I bought a new Alpine CDA-9833 from Ike Sound almost exactly a year ago. It's been a great head up until recently. When driving about a week ago, I hit a bump and because of my suspension, it was a pretty jarring one. The four main speakers cut out but the subs kept playing. The internal amp on the head just turned off for whatever reason. I turned the head on/off and it made a funny sound through the rear speakers and then only played through the subs again.

I uninstalled the head to look at the car wiring and didn't find anything wrong. I wired it back up for kicks and giggles a few days later after it had been riding around in the car with me unplugged. It decided to work again. All was happy and well until this morning when I hit another bump and the same thing happened.

I'm betting it's a solder joint somewhere in the unit or that something’s shorting out. Does anyone have any experience with this? I have no qualms with taking the unit apart if it's something stupid like that because I doubt Ike would take it back at this point due to age. If it's something harder to fix I might just buy an amp for main speakers since the rca's seem to be working fine.

All input is welcome

 

I can't help you much in fixing it... But if you're RCA's are working screw it... Buy a cheapo amp.

Shouldn't need much power or reliability for an amp pushing only mid's and highs.

or just get a really low power amp from a good brand, probably STILL won't set you back much.

 

Alpine's don't real have a big problem with bad solder connections. Re-check all the connection, behind the radio and at the speakers.
How are the connections made?

 

Where and how are your speakers mounted?

I had a situation in my old firebird once with one of the terminals on my 6.5" woofer sitting periously close to the door frame, which didn't make my amplifier happy over bumps. Perhaps you're experiencing a similar situation.

The fact that it happened after you removed and reinstalled the radio makes me think it's less likely to be the wiring at the back of the radio, just for the simple fact that disturbing it should have made it behave differently. My guess is that it's either inside the head unit, or it's wiring that you haven't disturbed... like the speaker wiring.

 

Thanks for the replies.

All speakers are currently in their stock locations and are spliced into the factory wiring (soldered, then electrical taped). I have kicks in the works, but we all know how long 'in the works' can take sometimes.

I pulled the rear left 6x9 earlier because the startup sound was coming from it the loudest. Everything looked fine. I guess I could pull the rear right side. I doubt the dash speakers are the ones causing the problem because they have nothing to ground out to unless they’re shorting on themselves, which highly I doubt.

To clarify and make sure Jim and I are on the same page: I pulled the head to check the wiring harness behind it. When the wiring checked out fine I left the head unplugged and on my passenger’s seat. It sat there for 3-4 days while I drove around (daily driver). One night I was the first to a gathering so decided to wire my head back in while I waited for someone else to show up. I didn’t bother installing it in the dash (it was out of the metal slide thingy), I just plugged it in and balanced it on the shifter. It worked, so I reinstalled it when I got home. It worked for 2-3 days and then it died again in the midst of a bump.

I will pull the rear right speaker and check that out. If everything looks ok over there I will run new wire to all the speakers (without snaking it) to see if that works.

If anyone has any more/new input, feel free to say it.

 

How did you make the connection behind the radio? More tape back there and at the other speakers? Check all the speakers, you may have had some tape loss it's sticky and come off.

 

Behind the radio is more of the same: solder and electrical tape. Everything was fine back there when I checked a few days ago though. I will take your advice and check all four speakers. I will post my findings tonight.

 

I wish they made electrical tape that was like heatshrink... you put it up to flame and it melts up against the wire... because I hate regular heatshrink... just so much work sometimes...

 

Electrical tape is all well and good unit it heats up and the sticky stuff starts to melt. Sadly, this isn’t my problem.

I pulled the rear right as well as the two dash speakers and everything checked out fine. My next move will be to run over to radio shack or circuit city tomorrow to buy some speaker wire to replace the factory stuff with. I won't bother snaking it until I know the head is good.

Look for results some time tomorrow night.

 

Well, it may be in the radio after all. One other wire to check would be the Rem out or Ant out. The Rem is driven right off of the amp IC. It's possible If that's going to ground it could be cutting the amp IC off. Other then that, running temp speaker wire is a PITA step, but could be vary helpful here.

 

Well, it works. I ran over to circuit city and bought 50 foot of monster 14 gauge and ran it to all the speakers. All I can say is that I hope it really was the factory wiring or a lose connection somewhere because if the head unit dies I'm going to have to buy more speaker wire to run everything to the trunk. I probably should have thought ahead some and cut more logical cable lengths so that I could use the 6x9 wires for the 4x6’s and vice versa if I need to switch to an amp.

I still have a question: why was it making the weird pitch sound whenever it powered on? I can see why it wouldn't play anything if something was grounded, but I have no idea why it would make the sound it made.

 

First, redo you're grounds at the HU and the amp! Just do it, no matter how good you think they are. Zero needs to be zero! That noise could have been a couple of things. One, motor boating, or the amp IC turning on and off repeatedly. This will usually happen with a bad grounds or just bad connection in general. A bad connection will be a resistance, so as current passes this point there will be voltage drop. The more current, the greater the voltage drop. The amp IC is the biggest current sucker in the unit. So amp IC turns on, current goes up, so does the voltage drop. To the point that the amp IC can’t stay on, so it shuts off. Once it’s off, current goes down, voltage drop at the bad connection goes down, so voltage to the amp IC pops back up. Now the amp IC has the voltage it needs to turn on, and pulls more current… The others I’m well versed, so I can go into detail, but they’re not goods things ether.

 

I actually just redid my amp's ground a few weeks ago because it had started to corrode I'll run a line from the head to the firewall at some point in the near future since I don't want to rip the head unit out again today and then have to go through the hassle of trying to put the wires in just so in hopes that it will fit. Maybe tomorrow morning though