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Speakers don't work

13316 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  akanealw
[SOLVED!] Speakers don't work

Hello, first thread here, be gentle :)

I have a 2010 SL with the 6 speaker package, no sub.

I replaced my door speakers with Kicker KA65 speakers.

After each speaker install, I turned on the ignition to make sure the speaker worked. After installing the third one, none of the speakers work. The HU comes on and works correctly, but no sound. I unplugged the third one in case that was the issue, but still nothing. I'm pretty sure I have the polarity right.

I checked the fuses under the hood and under the dash, and all that have something to do with the radio or audio are fine. I don't know if there is another fuse somewhere on a factory amp that I need to check, but I have no idea if there is one or where it is.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
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what is the RMS rating and Peak rating for the speakers? Stock radios use an internal amp to power the speakers, so it's possible that your speakers were drawing too much power from it. I ran pioneer speakers for a few weeks before I upgraded my HU but they were only around 45 rms
I dont know A whole lot about this stuff, but id say thats too much. The factory speakers are only 22rms. They push 40 max. So by doing 50rms, thats to much. I have 50rms speakers as well, but I got an amp to push them properly. Get an amp and a new HU, or do a factory aftermarket intergration. I did it with my versa and it worked very well. But id suggest an amp and a new HU. For some reason, Nissan's HU are real junk. I took the navigation HU with XM out of my sentra cause it was so bad!! But honestly, the 6 disc CD changer HU is not a bad radio. You would be fine if you have that one. It's the base model S radio, and the Navigation one that sucks real bad!
I have the single disk HU with bluetooth and steering wheel controls. All I really wanted to do was replace the door speakers for now, cause I'm pretty much broke. I guess I'll look for a small 4 channel amp to run the 4 door speakers.

I'm ok with the factory HU, and I helped my brother replace the HU on his BMW and the steering wheel controls were a PITA to set up. I don't want to deal with that on my car.

Any recommendations on a 4 channel amp under $100?
Well if you dont wanna deal with that, then just do a factory intergration. Use a 9 connector speed wire from your HU to amp, and then another one from the amp back to the HU, only this time connect it to the harness going to the speakers in the doors. Im sure there are other ways of doing this, but this is one. This is how I did it at first, and it worked great for me. So you will need 2 9 connector speed wires, and 2 harnesses. Also I wrote a how to a long time ago. Here it is,
http://www.nissanversaforums.com/off-topic/1690-my-way-factory-audio-intergration.html

Kicker 09DWM9-20FT (pre-09dwm9-20ft) 20 ft. of Pre Cut 9-
I dont know A whole lot about this stuff, but id say thats too much. The factory speakers are only 22rms. They push 40 max. So by doing 50rms, thats to much. I have 50rms speakers as well, but I got an amp to push them properly. Get an amp and a new HU, or do a factory aftermarket intergration.

The speakers being 50 watts RMS means that the amp in the hu will not deliver enough power to blow them on just power specs. However, its conceivable to blow the speakers with the distortion from the stock hu at a high volume. That's why a separate amp is great, because it's built only to amplify and do so with extremely clean signal. I'm not saying don't go that way, but I ran my 02 sentra like that for almost a decade with 0 problems (with an aftermarket hu mind you).

I would suggest getting out your Mulit-meter and check all of your aftermarket speakers. typically these will be 4 ohm, sometimes 2. if you have the old stock ones, get some alligator clip test wires and run one of them and that will confirm that the stock hu is or isnt working and proceed from there. this will take some time but will save you having to replace parts needlessly.

hopefully this helps.
^hey another Londoner Welcome!
I was gonna say something about the impedance, but I'm not very experienced at that.
A few from London here. Need pics! Welcome Aaron!
Thanks for all the replies. I'm going to take my doors apart tonight and unhook all of my aftermarket speakers, check the polarities and try to hook up my stock ones again to see if they work. The bad news is that I cut off my stock ones right at the plug :(

Is it a possibility that it has something to do with the impedance? I know the aftermarket ones are 4ohm, dunno about the stock ones. Since they stopped working after putting in the third one, maybe the impedance is too high. Like I said, though, pulling out the third one didn't allow the first two to start working again.

Oh well, we'll see how it goes tonight.
RMS do not affect the ability to connect 2 things. They are simply maximum "sustained" ratings. You can power the speaker with 1 watt all day long and nothing bad will happen, only the volume will be affected.

Aside from a short in the voicecoil where the ohms would be near zero, the amp will play any load from 2 to 8 ohms (or more), more ohms only lowers the volume of the speaker. 2 ohms will play, but your amp may shutdown due to overheating (often a built-in safety measure) quicker. Also when you measure a speaker with a multimeter it is using a DC source (the internal battery) which is 0 hertz. So it will read a little lower then what the speaker is "rated" because that is the rating when being powered by an AC source (musical waveforms). Now like I said if one of the speakers reads like 1 or less ohms then it has a short in the voicecoil and that WILL shutdown a properly designed amp.

Some factory car speakers use 2 ohms just because it makes the amps a little more effecient, but the general standard is 4 ohms. Your 4 ohm aftermarket speakers are fine.

I would double check the wiring harness if you modified anything. And use a multimeter to check resistant between your wires.
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SOLVED!

Sorry I haven't posted back but I was able to fix my speakers a couple weekends ago.

I pulled all my doors and all my speakers and started over with a wiring diagram I found elsewhere on the forums that showed factory wiring polarity. I hooked up each speaker then tested. All are working fine now.

The only problem I found was with how I wired them before. Both speakers on the drivers side were wired backwards. Not sure why that would make none of the speakers work, but there it is.

Thanks for all of your input, and I look forward to interacting on the forums.
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