Non-Premium to Premium Sound Upgrade Problem

[RLGDiesel]

Hi all,
I bought tweeter pods, rear speakers/tweeters, and front mids from a junk yard the other day. I did not buy the amp and did not intend to wire one. I installed the stuff plug and play with the exception of a vampire tap between the speaker negative wire and the tweeter negative wire. I used the exact same procedure on both sides of the car.

I turned on the original headunit with everything plugged in and got no sound from the right tweeter, right mid, or rear right speaker/tweeter. The left side worked perfectly. Nota new problem--I had no right-side sound with the non-premium setup as well so I decided to swap headunits.

With the new/used headunit everything worked except the left tweeter and left mid. The left mid made a popping/heartbeat type sound and no music came out. It was like a constant pop pop, 1/2 second pause, pop pop, 1/2 second pause, pop pop, which sped up as I turned up the volume (see youtube video). I plugged in a non-premium speaker without the capacitor and experienced the same exact symptoms so I ruled out speaker issues. I had a similar pop intermittently with my non-premium setup but never cared to track it down since it sucked anyway. Now I really want to figure out what's going on.

Other pertinent fact: I replaced the engine ground cable about a month ago so that should be good. I also cleaned the volume control knob of the headunit really well with CRC electronic cleaner.



This guy had the same exact symptoms as me but it turned out to be his amp.

I don't think I have an amp in my car since it's not equipped with premium sound from the factory.

Do non-premium cars have an amp that can go bad too?
Should I replace the headunit again?
Or is it wiring issues somewhere?

Thanks!!

[StereoInstaller1]

Pull your deck out of the dash and clip the left wires, see if the pop goes away

[RLGDiesel]

I've got a white wire with a spade connection, positive and negative wires with a black plastic connector, and yellow/white wires with a white plastic connector. Which ones should I clip.

Thanks for the advice!!

[StereoInstaller1]

Wait...what?

Yellow is left, you should have yellow/red and something brown as a twisted pair.

[StereoInstaller1]

Watching the video tells me you have a short to ground on a speaker negative, likely at the speakers.

Here is what to do:

First, get yourself a multi meter and a test speaker.

Any dinky-ass speaker will do fine, as long as it is known to play clear enough.

Pull your deck out, disconnect all 4 speakers and plug that test speaker into the deck.

I have spare speaker plugs, but most of the time I carefully strip back a bit of speaker wire and shove it in...just don't let it short out. Whatever you gotta do, test that deck.

If it plays clean, post your results. We will discuss how to analyse the issue. That is where the meter comes in. A 9V battery and a test light are useful too.

If it still pops with nothing but one test speaker connected, get a different deck. You fried that one.

Luke

Luke