Think you are an audio expert?

Please.... figure this one out: Strange situation… Bottom line is, my deck won’t power up. But why? I’ll start with the setup. I have a Sony marine head unit with wired remote. The only thing coming out of the back of the head unit is the power/ground/remote wires, and a set of RCA outputs to an EQ/Preamp (Exile ZLD). The ZLD controls 3 amps. A mono Subwoofer amp, a 4 channel cabin speaker amp, and a 2 channel tower speaker amp.

Today I received a new set of Exile tower speakers and a two channel Exile amp to power them. I hooked up the tower speakers first, and tested them. Everything was fine. Time to install the amp.
I turned off the battery and removed my existing 2 channel amp. Because the new one was larger, I needed larger gauge power, ground and fuse. I removed the old wiring and fuse and replaced it with the larger gauge. I installed the amp, hooked up power, ground, remote, RCA’s and speaker wire. Double checked everything, then turned my battery back on and flipped the “stereo” switch on the dash.
My deck did not power on at all, so of course the amps did not come on either. I used a test light and checked the B+ (red) and Battery constant (yellow) for power and it had power right up to the deck. I switched off the stereo switch and the B+ turned off, just like it should. I double checked all connections, pushed the reset button on the deck, checked the fuse in the back of the deck and even traded it out with a known good fuse, etc. Nothing. I pretty much decided the deck itself was dead. At this point, I really wanted to get on the water, so I went to Best Buy and bought a $100 deck. Brought it home and hooked it up and IT WOULDN’T turn on!!

As a last test, I took jumper wires with alligator clips and hooked the red and black wires directly to a battery. Nothing else attached to the deck. Just power and ground. No lights of any sort.

Finally, I have a RCA to 30 pin cable attached to the ZLD as an auxiliary , so I plugged in my Iphone, hooked all my blue turn-on leads up to the red B+ (turns on with the "stereo" switch) pushed the AUX button on my ZLD pre-amp and everything worked absolutely perfect. (albeit without a head unit hooked up at all….. My Iphone is now in effect my head unit, controlled through the ZLD)

The question is, why won’t either of those 2 decks power up? It’s almost like as soon as I flipped the stereo switch, I blew up the deck instantly, but there was no sound, smell, spark, no blown fuses… nothing. Plus, I’m 99.9% sure everything is hooked up right. Plus, nothing changed, other than swapping an amp??? What the hell?

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As a last test, I took jumper wires with alligator clips and hooked the red and black wires directly to a battery. Nothing else attached to the deck. Just power and ground. No lights of any sort.

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Repeat this same test but this time include the head-unit's yellew B+ as its the one that the head-unit actually draws power from. I bet the head unit will then power up.

When you used your test lamp to test the B+ on the red and yellow all the way to the head-unit, did you also test the B- (ground) circuit? Sounds like the head-unit B- got disconnected during the amp swap.

Ooh... good advice. I'll go give that a try right now. I did not check the ground on the deck. It comes from a completely different spot than the amp rack, though. That part stayed completely factory. Not sure how that would have come loose.

HA!! That ground wire actually DIDN'T tee into the factory wiring harness like it looked like. I cut off all the zip ties and separated everything so I could see what I was doing.... I started pulling on that ground wire until it ultimately came out from behind my amp rack, hooked to nothing. It had a open end connector on the end, indicating that it was piggybacked onto the ground of the amp I removed. I was finishing up this job last night and it was getting dark. I must not have noticed that other wire.

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!! I wish I would have figured that out before I laid awake for 3 hours last night, completely puzzled.

Thank you, MLA. Exactly what I needed. In my own mind, I had thought of everything. Needed another perspective.

I was thinking hu ground as well, but MLA is the expert...

Gotta love these guys on here. Big props to the pros who give their time to us mortals!

No, no expert here, i just happen to actually be staying in a Holiday Inn when I posted that ;):cool:

Glad you found the problem. Happy to have helped.