Crackling in left front stock JBL speaker

[Shogun71]

I picked up a new cd player from a buddy of mine, bought the proper harnesses, and connected everything properly. i was very careful to tie all of the wires and insulate them very meticulously. then i taped the paired wires together to make the setup neater.

upon hitting the power, everything works fine and it sounds lovely except i'm getting an intermittent crackle in the left front speaker. i pulled the deck out and checked the green right front wires from the deck to the harness and everything is ship shape with no wire exposure.

what could be making the noise? loose connection in the speaker? wire from speaker to harness not grounded?

the first thing i'm going to try is rewiring everything. if that doesn't work, i'm going to return the harness for a new one. at that point i'll start looking into the speaker in the door. i'm hoping it doesn't come to that because i don't even know how to get to the son of a bitch.

does anybody have any input on this?? thanks in advance yet again.

 

[Shogun71]

interesting development here. i did everything i could to get rid of the crackle but no dice. it's a wiring issue inside the door/ behind the dash so i resigned myself to simply detaching the right front speaker until i could get in there and check the wire for exposure and contact with metal.

as it turns out, the diagram i pulled up for this deck was wrong (or i read it wrong) and the green wires are actually for the right rear. even though the crackle was coming from what seems like the left front, it is actually coming from the right rear, which i inadvertantly disconnected.

getting into the rear speaker is MUCH MUCH easier and i should find my short in no time. either that or i'll do without the right rear for now which isn't a problem. they are only 5x9's at the moment so i can barely tell there's one out the way the front JBL's pump.

i'm off to pull the right rear now. well, after my nap. and maybe a few levels of gears of war. and a snack.

 

[rdainwa]

At one time I was a go-to guy when the otherwise mechanically "should have left it alone in the first place experts" screwed their installation up - usually by destroying the harness with their trusty pocket knife!

Having spent hundreds of hours chasing the same problem over the years , the saving grace for me is to always return to that place where every thing worked fine and go forward again.

If the last "head" (stock stereo or whatever) played fine, I'd be more suspicious of the "cd player from a buddy of mine" before I tore into the harness. Not suggesting he did you dirt on the deal, just that even "new" things can have problems.

 

[Pro*banshee]

Decent find, I would have suspected the speaker itself if it was crackling since that usually signifies blown

 

[HootUSMC]

Decent find, I would have suspected the speaker itself if it was crackling since that usually signifies blown

I was going to say the same.

 

[the4biddendonut]

What do you mean when you said that you were "very careful to tie all of the wires?"

The wires should be crimped or soldered for a good connection. I would expect a problem like this if the wires were twisted together and taped.

 

[Shogun71]

well, as far as the speaker being blown, it very well might be. the reason i believe that it's the wiring is that the crackle is amplified as if the signal being carried through the wiring was at fault. either way, at this point i'm content to just disconnect the speaker and deal with it later. with both fronts and the left rear the listening experience is pleasant enough for now. i can deal with it a bit later. at the moment my money has to go to replacing the timing chain and pulley bearings as i've got a knock and squeel from under that cover. i also have to change out the cam seals and at this point, i'm fairly certain that i'm leaking water into one of my pistons so i've go to change out the head gaskets as well it seems. i'll go back to the speaker when i'm done with all of that.

@rdainwa, when i bought the car it had no deck installed so i have no clue as to the previous component's performance.

in any case, the original JBL 6x8's were replaced by some less than spectacular pioneer 5x9's that i'm going to swap out for better quality 6x8's after i'm done tuning up and fixing my motor issues before they get really bad and i have to sell the car for scrap.

thanks for the advice though guys. i do appreciate it. when i revisit this matter, i'll be sure to poke my head in for some more advice if you are willing to spare it