Head unit mutes, can’t figure this out.

Been having an issue with my head unit muting completely. Only way to fix it is to unplug and plug back in this connector.

my truck has JBL, but I wired all 4 speakers to the head unit directly. What would cause this issue? I replaced the head unit with the same one too to rule out that.

 

The stereo system worked fine for a few years, it would rarely mute, but would be fixed if I turned it off and back on, but now the ONLY fix is to unplug and re-plug the connector back in.

 

Perhaps a speaker impedance mismatch?

The JBL speakers had an amp between them and the head unit. Without that amp, maybe your head unit is shutting down to protect its internal amp from burning up from using 2Ω speakers.

Edit: According to the manual, your head unit requires 4-8Ω speakers, whereas the JBL speakers appear to be 2Ω.

 

Forgot to add it has aftermarket speakers. Kenwood I believe. They sound like crap though and the tweeters are garbage so I plan on replacing it all, and all 4 speakers are wired straight to HU to bypass JBL

 

Typically this is due to a short somewhere. If the head unit senses a short, it will turn off the internal amp to prevent it from damaging itself. If it only does it occasionally, it could be a loose connection on one of the speakers, or the speaker mounted too close to the sheet metal where the little braided wires on the underside are making contact with the door. That’s what I saw the most when I was doing installs.

 

Usual unplugging the connector and plugging it back in works, however today I tried that and it still doesn’t work, tried plugging I nx the jbl amp and still nothing

 

Not to sound like a jerk, but unless you have a multimeter and a bare minimum of electrical knowledge, you’re better off taking it to a shop.

 

I do but figured someone might have some ideas before I pull off my door skins, and the jbl system doesn’t have too much information available on the web.

 

Pop your head unit out. Check the following.

1. Visually inspect wiring for kinks, breaks, bare wires, burnt insulation.

2. Pull harness from head unit, check resistance on each pair of speaker wires (positive and negative for each channel). You’re looking for about 4 ohms, maybe a bit more or less. If you see substantially less you may have a short on that channel.

3. Verify you have 12+ constant and 12+ ignition in the harness.

4. Check ground circuit in harness for resistance.

If none of the above yields some sort of direction I would suspect a defective head unit. If you trip across anything in the above checks we can follow up on that route.

 

Just for fun, ground your head unit somewhere on the frame instead of through the harness next time you pull it out.

My stereo reboots on occasion after returning the ground to the harness on a replacement. The previous stereo ran without incident for 10 years and I had that ground run back to the battery from chasing down some noise in the system.

IMO the factory harness ground is kinda shitty and maybe that’s a factor.

 

while im in the door panel i am going to upgrade the speakers. what do you think about doing 6.5 coaxials on all 4 doors and doing a kicker 3.5" midrange in place of the stock tweeter?

 

heres the distaster the PO did and the reason why i ran new wire from all 4 speakers to the head unit lol

 

Whoever did that work needs to be arrested.

completely garbage work aside, WHY DO PEOPLE CUT WIRES SO CLOSE TO THE CONNECTORS?!?!?!?! There is zero way to easily salvage that amp connection at this point.

 

the amp is long gone. i bypassed that and ran all door speakers directly to a new JVC head unit. removed the amp and all the other garbage that was jammed behind the back seat.

just trying to figure out what speakers to go with on a budget

 

Personally, I wouldn’t do coaxial 6.5’s and a midrange where the tweeter is. Either put in components in the front doors, or do coaxial and bypass the tweeter in the stock location altogether.

I did the former with Infinity Reference series. They aren’t what most would call cheap but I know what my ear likes and I’ve run them in my last three systems.

 

I pulled off the door skins today and the rear speakers were a cheap “xprite” 3 way coaxial. I can’t really even hear the rear speakers but I might change them out with these cheAp JVC’s

what do you think about this setup for a decent sound?


trying to keep it between 100-130 total lol

 

No experience, but if you’re on that tight a budget I say upgrade the front speakers, skip the rear for now. Cheap speakers usually sound....cheap.

 

That’s going to probably sound worse I would think. It’s a pretty cheap speaker plus it’s going to be underpowered.

 

I ended up getting the skar fsx65’s up front with Rockford Fosgate tweeters and it sounds much better than what was there before.


Also have not had any muting issues so far

 

Assume it was either a wiring issue or a short in the speaker then. Glad it’s fixed.