Car, Marine & GPS

[muttleytm]

I bought the kenwood receiver from bestbuy, the am from somewhere else, but both were brand new and unopened.

The receiver worked fine, but I wanted to add the amp. In any event when I hook it all up I get now sound, either from the radio or the bluetough paied to my cell phone with a media player running. 

It seems to me I might have to set something on the receiver to send the audio out the RCA ports on the back of the receiver.  The manual has little to say about using it with an amp. 

The issue might also be some setting on the amp. i think I have all the power and speaker wires attached correctly.

Here is a longer description of the situation:

I have a Kenwood DMX4707s receiver which I am trying to use with an Alpine KTA-450 amp. I'm having some difficulty.

The receiver hooked to the speakers works OK. However when I remove the wires from the receiver to the speakers and attach the amp output wires to the speakers and also attach the ground, yellow wire from the amp to the battery and the blue antenna wire to the white and blue wire from the amp I don't get any sound.

My first thought is there may be some setting on the receiver to direct a signal out of the RCA output jacks on the back of the receiver. Is this the case? or is there always a signal at the preout RCA jacks?

It may also be some issue with the amp or the settings on the amp. I can't seem to find any sort of lamp on the amp to indicate it is on. I was able to check the ground and the presence of 12V even when everything was off by using an insulator piercing multi-meter probe and also check for 12volt at the blue/white wire from the amp labeled as remote turn on. All of those tests indicated it was getting power.

There are also some DIP switches on the amp. Two are to set it to take it's input from the RCA preout connections or from line in and also set whether it is a 4 or 2 channel system and some other switches for some cut offs at different frequencies. The diagram in the manual and on the screen is confusing. The actual DIP switches are mounted just to the left of the gain controls as is shown in the diagram. The individual switches also are each numbered. The numbering is on the bottom below the switches but is written sort up upside down or as a mirror image as it is shown in their diagram with an arrow pointing up or down. I've tried both with no luck, but I read in a couple places that the position of switch 5 which is to set if for a preout input that while looking at it with the gain controls to the right of the DIP switches that the switch has to be in the down position where it is closest to where the switch number label is rather than up as the arrow suggests and for no frequency filter to set another pair in the opposite direction. So I set all of the other switches in the opposite direction. Or maybe it is the other way around. Either way I've tried it both ways and haven't heard any sound from the speakers.

I had a different receiver in a different car and there was a setting that every once and awhile I'd have to change and it involved setting up the input and maybe there as a setting for setting the output too.

TIA

[Deysha-BBY Social Media Specialist]

Hello, muttleytm,

Welcome, and thank you for joining our forums! This sounds like an exciting upgrade for your car. This can be something as simple as the amplifier fuse, or as sad as a bad amplifier. I recommend scheduling a free in-store reservation with one of our Autotechs to get an estimate to check on this, and possibly getting it installed. They'll be able to help you get an estimate for both the labor, and any additional accessories that may be required to get this completed.

Thank you for posting!

[muttleytm]

Well, thanks for the reply suggesting I make an appointment.  However, I am very tied up all the time right now. I installed the receiver and the amp a little at a time as I had time betwween errands, etc. I am sort of hobbled and also have to feed a dog a special diet multiply times a day. Each meal takes about a half hour, couple that with an senior dog and cat. Coming up I will be having some doctor's appointments and then seme surgeries.  I don't see an appointment to get an estimate something very likely. Both the receiver and the amp are new and in warrantee. I got the receiver in April and the Amp sometime in May. 

Seeing as how I bought it at Bestbuy I thought there might be someone on this forum who was familiar with this receiver able ot answer my main question which is whether there is some setting I'm not seeing on the recevier to send the signal to the RCA outs on the back.

You mentioned the problem with the amp may be as simply as a fuse. Well I see no inline fuse for the amp nor any mention of an internal one in the manual.  They do say the amp needs a 15A fused power source and a 3A fused antenna lead. I know the first is 15A. I'm not sure about the antenna lead but as I mentioned I am getting power all the way to the wires coming from the terminal on the ame. So all the  splices etc are good.

I'm asking a technical quesiton and the only reply so far on multiple forums is from someone on the marketing side.

