Noob question

[mikenehrkorn]

OK, I'll just start off by saying I'm a complete noob when it comes to all things audio, but I thought with some simple to follow instructions I could do this install but I guess not.....now I'm here to get the help of the experts.

Here's the situation -- simple setup with stock Sony CDX-M60UI head unit, an xi800.4 amp and two xm7 tower speakers. I got the power/ground wired up fine as I see the power light come on for the amp, but when I hook up the RCA cord from the amp to the head unit I get no lights on the amp telling me its getting a signal. Looked thru the Sony manual and I see nothing that tells me if there is setup or some setting I need to send a signal to the amp.

Any thoughts on what idiotic step am I forgetting (or worse, a step I didn't even know)?

[brain_rinse]

No lights will show when you plug in the RCAs. Is that what you were wondering?

[moombadaze]

light on amp only comes on when amp gets power.



are you not getting any sound from the towers?

[MLA]

1st thing I would suggest is to not connect or disconnect things with the system powered up. Next, as noted above, nothing on the amp to indicate "signal". On the head-unit, just connect your RCA stereo pair to the "Front" RCA outputs. Connect the other end to the amp's CHNL-1 and CHNL-2 inputs or they may be labeled AMP-1 L & R. Set the "Input Source" to 2 chnl mode and you should get music out off all 4 ampp chnls. I would assume you are running that amp in 2chnl mode, with each speaker bridged on one half of the amp. Make sure the x-over filter is set to HI-PASS.

These are just some basics that should get you music.

[mikenehrkorn]

I am getting the power light coming on so I know the amp is getting power. I thought there would be indicator light on top when getting the signal from head unit, is that not correct? If not, what does the "front signal" and "rear signal" mean? Aren't those lights?

I did try to hook up the speakers and nothing -- not even static -- so I figured there was something wrong with the setup.

[MLA]

the signal is the music that travels from the head-unit to the amp, then out to the speaker.

Front and rear are nomenclature used to describe the 2 halves of a 4 chnl amp. A 4 channel amp is an amplifier with 4 speaker outputs.

The head unit also has a front and rear signal output. These are found as a left and a right female RCA socket. They can be either chassis mounted on the back of the head-unit or pigtails coming out of the back of the head-unit. On your CDX-m60UI, the front RCA sockets are chassis mounted. Right has a red insert and left has a white.

How are the speakers wired to the amp?

You need to make all the turn-on, speaker, RCA, battery ground and finally battery + connections first. The with the amp gains all the way down, power the system up.

[powerstroke99]

just outta curiosity do you have a remote wire from the head unit to the amp? also.. i had my rca output quit working outta the blue on my kenwood head unit, replaced with a new kenwood deck and all was good! idk if this works but could you use a rca to headdphone jack adapter and plug it into the amp rca inputs to see if its your deck not working?

[mikenehrkorn]

Not sure what I did differently but things look to be working now -- thanks for all the help!!

[moombadaze]

Not sure what I did differently but things look to be working now

lol, I've had the same thing happen to me before