I know I will get flamed for the old and cheap equipment here, but I'm going to ask anyways.

I have 2 10" subs that I bought from walmart (lightning Audio) wired to a directed 400 amp. My speakers are in a custom box that I build installed under my rear seat. When I start my truck the speakers pop, sometimes for a couple of minutes. I have checked all battery, and ground connections between the battery and amp. They are all secure. The wires from the speakers to the amp are secure and the wires from one speaker to another are tight.

I do not understand why they continue to pop. Generally once I hav e the truck started for a minute or two, they are fine and they work the way they should.

I am only after some added bass to regulare radio, cd, sat music. I am not interested in people 35 miles away feeling the quake when I turn the radio up.

I wired all connections myself to a Panasonic head unit. I know enough to wire this stuff but not enought to any further diagnostics.

Any help would be appriciated

Thanks

 

Update:

I had the speakers wired in parallel and have switched to a series wiring. I have turned the gain down to about half on the amp and still the speakers pop during start up. I takes about 1 mintued for them to come on and stay on. Once the truck has been started and th speakers are playing music they are fine. If I turn the truck of and then right back on I don't have the problem.

I went to Best Buy to ask a guy in the car audio sections some questions, which he really "couldn't answer" unless he see's is. They charge $20 per 15 minutes to diagnose. I'm not stereo/speaker guru but I can wire some freaking speakers. I just don't understand why these keep popping during start up.

Again I have triple checked all conections and the amp ground/power supply. All connections are good.

Anyone have any suggestions?????

 

Well I don't know if this is the same thing my mustang did but i ran a sub/amp setup and whenever i turned my car on the speakers would make a "pop" noise before they turned on. I didn't have continuous popping, it was just a single pop and then they were fine. It was not an issue, and i ran it like that for 4 years with no problems. Yours sounds a bit different though. I'm sure someone will chime in who had a similar problem.

Oh and i wont flame you, but i might suggest looking into some other brands for future purchases. A Volfenhag amp and an Audiobahn sub in a bandpass box will run you about 180 bucks. Add in a wiring harness and other various wiring as needed and you have a system that is WAY better sounding than a walmart setup for essentially the same price. I have used sounddomain.com and woofersetc.com for previous purchases. Either way, I hope you get the issue sorted out.

Edit: Maybe you could post a video of the popping noise, that would be helpful in determining what exactly it is. Another thing i thought about is the ground wire? Are you positive it is grounded correctly? My guess though, without hearing it, is that it is just the amp being powered up before everything else. That was my problem, and you can fix it by wiring in a switch to turn the amp on seperate, or i know some have fixed it with a capacitor, but i probably wouldn't worry about it.

 

I have the amper moiunted on my back wall under the rear window. I relocated the ground from a screw on the rear seat mount to the ground for the remote keyles entry also n the back wall. I didn't think that this would help and it didn't. The amp was getting continous power.

I wish I could post a video but I don't have a vid camera. The speakers will pop as the amp powers up and usually a few more times sometimes they will go "dead" and then suddeny or gradually start to play music. It seems that once the stereo has been running or a minute or two if I turn the truck off and then back on, everything is fine and speakers play as they should. They seem to only pop when the truck has been sitting for a while (most of the time)

I noticed during my work tonight that the speakers are 750 watt 4 ohm each. All connections are sound and tight. I even ran a brand new set of RC cables on the opposite side of the power cable tonight and still not luck.

One speakers seems to work alright but the problems come when I have both wired which I don't understand because I have these in my tundra and never havd any problems. Could the speakers possibly be underpowered???

 

I have done some searching online and from what I have found my amp may only be 250watts I thought it was at least 500 watts. Anyhow it's a Directed 4200D 2 channel.

I used it for years on what I believe were a pair of 10 inch Doom Comp Speakers at 500 watts each.

I have tried this combo in all sets of configurations:
Stereo
Bridged in series
Bridged in parallel
And they always seem to pop.
I have tried the gain at about 50-55% and it is currently on about 75%
This only happens when turning on the truck or when the speakers are "warming up"

Xtreme I appriciate your input, any other suggestions??

 

Is it possible to get the model numbers of your sub, amp, headunit, and speakers?

