Hi guys,

First off, I wanted to thank you all for all your great posts . It helped me tremendously installing my new MTX TA5302 two channel amp and MB Quart 216pce's.

15 hours later, my back is sore, and hands cut up and raw as hell. But I finally pulled 12 guage wire those friggen little grommets!.. That shiiat was the harded part.

Anyway, after all this labor, I get distortion when I turn up the volume too high. I tried a bunch of different settings on the amp, but it still distorts at high volume.

I'm using the factory head unit and had tap into the speaker level outputs.
I cut the RCA wire on one end to connect to the speaker level outs and connected the male RCA to the RCA inputs in the amp. (MTX amps automatically detects whether it's a high level or low level into the RCA input).

The only area where it may have been questionable is the following:

1. When i cut the RCA cable, the wire was shielded but had extremely thin wire.
2. The RCA cable had three wires for the left and three wires for the right.
3. I figured the extra wire was a ground and saudered it to the negative for the left and right channels

Could this be the root of my distorion woes?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

this sounds like a franken-setup. your problem will likely be solved if you: either get a line output converter for your stock head unit, and quit splicing rca cables, or...


get rid of the crappy stock head unit and just run rca's from the head unit to the amp.

 

Dont cut RCA's apart, get a PAC adapter, or replace your HU.

 

The whole purpose of RCA cables are to be shielded signal cable. By cutting them, you defeat their sole purpose.

 

Get a new head unit will solve your problem.

 

As stated above, you either need to purchase an aftermarket HU or purchase a PAC line level converter, simply splicing the RCA's will not work and are the source of your issue.. Good luck!

 

...by splicing the RCA's, you effectively exposed the signal to interference. You also are running the signal through the splice, and even the "perfect" splice is anything but perfect (when compared to an intact line).

I got a few head units for sale.......one of which is a decent pioneer (4700-MP) and the other decent one is an Alpine (9851). PM me if interested. They are both affordably priced.

John

 

that's your problem. The factory headunit puts out a crappy signal. You will always get distortion with it installed.

Cutting the RCA's isn't a good idea either.

 

You can't cut into the RCA and run high level (speaker level) signal into them and then plug that into the amp. Not sure why you did that or who told you that it was a good idea but its not. Your pumping high level signal into the low level inputs. What the heck did you think was going to happen? The amp is a dumb box and is not going to say hey what the hck is this?... Its just going to amp that crappy signal... and give you just really loud crap, as you've now found out.

Either get yourself an actual LLC (line level converter) and rewire it or
get yourself a new HU and now your going to have to buy new RCA's and rewire the whole thing. Option #2 is the best idea, as LLC pretty much suck.

 

Okay, I guess I shouldn't have cut the RCA. .. As a temporary fix, I cut that third ground that was in the RCA cable and no more distortion. Just need to fine tune the amp now.

Thanks