Help with sub please...

My system is working fine, nothing flash, just a basic mp3/cd player and a not so great amp.
Anyway, my sub was crap, so I offloaded it to someone who only really wanted the box.

On to my problem.. I got a sub off a friend - it worked fine in his car. I dont know a lot about car audio, but it just plain doesnt work in mine. no sound comes out of it at all.

Its wired up fine, and I tested the amp with another speaker and it was fine. Anyone have any ideas?

Would it be a bad thing to test the sub on my home stereo?

Help please!?!

it wont hurt the sub at all to play it off a home stereo, as long as you don't play too many high frequencies. if it works on your home stereo i don't know what to tell you

Thanks for that. I just tried it off the stereo, and it shorted out the stereo. didnt blow it or anything, but the stereo turned off as soon as I wired in the amp.

My stereo does the same things when you join the positive and negative speaker wires, but I've checked the amp and its wired fine.

Any other ideas?

That's because your sub is 4ohm at the highest, HT stereos run at 8ohm. You're lucky it turned itself off, if it didn't the internal amp in your HT stereo would have fried before very long at all.

We need more information than "it doesn't work" to diagnose your problem. Most importantly, what amp are you using (specific brand and model #), and what is the impedence of the sub.

my friends home stereo reciever from like 1970 takes his to bazooka bass tubes(each four ohms), and another earthquake sub(also 4 ohms) and none of them are wired into 8 ohms, but i didn't mean to connect the amp also i just meant the sub itself. but if your reciever is that sensitive i guess DON'T TRY IT AGAIN.

Hey, my guess is the sub is wired all F'ed up inside the box or some wires are touching. Are you using connectors?

Well, I called the friend I got it off, and he says its a 350watt jensen. Thats all I know about it, theres nothing written on it at all.

I've pulled it out, and no wires are touching. And no connectors, just the wires that my friend was using in his car that are attached to the sub.

My stereo is fine, it automatically turns it self off whenever it screws up, some saftey thing, wont blow at all, thats why I didnt mind testing it on it.

Check your wiring around the headunit :) or the remote wire

ok - I'll try that tomorrow and let you know how it goes - but I'm not sure why? The amp, head unit and speakers are all fine, the sub is the problem.

Hi. just checked the wiring on everything, head unit, speakers, amp, sub, cant see any problem at all.

problem is it is a jensen, lol

ok I know this is ghetto, but desperate times call for desperate measures :)

Take your sub and another speaker (sub, mid, HT tower, doesn't really matter). Wire them in series to your HT stereo (neg on stereo to neg on speaker 1, pos on speaker 1 to neg on speaker 2, pos on speaker 2 to pos on stereo). Your total impedence should be high enough for the stereo to not kick into protection and it will send a singal out. The power of the signal depends on the final load you have, but at most each speaker will get half of the channel's power (so if it's a 100x2 receiver, each speaker will get 50 watts at the most). It won't be much but it will definately be enough to tell if the sub is shot or if it's your install.

that sub shut your home stereo off cuz it's shorted out somewhere .... best thing to do is file it in the circular file (trash can). Your car amp has protection to prevent it from even turning on when the impedance is too low.

Hey!

sorry it took so long - been away on holiday...
anyway - tried the sub in series, and its dead. not even a little humm.
so I'm picking PaulD is right... to the circular file it will go.

But thanks for you help every1.

im gunna have to agree, the biggest problem you have is its a Jensen