Some advise on sudden bad distortion

[DriverLost]

OK. I'm not the best ICE guy in the world, but I do know a thing or two about clipping, distortion.

Lets say your Scion was in somebody else's hands for about 4 days. Maybe someone with little respect for knowing when your taxing the system beyond its clipping & distortion levels. This individual possibly spent several hours in, or near my B with this situation for 2 full days, possibly 4.

What happens to a system when that situation takes place for a length of time? I know speakers likely get blown, but am I looking at fried amps, and possibly a fried HU?

The HU pushes 200 watts to:
2 rear tweets
2 front dash & 1 center speaker 3.5 (all mid highs)
2 center tweets

Out put jacks go into a tube pre amp from there:
1 sub out put to 2 ported enclosed 12's (850 watt amp)
2 6" door subs (front channel 450 watt amp)
4 6" coaxials wired in series (rear channel 650 watt amp)

All speakers were properly rated for the out puts, and the system sounded awesome, but had the power, if in the wrong hands to do some damage.

Well considering it was in the wrong hands, any idea of what got damaged?
The only way to describe how bad it is. The distortion is not as evident at low volumes. But the longer the system is on the more distortion is evident, and becomes more noticeable progressively at a lower volume.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks in advance.

[crackinabox]

dumb question but did you check your audio settings. your runnin a flip out dvd player right? maybe your high pass filter was turned off??? i dont know. if i lived near you i could check it out but it is quite a drive to your place. any other details?

[pelly3s]

a good possibility is that some of the voice coils may have hit the back plates of the mag's and caused damage, or their is some major cone fatigue

[DriverLost]

No amp settings were messed with. Just all my pre amp setting, and audio setting on the HU. Most maxed out.

He/she may have over taxed my tube pre amp by cranking it up and sending feed back through it. The tube pre amp on half can cause major feed back. What kind of damage could that have done?

There is no doubt all my tweets are fried. They sound like a garbage can lid in a wind storm. :doh:

[Spock]

sounds like they cranked the bass up and turned it up really loud like an idiot and blew some speakers. I would turn on some music to the volume that you start to hear the distortion then go around and listen to each speaker. Oh yeah and make sure to get all your settings back to normal before.

Who did you let have your car that f'ed it up so bad?

[trebor]

No amp settings were messed with. Just all my pre amp setting, and audio setting on the HU. Most maxed out.

Are you shitting me!!!!! I'd be.....sorry I know that isn't helpful but seriously.....dang man!

Put all your settings back to where they should be. Get a "known good" full range speaker. Hook up the good speaker and see if it is distorting, if it is then the problem is somewhere before the speaker, if it isn't then the distortion is coming from damaged speakers.

[DriverLost]

I don't know who did it. It's part of the desert event drama. They had my B for 2 extra days. (group 1) I suspect a lot of standing around and waiting for the sun light, taking turns in front of the camera, stuff like that. So 1 or more people spent a lot of time with my B. Not to mention over 250 miles of driving were racked up.

It's all getting taken care of, and Scion is making all things good. I'm just out a lot of time and running around. I'd do it all over again if asked. It was a great time, and a good lesson for Scion on how to better handle events like this in the future.

So it sounds like the damage just caused blown speakers. You think the amps, my pre amp and HU survived? Is there equipment stereo shops have to make sure its not pushing DC volts to the speakers, before I just get new ones?

I plan on taking it to a shop to have it gone through. I just want to get some kind of idea of what to expect, and make sure they check what ever.

[Spock]

well the speakers are the most fragile part of the system and will be the first to fail. I would say that amps and the HU should be fine. The amps have many safety features built it to prevent damage. Not saying it's not possible but unlikely IMPO

[pelly3s]

the worst is the output of the head unit clipping, because then it is amplified in each stage of the system. there are two options available to block DC if the amp is pushed to clip, one is with transformers which is not always going to stop all dc but will stop some. the other option is to use capacitors inline to filter DC. A cap cannot pass DC current though it. I could get into all kinds of complicated things to get you the answer you need, but just do a little research online and you will get there. I am sure 99% of car audio shops will have no clue how to do it. Research how guys filter direct coupled amps such as the Crown DC-300 and that will help you.

[SpeakerBox]

Put all your settings back to where they should be. Get a "known good" full range speaker. Hook up the good speaker and see if it is distorting, if it is then the problem is somewhere before the speaker, if it isn't then the distortion is coming from damaged speakers.

What he said. That's where I would start. When trouble shooting, always start in one direction and work backwards. Like from the speakers to the HU or the HU to the speakers. I would say start from the speakers. I have a problem with my system as well man. It took me a while to figure out that my problem was the actual connectors on the back of my HU were kinda loose and this was on a $1600.00 Pioneer Avic-Z1 so definately make it a point to check any and ALL connections man. I also had a problem with my system at one point with a speaker wire that was being grounded because of the insulation being stripped off in a tiny spot and I had some horrible noise coming from that speaker. Replaced the wire all the back to the amp and it was good as new! My point is, make sure you check EVERYTHING yourself because it's free. A shop is gonna charge you to do something that you could have found and fixed yourself.

[DriverLost]

Right on. Thanks for all the good advise.