 

I haven't noticed the poppin during start up today. I did it once during my ride home after the speakers had "warmed" up and been palying for a minute. I will see what happens tomorrow.

The model numbers are
Spears in truck are factory and unchanged
Subs are (2) lightning audio 10" in a custom made box - The bottoms of the speakers say 4ohm 750 watts
Amp is a Directed 4200D 2 Channel
The amp does have the clear plastic with 2 dials underneath to adjust for hz and gain
The amp is now at about 75% gain and the hz are about 50%
The HU is Panasonic is CQ-C8300U - I think I wll have to check in the morning

This is all the exact same equipment I had in my previous truck with the only eception of the box. In my Toyota I just had the speakers mounted on a piece of MDF behind my rear seat. Now they are in an enclosed box under my rear seat (no seat lift) so it is a tight fit.

Thanks for the help

 

Ok so another update...

After my work the other night I tried to make sure that I didn't cut too much of the sheathing around the wires prior to being pluged into the subs. I have maybe about 1/4 inch in the sub terminals I may have had about 1/2 inch before but the wires were not poking completely through the terminals.

Now the speakers do not pop at atart up anymore. They come right on. I occasionally get a pop as I put the truck into gear or start moving. They have been popping once and then no other problems.

I am thoroughly confused the original problems seems to be fixed but I still seem to get a single pop when I first move /shift into gear (after music has been playing from them)

 

first off, are the speakers singlevoice coil or dual voice coil? what is the rms on the speakers and amp?

this info should be something like....
single voice coil 200 watts rms
and the amp 400 watts rms at 4 ohm and 200 rms at 2 ohms.

these numbers i just made up so ou know what i am looking for.

 

hmmmm.. dont know if this has ANYTHING to do with it at all but i would change the ground connection. thats an electrical box that probably grounds through the mounting hardware. try grounding the amp to the seat mounting bolts. my train of thought is that when you shift into gear the truck is sending a electrical signal to the box to lock your doors?? which is somehow sending a signal back to your amp through the ground??? i dont know, its probably not right but maybe worth a try.

 

i can almost garuntee that your door lock module is causing the pop when you shift into gear. Dont use that ground, dont use a seat belt bolt, make your own ground. Use a screw driver to scrape paint to bare metal, and use a couple of screws and star washers to secure your ground.

 

On the bottom of the speakers it says 750 watts 4 ohm, not sure bout the rms, I will try later today to fix again. Yesterday when the wife and I were house hunting them speakers really popped during several start ups. It was like they were try to talk to us

I currently have the amp bridged and that seems to make a difference because when I hook the speakers up in stereo they seem to pop a lot more.

I will try to relocate the ground this afternoon and make my own not the alarm box and not the seat mount.

Where might I find the rms so that I can tell you?

Again thanks for the help

Oh, and speakers are single voice coil

 

Give us the exact model number of the woofers

 

The bottom of the subs read:
"Lightning Audio P4.10.4 4 Ohm 750 Watts Max Power Made In China"

Other than the serial number sticker on the metal frame there is no other labels on the subs. Unfortunately I do not have any other paperwork or the original boxes. I have looked on Lightning Audio's website and the current 10 inch woofers look different than the ones I have. So I'm guessing that the ones that I have, have been discontinued or updated.

I did have the chance to change the ground location this afternoon. I used the dremel to remove paint from a small square and drilled a hoe on the back wall. I used a large washer to clamp the wire using a metal self tapping screw. Everything is nice and tight. Previously I had a small ring crimped to the end of the ground wire. I realized that not all of the wires fit inside the crimp connection as this is 8gauge ground/power wire.

I will see how it works throughout the next week and see if there is any popping. So far when the truck was started to move it out of the garage there was no popping and the subs came right on. So far So good.

Sundevil... I notice your are Certified Geek Squad for Best Buy audio. If you can think of anything please let me know. I will also post in a few days to let you know if they have been popping, in the mean time I will montior this post for updates.

Thanks

 

Unfortunately there was some popping in the subs pulling out of a parking lot this morning. It took the subs about 1 minute to actually turn of from when the HU started to play the radio.

The problem persists...