Celica Forums General Discussion Exterior Big Problem With New Amp / Sub

Today, against my better judgement, I had futureshop install my new amp & sub. I had plans to get a cd deck to replace my factory head-unit in a few months.

Now, whenever I turn my head-unit off or on, the sub makes a very loud BOOM-BUM sound. And the same sound when I switch cds. When I have a cd playing and i turn the volume to 0, I can hear the sub rumbling.

Because I am using the factory head-unit, a converter was needed to convert the speaker level outs (I think thats what it is called) to rca. The installer told me this was creating noise on the line, which is amplified by the amp, and causes the loud noise I hear. He said this will go away when I replace the head-unit with one that has rca outs.

Specs are:
Car: 2002 Celica
Amp : Kenwood KAC-629S (350 watt x 1)
Sub : Kenwood KFC-W3005 (12 inch Peak Input 700W Rated Input 172W) in a ported box.
The wiring Kit and rca converter are Stinger.

Questions:
Is there and easy fix?
Should I just buy an aftermarket head-unit, and will it resolve the loud noise and the rumbling?

Thanks for any help.

g

you dont see too many people with systems and still have their factory head units. since most head units dont come with the rca outlets, most people just replace the head unit all together. when i got my pioneer installed, they had to bypass my factory amp in order for it to power the speakers. i lost a lot of wattage when they did this but it still sounds good with my 50x4. no loud popping noises, then again, i dont have my subs anymore. i think getting the new head unit should solve your problem.

one more thing i should add. my friend has a pretty nice speaker system on his cpu. he also has a minifridge in his room. whenever the fridge turns on (or was it off?) the sub make a loud boom noise. he told me it was because the fridge makes a magnetic field arround the room and when it turns off, the sub gets a signal or whatever and hits. i dont know if you have anything in there that could produce a magnetic pulse but i thought i might share this. you dont have a minifridge in your car do ya?

Get a new head unit with a better equalizer than the stock one...

i have the stock JBL head unit still on mine and mine is working perfectly.

eNinja, thanks for the info. No, my beer fridge I take out for the winter *grin*. But thats interesting. Ill mention that to the installer. I think I will bue a head unit somwhere and then make futureshop install it free because they botched up the last one.

dontmesswithkram, you must have a gts do you? I have gt and the HU is not as good.

Hey

Maybe this isn't the same thing at all, but I had a very similar problem. I have my (OEM) head unit still and I have 2 subs with a 250 watt amp.

I also have a converter and when I got it back from Best Buy, it sounded fine. But when I turned the head unit off, the subs starting putting out a loud rumble that literally shook the entire car.

I took it back and they noticed that when the trunk (hatch) is opened, it doesn't do it. See if yours is like that too.

They looked it over and got it fixed. Unfortunetly I don't remember what he said the problem was. I vaguely remember something about looping a grounding wire Really don't remember what he said, but it was fixed, so I didn't care.

Check if your speakers rumble when you turn your head unit off and your trunk is opened.

[ 12-31-2002, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: Kyle-Cel'02 ]

I took out the factory HU and put a Kenwood KDC-X859 in place of it. Now all the problems are gone. Seems the speaker level to Line level converter was creating the noise.

Thanks again for all the help.

Hi, I just installed my 2 10" Rockford Fosgate Subs with the 200m amp. When I adjusted it for the best sound (On Stock Head-Unit) it sounded great, I turned off the stereo before I shut down my car and it did the same thing. My dad came out and adjusted it again for me. The Gain happened to be too high for the stock unit. It's looking to amplify the signal that it's getting. So just put your stereo off and adjust the gain to where you don't hear any more humming. I know, it scared me half to death too!

Chris