[jacob123]

Hi all,

got some new 2-way compenent speakers with main speaker, tweeter and crossovers. Haven't got an amp just wiring them straight into the head unit. The cars previous speakers weren't plugged in by previous owner no idea why but may be because he had same problem not sure. Wired them in using crossovers correctly with them both being mirror images of eachother and right side didnt play/played v quietly whereas left was full volume and great. Pulled out the connector from door cleaned that, changed the clinch next to the headunit, nothing was fixing it so decided to wire straight from the crossover to the headunit, did this for both sides and it switched to playing out the other side only (the right) and barely anything coming out the left. Also switched the head unit to a spare and had the same result so don't think it's anything to do with that.

This proves both speakers work just not together no idea what i've done wrong as checked the way it's wired up and pos is pos and neg to neg etc so shouldn't be polarity. Can upload some pics if that helps. I'm not an expert but praying i'm just missing something obvious.

Thank you so much for any help you can give me!

 

[lithium]

If some **** was disconnected by the previous owner than I would assume they hacked something up. Get a MM and start checking from the HU output.

 

[jacob123]

yeah was doing that and the resistance was high both at the speaker and the head unit

 

[JetBadger]

yeah was doing that and the resistance was high both at the speaker and the head unit

How did you measure it? Check for shorts in the wires to chassis, then check the continuity of the wires end-to-end, if probes don't reach, you can jump both +&- on one end, and check for continuity between them on the other end. Check even the wiring at the headunit, like properly check if it's not wired in some nonsense way like + from the left and - from the right going to the same speaker. Just eliminate potential causes one by one and you'll find it.

 

[jacob123]

checked everything now and replaced all the wires from head unit to speaker on left side changed head unit and checked that and swapped left and right round which confirms both speakers work. checked on the mm and all new wire fine and has been done symetrically on both sides there's nothing else i can think of.

Could it be that the HU is too underpowered surely if it was it'd be equal on both sides rather than play one side at what sounds normal and the other very quiet/muffled? Should I go grab an amp?

Think the speakers are 250w peak and the HU is 55w x4.

Checked all the connections a ton and all going to the left have been replaced with new speaker cable, thought it may be the short amount of wire where the HU clips in and then joins to new speaker wire so soldered it up from the HU output to bypass this and result was the same, there's nothig else to change.

Got time to play around a bit more as local audio shop doesn't reopen until 4th Jan.

 

[JetBadger]

If the speaker is confirmed to be good, the wiring to it aswell, then the only thing left is the HU, there's no magic here. Crossover, balance controls, even source. If you're still unsure of the wiring side of it, the sure way is to eliminate the car as a variable, connect the HU and a pair of speakers straight to a battery and check that way. The 15-ish watts out of the headunit are enough for any component set to play loud enough to be annoying. Definitely not a lack of power issue.

 

[jacob123]

okay I'll double check the headunit by just swapping it out into my brothers car, the other one i tried i had in my previous car and it worked fine then. I'm sure of the wiring as it has low resistance when I measured with MM and is completely new and sperate to original.

Thanks for confirming it's not a lack of power issue.

 

[jacob123]

double checked the headunit and worked fine in my brothers car so don't think that'll be the issue, not sure what else it can be will upload pic of wiring tomorrow.

 

[lithium]

was the balance set to one side? When you disconnected it, it may have reset to factory settings.

 

[jacob123]

no the balance was set to centre, checked this first and was playing out the back two equally

 

[jacob123]

In this message is pics not sure if I can add more than one but will upload pics and video if it lets me. The yellow wiring is the original (left side) and the right is orange. Most of this has been replaced with white speaker cable let me know if anythings not clear or obviously wrong, thanks.

left speaker

 

[jacob123]

cont. left crossover

Right side (working fine)

I also have a video but it won't let me upload it here can do it on imigur or something like that if it's helpful.

 

[SSinstaller]

Swap the crossovers from side to side. Does the bad outout move?

 

[ckirocz28]

Hi all,

got some new 2-way compenent speakers with main speaker, tweeter and crossovers. Haven't got an amp just wiring them straight into the head unit. The cars previous speakers weren't plugged in by previous owner no idea why but may be because he had same problem not sure. Wired them in using crossovers correctly with them both being mirror images of eachother and right side didnt play/played v quietly whereas left was full volume and great. Pulled out the connector from door cleaned that, changed the clinch next to the headunit, nothing was fixing it so decided to wire straight from the crossover to the headunit, did this for both sides and it switched to playing out the other side only (the right) and barely anything coming out the left. Also switched the head unit to a spare and had the same result so don't think it's anything to do with that.

This proves both speakers work just not together no idea what i've done wrong as checked the way it's wired up and pos is pos and neg to neg etc so shouldn't be polarity. Can upload some pics if that helps. I'm not an expert but praying i'm just missing something obvious.

Thank you so much for any help you can give me!

This is exactly why you should never use factory speaker wires, always run your own. Car engineers do some stupid stuff when designing wiring harnesses.

 

[jacob123]

Swap the crossovers from side to side. Does the bad outout move?

will try this next, i don't think this will be the case tho as when soldered left side up to the right side output it came out fine so don't think it's an issue with the left hand crossover but will give it a try.

 

[Thomasluke7899]

This is exactly why yoy should never use factory speaker wires, always run your own. Car engineers do some stupid stuff when designing wiring harnesses.

Like what?

 

[Shadow_419]

If you're not going through any amp or other device between headunit harness and door, a continuity test to determine correct wire is all you need to determine proper wire orientation.

 

[ckirocz28]

Like what?

Like completely changing the color of wires as they go through the car, common speaker grounds, etc.

 

[Thomasluke7899]

Like completely changing the color of wires as they go through the car, common speaker grounds, etc.

Oh...ok

 

[jacob123]

so been a while, wired the speakers straight up from the headunit bypassing the crossovers like the simplest way possible same issue still, measured the resistance on both sides and it was about 2.6ohms each side. The wiring was 100% right and so easy to see when straight from headunit. Could I have damaged one of the chanels with the old wiring whih was high resistance? Haven't been able to try the headunit in a different car yet as nearly everyone I know has a new car and og hu. if the hu was damaged surely it would blow the fuse and it wouldn't work not just struggle giving output to one chanel?