at minimal gains. I always assumed a blown amp wouldn't play, buy have no experience to go by. Didn't want to pull the trigger an order a new amp if I'm barking up the wrong tree.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and advice.

 

did you try different rca's or are you runnig speaker level inputs?
m

 

What’s the xover set at on the B52?

 

Speaker level, but do convert to RCAs for LOC 35 and FMOD attenuators to cap the SVs. Then RCA back to speaker and into the B52 amp. I did check the RCA connectors, and they all seem tight.

 

Eyeballed @ 100 Hz. Worked fine before playing at 3/4 max volume with bass unknowingly bumped up on HU in aforementioned incident. Now it doesn't matter where crossover or gains are set, I get what sounds to me like pretty bad distortion.

 

Check all your cables first

 

Got tied up with life for awhile there. Finally figured out the problem. I got a new phone during the down time with the blown speaker. Used to run the old phone at 100% media volume, but the new one puts out distortion at anything over 75% volume. That's why I was getting distortion even at lower system volumes. Thought I'd post up for the next guy to run into this.

 

What phone?

 

I'd say your phone puts out more volume not distortion and your amplifier gains are set to old phone with lower signal volume. So just set up the gains for your new phone

 

The phone is Moto Z4. Was hearing what sounded like distortion to me even at much lower amp settings. Dropped the phone volume down a few clicks and all is clear up at previous higher amp settings, so IDK.