Just a thought...similar thing happened to me in another vehicle. This is simple to check...you said PO installed the system. What type of sub enclosure have you got?? If it's supposed to be sealed, make sure it is!!!! I had some Q Logic enclosures in a truck of mine and they sounded great for awhile. All of a sudden, weak bass. Checked subs, amps, wiring, etc. Come to find out the box seam had blown a small hole in it from the pressure of the subs. MDF, glue and air gun nailed aren't the best to build boxes. Always use screws when you can. Found this while checking outside of vehicle and felt a breeze when playing. Disassembled box, remade the joint, put back together and WOW; huge difference. If the enclosure is supposed to be sealed, try pushing (carefully) the sub cone in and then let go. Sub cone should come back out "slowly" due to vacuum in box. If it comes right back out almost as quick as you let go, there is a leak. If it's a ported enclosure (doubt it in a S2K) this won't work...besides it's not sealed anyway.

It's long winded but true!!!!!

Dale

 

I'm a bit confused about the post above... If there's a hole then you'll push air out and create the vac, but if it's sealed then you'll create a positive pressure enviroment behind the sub and it should come out quicker than if it's a neutral pressure enviroment like it would be with a hole...

 

Yeah, i've come to the conclusion it must be the amp. I evne bought some Sub wire today but same thing. I tested the rockford fosgate on all the crappy wiring and it still sounded okay.

I know Sony isn't really ideal for car audio, but i have heard some good things about the Hifonics Zues series.. both these amps are more powerful than the rockford fosgate amp, yet the bass is HARDLY audible even when my ear is right next to it. I can't even tell its ON when i'm inside the car... but when i used the fosgate amp which is only rated at 50W at 4 ohms when bridged it actually sounded decent on a lower volume...

Both of the other amps are rated at 200w at 4 ohms so i find this very strange..

Well, i think i'm just going to scrap the sub all together.. I'm not a big audiophile but i had all the equipment so i thought it would be nice to get it working but i guess not!

Time to sell these crappy amps on Ebay

 

Have you turned on any filters for the channels driving the sub on your Zeus amp?

 

I switched it to low pass if that's what you mean.

Otherwise i don't know, there's just the frequency for low pass and bass EQ on the amp.

 

Hmmm... I agree with the last post, check if there are any on-board filter settings... check the manual.

 

Try it on your own if it doesn't make sense. If your sealed box leaks it will sound terrible and you may damage your sub. Try the experment on a good sealed box and see what happens. Then remove the speaker lead connector and try it again. If you listen to both you know the difference.

 

Check your ground for the amp.

 

Check to make sure....

1)The Gain is half way (it will blow your sub to bits if we get it working)

2)Make sure the amp is on LPF, not HPF

3)Set the Feq to 120hz for now

4)Check wires amp (properly wired)

5)Check wiring on sub (properly bridged) If its DVC, run them in stereo (1 channel to one coil, and the other channel to the other coil)

6)Check the RCA is plugged into the SUB OUT of the headunit, not REAR OUT (ive done this before by accident)

Report back.

 

thanks for all the help. Instead i just took the whole sub and amp out for the time being.

I'm sure the RCAs are right because i can control the sub from the SUB ON-OFF from the HU. Rear outs are taken by the S-pod speakers.

The car has two amps btw.

But i'm pretty sure all the wiring is good. The grounds are all good. Especially because i was able to test it with the rockford amp and it worked well without making any changes.

I guess i'll just have to decide if I want to spend the money on an amp or not, but i can live without the sub really.