Ok, so I put in a new deck, amp and sub in my truck. I'll go into more details if necessary, but let's just say none of it is anything special. The speaker is probably the nicest part, it's a Pioneer Premier shallow mount 12".

Anyway.... hooked it up Saturday morning, it worked fine all day. It worked all day Sunday, then Sunday evening it just quit (the sub).

So today, I get with the guy who hooked it up and we connected my deck and amp to his truck... and his sub played. So we hooked his deck and amp to my sub, and it played. So it seems everything is fine.

The only thing I see is that when I start cranking my amp, my battery meter drops. So, I'm guessing I need a heavier duty alternator.

But anyway, my car amp has a protection circuit and it kicks in about a second or two after you turn it on, but only when it's hooked to my speaker. If I hook it to my friend's... it still pulls my battery meter down, but it keeps playing.

Is there some reason the speaker would cause the protection circuit to kick in? Because my speaker seems to be the only odd thing at this point.

And yes, I drive a lowered truck with a subwoofer in it, please flame away. I grew up in the 80's early 90's and my uncle had a sweet low rider and I always wanted one so bleh.

You could trying adding a CAP (capaciter) it will store unused energy and then when the base kicks in instead of straining your alternator it will pull from the cap.

Yea, that's the first thing I'm gonna try. I tried to tell the guy that hooked it up to put one in. Of course he said "You don't need it."

stock altenators cannot handle the pull, even a couple hundred watts really wears them down, even good ones.

A cap is $100-$200 for a decent sized one, a good alternator is going to be $350-$500. It is the cheaper solution, providing you have not ruined your alternator.

My understanding is that your AMP is more important then the Sub and if you are under powering the Sub it can problems and get distorted. I believe the rule of thumb is that you should spend double your Sub on your AMP and definitely add a capacitor.

I think the alternator is fine. I haven't had any trouble today and I've been running all over the place. Another thing that MAY be an issue. The battery in my truck is larger than the stock battery. I just bought the truck a couple of months ago and haven't bothered with the battery.

Also, I haven't had any luck finding a high output alternator anyway. My friend wants me to just get a smaller sub, but why did I buy a $200 speaker if I'm going to just hook a small amp to it?



It's a 1200w amp and a 1400w sub.

Larger battery should not affect anything in this nature, try the cap it should fix the problem.

I'm quite surprised you haven't just tried to choke it out, bitch style.

these are problems white people generally don't have

yeah i need help here also


can anyone tell me how to change the stereo in my 2003 civic hybrid? (besides taking it somewhere to be done)

My husband used to install car stereos. I had him read your question, and his first question back is, what brand amp are you running? And what guage wire are you using?



To give his credentials, my husband used to own a low ride, 88 nissan convertable truck. (thats where I got the gold dayton reference in the ErikRyland pimp car thread, lol) I'll try to find pics to post.

He ran 4-15's, 2- 12's, kicker comps, hifonix amps, 2 zeus at 2 ohms. roughly about 2300w, audio control EQ, Alpine 3331 deck with 13 band alpine EQ, alpine mids and tweets.


I have NO IDEA what this all means, other than the thing was ****ing LOUD! (2 noise ordinance tickets in the same day, lol... 11 in just one summer!)

He obv grew up in the same era as you since this was 14 years ago.

I recently had mine jacked... oh well... there was a cd stuck in it, and some of the buttons weren't working right.... SUCKERS.... lol

Oh, I did. It just didn't help.







Ok, nobody laugh....

Deck: Dual DBXDM-7610
Amp: Sony XM-2002GTW Listed as 1200w max power, but it's 500w when bridged, if I understand it correctly.
Sub: Pioneer Premier 12" Shallow Mount Listed as 1400w max power, nominal 350w.

The main line from the battery to the amp is 5ga with a 100a fuse.

Ok, a few more questions.. ( I feel like a phone bank operator)


Where is your amp grounded to? What guage ground wire are you using?


(I knew I should have never let him read this.. he's like a kid in a candy store all over again.)

Sweet. Well, tell him thank you no matter what. And thank you for being the go-between.

Ok, it's an 8ga ground wire with a spade terminal connected to one of the bolts under the seat. Would it be better to take the spade terminal off and just wrap the wire around the bolt?

No, don't do that. You could try grounding it directly to the frame under the seat or behind the seat using a metal screw, but does not sound like ground is the problem here. Its draining your battery you do not have a constant enough current. I am 80% sure a cap is the fix here. I didn't laugh but sony make terrible car stereo equipment, it could be that too. Great home stuff, awful car stuff.

EDIT: Is it just me or has car stereo stuff gotten out of control with the 1,000 of watts of amps, I think I am a bit younger than you but in college I had a lowered beamer and in it I had an Eclipse deck, MB Quart 5 1/4 components in front, MB Quart 4 Inch in the rear, A JL audio 12 W6 with two Zapco amps a 50 watt and a 75 that were both dropped to one OHM so they pumped about 500 total watts +/- the zapco amps were awesome because they kept overheating and I sent them back to the comany and they returned them with larger power supplies and fans, they also had a built in crossover. When the ampage finally destroyed my stock alternator, instead of buying the $500 aftermarket one, I got a regular one and put a 120 volt lighting cap and never had the problem again. I still have all the stuff somwhere in my attic. The system was about a 3500 system that I paid 1700 +/- for because I knew a guy at the car stereo store and had another friend who was an installer who helped me put it all together. Was nice for about 5 years 1997 - 2001