Dead Sound System

[shofun93]

I just purchased a 1993 SHO (my second) in excellent condition, however the radio is not working. Head unit powers on and so does the slave CD but there is no sound. Previous owner said it worked fine and then just quit. No aftermarket equipment was ever installed. Any Ideas?

Also the connections in the back are clean and tight, checked those already.

Thanks, Jason

 

[stevemainian]

If one of the adapters that plug into the speaker are disconnected, it wont play, I dont know if the head unit would come on or not, but I know they wont play anything.

 

[SASHO91]

i had the same problem with mine when i first got it. check the fuse in the engine bay, the big ones by the firewall. look on the back side of the cover for the tailights. when we first picked up the car the brake lights wernt working along with the radio. it had power to it and would light up but no sound. we finally figureed out that on of the fuses was missing. got the right fuse and put it in, a now it works. im going to go check which one it is right now.

 

[shofun93]

The brake lights and driving lights are working, I cannot find any other non-operational components, just no sound. I would be greatful for knowing which fuse it was in the engine bay.

Thanks to all of you for the quick replys

 

[SASHO91]

IIRC, it is slot 5 and a 40a fuse. it is for the fuse panel. if it is not blown, then i dont know what to tell ya. good luck.

 

[SHO#7]

If it is a JBL system. The amp in the trunk could be dead. The bypass kit sells at most best buy/circuit city stores for 20$ or less. However, your factory JBL radio, may not have enough power alone to make the stereo sound good without the amp. You may need to add an aftermarket amp or get a different head unit.

Good Luck,

 

[StLSHO]

If you have a multimeter, now is the time to put it to use. Check random points in the line starting at the speakers and heading towards the head unit. (If all of the speakers are dead, you can probably rule out the theory that EACH speaker tap shorted at exactly the same time (common sense troubleshooting), so I'd start with verifying that the wires out of the head unit are putting out a signal; if so, then check the amp.)

I don't know how the stock sound system is set up (I get to do mine soon, but right now I'm fine with $ in the pocket and only 2 front speakers), but the amp may only power the rear speakers & sub or possibly just the sub. (I'm just flat out guessing on that one; I figure it'd be a wiring nightmare to send the signal all the way back to the amp, then 2 taps back to the front speakers, but stranger things have happened.)

Finally, a note about a failing amp: it rarely ever just goes kaput without some warning. An overdriven amp will often "clip" for an extended period of time (I had one take over 6 months to die). This entails strange volume fluctuations out of nowhere accompanied with dropping of sound that sounds kind of like a CD skipping. If you can sing along with the music and it stays constant through the skipping (i.e., if the sound cuts in and out but keeps time with what you're singing), the amp is dying. If you & the music don't meet up, the head unit is skipping.

If the system didn't do any of this before just going out, you might want to do some testing before replacing; it might save you some $.

(I have limited car knowledge, but the 1 1/2 years of audio tech support I did still comes in handy.)

(I never realized I might talk too much until seeing my recent posts...d*mn, I'm long-winded. )

 

[XTheMachineX]

i recently had a similar problem in my last car ( a SLO), the cd player had power, read the cd, even displayed song time, just no sound, turned out the cd player just went bad, a respectable source in electronics said it just happens sometimes, he said it can be fixed but i would be better off just buying a new one, i did, installed it, and everything worked fine.if that is the case, i hope this at least saves you the frustration of trying to fix something that's just not worth it.