I just put a Jensen cd player in my '91 Ford F150. It's a 4-channel head unit pushing an advertised 40 watts per channel. The front channels are powering my door speakers, and the rear channels are powering two 200-watt subwoofer tubes. I don't have my amp hooked up yet, but I plan on installing that. The problem I'm having is my CD player seems to be drawing more current than the F150 can supply. Right now I run the head fairly hard, and when a bass note hits, the dome light dims. I've also had a few noticable skips in the CD, and odd breakup of the speaker sound. I know what a clipping amp sounds like, and this wasn't it. The CD skipping is not like when I hit a bump and the cd just loses track. Sometimes it'll jump forward or back. I think this is all related the the Ford wires for the Radio being too small. I'm thinking that the constant power feed is the culprit. The +12v Ignition wire coming from the radio is tiny in comparision to the "memory" wire. Does this sound feasible at all? If so, should I run a much thicker wire from the fuse box?

 

Man, this sounds a lot like the same problem I am having. I posted the other day under "stereo cutting off." I never thought about the wires being too small, but they do seem like it now that you mention it. Please post if you figure this out.

 

if you're running that much power from the HU, then you should wire the source wire (not the ignition turn on) from the battery .. and yes heavier gauge .. I would suggest 8 to 10 gauge .. some may think it's overkill but a litle heavier won't hurt..

 

8-10 gauge for a Jensen head unit would be pushing it a bit. But definitely an upgrade in wire size directly to the battery would help. Another thing would be that Jensen's "40 watts" is really closer to 20 constant...if that. With your rear channels pushing your bass tubes I think it might be too much of a draw on the HU itself which might effect the laser power/tracking/memory or something along those lines. Wire in that amp ASAP. I bet that will be the end of the problems.

 

The amp will be wired tomorrow, and I'll probably run a 14-12 gauge jumper over to the feed wire for my foglights. (They're on the back for rear illumination when backing/over-ride for super cargo light). Once I get that amp in, I'll cut the bass output from the head unit and boost the amp's signal with the X-over set, so I'll still have sufficient bass, and I won't be working the HU nearly as hard.Another question.... Where does the stock ground wire tie in at? If that's getting loose, I could also be suffering there, too. I recently tightened up the underhood grounds. I figure if they were getting shoddy, what other grounds could be...un-grounding?

 

You might want to get yourself a capacitor if your lights are dimming....That stores the power until it is needed by the amp and doesnt drain as much power thus resulting in no dimming lights....

 

Unfortunately:

 

Ditto that maticuno....

Capacitors are for audio 'newbies'. Just like MAX wattage is.

Get yourself a h/o alternator and upgrade the the wiring.

 

The thing you overlooked is the fact that prior to this post, I had no AMP installed. It was strictly off the HU.


~now~

I installed the Amp Friday. I dropped the bass at the head unit to unity (no gain) and dialed in the response I want with the crossover and the gain stage of the AMP. I already have a much cleaner sound, and the CD player no longer has problems with skipping. There is still some dimming of the dome light, but even that's not as bad as it was. Now my problem is thermalling the amp out. That sucker gets HOT! A simple PC fan in a bracket would fix that.

Now, the subject of Capacitors. Capacitors will help your sound. They may seem to make intense bass louder by allowing the amp to maintain full power on peak notes (Such as bass drums). They will not provide a constant power. Honestly, I think a capacitor could be replaced by a next-gauge thicker power wire. That main power feed is the only source of resistance over the 10-20 foot run. That same wire is the reason that a capacitor would discharge into the amp rather than the battery. The voltage at the Battery isn't dropping, but the voltage is lost at peak through the wire. The resistance between the capacitor and the Amp is much less than the Cap and the battery, plus the voltage is dropping on the amp side of the capacitor much faster than the battery side. To sum it up, a capacitor is just a band-aid for a substandard wiring kit. Just for kicks, I might get a cheapie off of Ebay just to see if it helps at all.

BTW, if Capacitors had no use, they wouldn't put them in the main power stages of PA and Bass guitar amps.

 

Also don't forget the Big 3 upgrade, it can help in lots of ways.

 

Big 3 upgrade?

 

It's an electrical upgrade on your system, read this..

http://forum.sounddomain.com/forum/u...c;f=5;t=007801

 

just get a strike cap

 

Funny thing.... I know for a fact that there's no Batt to Chassis ground. Just Batt to Engine.

 

Why get a strike cap? All it helps with is a peak bass note, like say on a bass drum beat, it makes it a little more prominent, but not worth the money. Now that I think about it, there isn't a battery to chassis, but isn't there an engine to chassis?