I know that's how it is everywhere these days at best, usually worse dealing with bots and chatbots, etc.

I'd just like to talk with someone with some knowledge of either product. 

Alpine gave me the number and extension for tech support and I called twice today (Friday) and got a message saying they were currently closed and that there houts were 7AM to 5PM Monday through Friday PST.  The first call I made was at about 12:40EST which is about 9:40PST. The second a little after 5PM EST which about 2PM PST.  The holiday was on Monday of this week???

[autotech796]

Troubleshooting over the internet without having the vehicle and the wiring right in front of you is like throwing darts at a dart board 100 feet away. Sure some will have the possibility to hit, while the majority will fall short and not even come close. I'm going to be the dart that is hoping to land close for you.

Knowing a bit about this technology, but not this amp in particular, I'm going to agree with you that the amp manual is very confusing if you are unfamiliar with the wording used.

First, it sounds like you may have power? Turning on a led will take little to no power to turn on which often times will be turned on by the switched 12+ wire it's connected too but the true yellow power wire will need to be powered directly from the battery which it sounds like you've made happen. Please note this is not required for all vehicles... Some have a ton of paper behind the radio and fuses that are able to carry the amperage appropriately to provide enough power to your power pack.

Having worked with this moderator in the past I can assure you that they were directing you to the fastest resolution with our expert technicians who can diagnose what exactly is going on for a very small fee, especially if you're on time restraints for an animal. Many of the installation bays have flexible hours where a car could be checked in to be worked on and picked up at a later time, be sure to try to schedule an appointment sooner rather than later for the busy place that they are, and I hope they are able to verify what is causing the no sound.

Some quick things to check would be your input and output to make sure the wires are connected as they should. If rca is not working for low level, try high level, but only if you are 100 percent your power settings are functional after a quick check with a digital multimeter. If you have a factory amp you'll need to grab your factory output wires from the amp not behind the radio which is already an output line not a input. Hope this helps jog the wheels a bit to help out. Def get this checked out to stop messing with it on your busy day like this car expert moderator has stated. They did use to work for a dealership corporate headquarters not to long ago...

[muttleytm]

The main power cable it is connected to is behind the dash, it is on a working 15A circuit. That is what is called for.

So the easiest question is whether there is some setting to direct the output to the RCA ports on the back of the Kenwood reciever. I haven't found it and really see no mention of it other than a setting for AV out, which sounds more like a way to send audio video out to some other external player for some reason.  

I will test to see if there is audio out those ports eventually. I will just do it with earphones, there should be enough to power them. I just need to get or make an adapter to go from a 3.5mm earphone jack to RCA plug. That way I will know if it is indeed music or just some sort of extraneoous signal.

The manual is just plain written poorly and/or that is because the DIP switches are installed on the amp upside down from the way it is illustrated in thier diagram. I see someone pointed this out to Alpin a year ago. They could at least add a extra page in the package with an addendum.

Since I posted this I did get an email from Alpine telling me to contact tech support and was given a number and extension which I called. I got a reccording saying they were currently closed and their hours were 7AM to 5PM PST. I called twice from another time zone on a Friday.  The time of the calls is PST was about 9:40AM and a little after noon PST.

I've been given yet another number since then for Alpine tech support from somewhere else. Probably leads to a different branch of the menu tree.

If I were to do it all over again, and I may well do just that is I'd connected everything out of the car or not in the dash. I don't really have a bench or a 12V power supply with enough amps anywhere but on the car though. I also inteneded to first install the receiver and see how it did without the amp.  

I realized diagnosing over a distance isn't always straightforward, but it is done all the time too for many, many things. A tech support forum with no discussion or help in diagnosing is no tech forum, just as customer service/tech support that just leads you into a never ending gauntlet of script readers, bots, chat bots. VR chatbots, etc are not customer service or tech support. They are barriers to any communication. And this sort of thing is everywhere these days. So is "road rage" where people react in some totally disproportinonate manner to some usually very minor inconvenince on the part of someone esle. People are injured and killed.  It is from build up free floating rage from other things.  The minor incident it just the straw that breaks the camels back. All the phone menu trees, chatbots and the like certainly are something most everyone encounters these days and certainly some of any built up free floating rage is from the automation these sorts of things.