Speakers crackling!! Help!!

[73novaguy]

Hey guys,
I'm gonna have to pick your brain on this one. I usually consider myslf to be pretty electronic savvy. I have done quite a few sound systems for me and others and deal with MP3s, Ipods, the latest cell phones. Anyways, this one is getting to me.


I rewired the entire car using Ron Francis harness, while I was at it I put in a new head unit (Pioneer PH5400 or something of the sort), new Pioneer 6x9's on the back package tray. Now for some reason whenever I turn up the volume on the CD player and the bass hits the speakers crackle. I kind of chalked it up as pretty cheap speakers and a powerful head unit. Not the case! Because I went through and wired in my front speakers (JL Audio VR525CS with passive crossovers)and they do the same thing. i thought the cheapo Pioneer 6x9s were kinda papery sounding so when I hooked up the JL and they did the same thing. So I unhooked the 6x9s and hooked up a JL 10" to see what that would do and it crackles. The crackle is only when the bass hits. If I turn the volume on the system down to a lower setting (half way and lower) it sounds fine. Ive tried all of the adjustments with the HPFs and bass and treble freq and settings. And I just came to thiunk of it, but it has been that way since day one with this deck. I just always thought it was the POS pioneers 6x9s.
Any ideas? I wanna nip this in the rear before I go through the hassle of building my own kicks! and getting it all together and NADA

[oestek]

Do you have another head unit you can try? Often times when a unit is driven to its limits, you get "clipping", where the signal distorts before it even makes it to the speakers. I'd try an amplifier. A quick test is to try another head to see how it sounds.

[73novaguy]

After reading the previous post of mine I think I shoulda went to bed instead of typing that up. Kinda confusing! hahah

I do have another older head unit handy so maybe try that. But I think Id have to wire it in exactly as I have this one, just to make sure the wiring is fine. I can hook up any speaker on the current head unit (ranging from old Ford 4x6, to JL subs and JL component speakers) and they all do the same thing. Doesn't make a difference if I have front, rear, left or right hooked up. All channels do it. My main question is, does it sound more like a setting screwed up or backfeeding or is the head unit just toast. I had the JL VR525cs hooked up before to the old head unit and they were fine.

[class67]

Still a little unclear, are you running an amp at all? or are you trying to run all this off of the head unit? I would say that you probably need to run an amp and x-overs to get clean power and sound. Just my innitial thought.

[73novaguy]

Sorry bout that.

The system now is two 6x9s in the rear shelf and 4 components up front in the kicks. And the JL 5.25" mid and 1" tweeter components I have running off from a JL passive crossover. And they all sound fine until turned up they distort and crackle very badly with bass inparticular.

I plan on running 6x9s in the rear package tray, 2 subs in the trunk amplified, and 2 mids and 2 tweeters in the front kick panels. I might amplify the front components if they need it, but for right now I will just run them off from the head unit. I had posted earlier how I had a sub hooked up and it crackled also. This was just out of my sheer curiousity. I thought that the RCAs that I had running to the trunk and not hooked up yet might be causing the issue if they were touching bare metal, so I unhooked them from the rear of the deck just to make sure and it is the same crackle/distortion. Other than that the radio works great, memory, ground, power, amp sig wire all seem to be operating properly.

[73novaguy]

I know someone at least has a guess! I have not been successful in figuring it out! And waiting for some knowledge to come streaming to me on here! hahha. Thanks in advance!

[gr868]

hook a speaker to the deck with a short length of wire temporarily to see if a wire is pinched somewhere that is my guess

[Danny Thomas]

If you try the Corvette forum some of those guys are pretty knowledgable in the audio department, if you don't get fixed

[audioman]

Sounds like your head unit is cliiping out. You should be running an amp anyway if your using components. They won't sound good on the radio's internal amp. Do you have bass blockers on the 6 x 9's. They consume a lot of power trying to produce low end freq.
I'd still pop for a amp if I were you.