Ajkweler,

Jim (PJK3) is one of the best in this forum in debugging stereo problems and he is here to help you. You should follow his directions. I did not see any respond to your scream for helps last night that why I tried to give you something to work on.

It was a little late last night, my typing was very bad, if you need to clear something please let me know. But the best bet for you is to follow PJK3 directions.

 

Oh, on another note, someone recommended that I place my amp on a mdp board or a rack. It seem to have eliminated that horrible loud noise that was coming out of the speakers. Could that have caused the amp to go into protect mode? About my previous post, I'm using a mono amp to test the speakers now to test for noise, the sound stream amp is still locked in protect mode.

 

PJK3,
I am sorry to call you with a wrong name. I do not know how I get the name "Jim", it must be a bad day for me.

Ajkewler,
It seems that you have a bad ground loop in your system. Try to place your amp on a mdp board or something that non-conductive and re-ground your HU as PJK3 suggested, you may want to have good ground for the amp also.

 

TR-S2K -- you're too kind... thank you. and don't worry about the name thing... PAS2KNut is Jim, and confusing me and him isn't an insult to me... you should be apologizing to him though...

ajkewler:

3. i'm very concerned that the amp doesn't come back out of protection mode. still, based on Soundstream's manual for this amp, "This control adjusts the amplifier's input sensitivity. Input sensitivity is variable from 200 Millivolts to 8 volts." if this is correct, you should be fine w/ the 5 V preamp outs and 1/2 on the dials sound about right... 3a. where did you see the 4 V figure? do i have the wrong manual?
3b. does it stay in protection even w/ the RCA's disconnected from the HU? (i'm hoping it does not... but we shall see.) be sure to power down the entire system, pull the fuse on the power (amp), wait at least 1 minute, then put the fuse back, and try again.

1. this tells us that the HU is definitely the source of the noise... i really doubt this is the problem, but 1a. if possible replace the fuse on the HU. an undervolt issue to the HU could do weird things.

2. we need a good ground for the HU. i don't have my helms here at work, but i'm fairly sure there's a factory ground up under there on the steel crossmember. that should do. we just want to get away from the harness at this point.
yanked from Lucid's site...
the exposed bolt in this picture is probably one of many good ground points. you'll want to look for any screws holding down wired ring clamps to the body/frame. those will probably be good as well, but in all honesty, i wouldn't touch them if they even look remotely associated w/ the SRS system.

really!? interesting... 3c.so, moving the amp to MDF cleared up the high pitched very annoying secondary noise? but wait, you used a mono sub amp to test? it's possible that amp isn't capable of producing the high pitched noise... generally sub amps won't get above 200hz -- and that's not very high.

and yes, i'm concerned that the high pitched noise is a very high gain pre-amp noise that's causing your inputs on the amp to clip and overload.

 

Its so much better now, I've ground the hu as pjk3 said and I'm mounting the amp on a mdf board. I'll pass by home depot later to see if they have mdp boards. The noise has significanly reduced, bu then the soundstream amp is still in protect mode. I'm going to take it by the store that I got it from and see if they can do some warrnty work on it.

So does anyone know about that input senstivity? Am i hurting my amp with my 5 volts pre-outs from my HU? The amp has a senstivity of 0.5-4 volts. And I'm pretty clueless of what this even means. I'm using my old mono amp right now to power the components and there is almost no noise or I have yet to hear any. Thx for all the help guys. Just need to ask that one last question about the voltage

 

Oh you've answer my question already, sorry about that last question then.

*edited*

About the 0.5 - 4volts I'm just reading it out of their website.
http://www.soundstream.com/sub/products_amps_edge.html

under where it says 4 & 5 channel amps. for the model ega4220

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PJK3
TR-S2K -- you're too kind...

 

ahh... no problemo. sorry about my edits... sometimes i get to typing and quickly read it, only to edit it a moment later b/c i forgot something i thought i typed and/or wasn't as clear as i wanted to be... i'm a little ADHD in case you can't tell...

that's interesting that their public media says .5 - 4 V, whereas their manual says .2 - 8 V. i'm more apt to believe their manual.

protect mode is still a possible problem... i'm still concerned.

if moving the amp to the MDF helped, check your amp's ground again. look for any kind of possible looseness or cracking. also, the ground wire size should be the same as the power wire. the noise via the amp casing implies the amp was grounding itself via the case, and that shouldn't happen. also, what's MDP? (plywood? fiberboard should be fine for this.)

also, if you go by their shop, borrow a meter or have them do this:
disconnect all the speaker leads from the amp. check for continuity from each speaker lead to ground. (another way to do this is to measure resistance from each speaker lead to ground. none of them should measure 0 ohms or close to 0 ohms.)


regarding input sensitivity: here's a short and dirty explanation.
basically, your HU outputs it's signal via RCA's at a certain voltage. for your amp to work at it's cleanest and best - you want it's input sensitivity to match the HU's output. you want them to be equal.
basically, your HU outputs 5 V, so you want your amp to expect 5 V.

• if you set the amp to expect more voltage, the amp won't be sensitive enough and thus won't play as loud as it could. think about walking into a dark room from sunlight. it's difficult to see with a low light source.
  
• if you set it to expect less voltage, the amp will be too sensitive, and thus the signal will be distorted. but no volume will be gained. now thinking about being in a dark room and someone turning on the lights. now everything is too bright, so nothing looks right and it is hard to see.
  
• if you set it dead on and match things up - the two will agree and you'll get optimal volume w/o additional distortion. this would be having your eyes adjusted just right after being in a normally lit room for a while...

 

The shop that I'll be going to tomorrow only deals with sales. I just called them to ask about their warranty, and they jus said that there's a 30 day money back thing so basically they're just gonna give me a new one. I don't know how this is going to help because what if they do give me a new one and then it goes back into protect mode.

I'll know for sure if the noise is eliminated by tomorrow once I get another amp I guess. As for checking for continuity, how would I do this with a multi meter? I'm just going to go buy one myself just so I'll have one. Thx for all the help, hopefully things will work out tomorrow. And thx tr-s2k for the recommendation.

 

First thing first, you like to have a new amp to replace the one you have right now. This will eliminate one problem. If you still have the same noise problem, PJK3 and others on the board will help you fix it, do not worry too much.
PJK3 said that: check for continuity from each speaker lead to ground. (another way to do this is to measure resistance from each speaker lead to ground. none of them should measure 0 ohms or close to 0 ohms.)
I think he means checking for speaker terminals shorting to ground (amp chassis).
Please keep us posted, we like to see you sucess with your upgraded stereo.