Car audio consumer advice please

djpleasure

Hi MSE's, I have a dilemma I hope you can help me with.

I purchased some car audio from "Car Audio Centre" which I believe is a franchise and part of the inphase international group. I received the goods on 03/03/2011, however it was about a month after i managed to get install organised. The equipment consisted of an amplifier, 2 subwoofers and a dual sealed enclosure.

One speaker I don't think ever worked, It looked like it did as the air moved by one speaker, moved the other just as much so looked fully working. Then one day no sound at all. Disconnected everything, then tried each speaker separately, these speakers are DVC (Dual voice coil), for those who haven't a clue what I am talking about, its basically 2 speakers in one cone, connections either side of speaker.

These were installed correctly and appeared to work fine for a few months. I contacted the returns department at Car Audio Centre, no response, although I am sure if I dialled their 90p per minute returns line I may have got somewhere after being held in queue for silly amounts of time. Eventually I received a returns address and RMA and items were sent to inphase international, first they lost my items, then they respond back with just a couple of lines in an email from general manager:

We have our technician check the 2 x Audiobahn AW1205 Subwoofers and they have been blown up. They were completely burnt out.

These are not warranty products.

I responded back with:

These subs were connected as they should be, see attached image (Below for MSE) for the wiring method used, the subs were connected to the amplifier you provided me. Firstly it should be impossible for them to be blown up as you put it, the subs are 1000 watts rms each 2000 watt total rms, the amp pushes only 600watts rms total at 4ohm so there should be plenty of overhead with them, namely 1400watts rms. I never ever played it to the extreme as if I did, my standard car door speakers would have just distorted. I am into clean sound, not distortion. I do not abuse my possessions, nor act recklessly. I am not going to be fobbed off with your “These are not warranty products” response. Either the subs were substandard or the amp has issues, either way the fault lies with products supplied by Audiobahn and Inphase, not me. I would like this email forward to the ceo and your superiors please. I will not let this drop, I will be contacting trading standards and will take you to the small claims court if need be, whatever it takes I will do. Additionally I will make clear at every website, review site that I can find your stance on customer relations, first you lose my return, then after phoning, promises of a call back never materialise and then you try to fobbed me off. I am very angry and disappointed, I am disabled, one of the few things I enjoyed was having nice sound in my car, you are taking that away from me as I can’t afford to replace and more importantly, I should not have to. Additionally so much for your technicians, they were NOT completely burnt out, one voice coil on one speaker still worked!

Any advice as to where I stand greatly appreciated, these subwoofers were not cheap and I would expect them to last a considerable time. I oversee the fitting and all is in order, my first job upon leaving school was as a car radio engineer/fitter, so I do know whats what.

Also I am trying to find a direct contact to the CEO Steve Digv of ipiltd (Inphase International) maybe I will be treated with a little more respect there?

bod1467

Sorry but I'm on my iPod so searching in a web page isn't so easy. Maybe try the site below?

http://www.!!!!!!/

Biketrials08

Quote "Firstly it should be impossible for them to be blown up as you put it, the subs are 1000 watts rms each 2000 watt total rms, the amp pushes only 600watts rms total at 4ohm so there should be plenty of overhead with them, namely 1400watts rms."

Dude don't shoot me for this, I'm just putting this out there and appreciate that you probably wouldn't endure such sound for long:
The above figures may sound good but are more problematic than if they were the other way round, ideally aim to have an amp at or beyond the nominal rating of the speaker. What may have occured is the amp may have 'clipped' and sent a distorted harmonics to the subs, now this is normally more of a problem with tweeters but can happen with subs especially if a DC component is introduced. Which brings me on to my next point, impedance. Do you know what the frequency vs imp plot looks like? If it hits some small lows and the amps rating at lower impedance doesn't keep pace then this could compound the effect/chance of clipping. what do you think?

From what you post though it does sound that one was ruined from the outset, I bought some Caliber mid-highs years ago that were ex-demo and considered new by the shop, when I wired them up they were fried from the off, they too tried to get out of replacing them but they did in the end. So keep pushing dude.

Techhead_2

I agree with Biketrials08, as I read your post the first thing that went through my mind was that you could have put DC through the coils.

I was a little surprised at the tone of your complaint to them. When complaining its ok to disagree with them, but you want to avoid condescending, insulting or emotional remarks. You are trying to get them to reverse their decision after all.

£$&*"($£&(

I also agree with Biketrails. That looks like poorly matched speakers and amp and that way round may have caused the problem described. It's best to have speakers that are similar or lower rated than the amp. I see the speakers have a 2 ohm impedence which might have made the situation worse depending on the amp.

Jakg

I don't know what amp you bought, but...

It's easy to kill a 1kw sub with 600w RMS - you just need a clipped signal.

To explain clipping, an amp puts out a sine wave like this, normally, which pushes the cone in and as out as it goes + 0 - 0 + 0 - etc



However a clipped signal looks like this...



It's "clipped" as it you can see theres a flat line at the top & bottom. At these points, the sub stops moving, but your still putting a lot of power into the voice-coil. This all goes into heat - but as the sub isn't moving it's not getting cooled. You then get very very quick death...

An amp is most likely to clip with the gains turned up way too high, running flat out... which a 600w RMS amp would probably be doing powering 2kw RMS subs.

Having said that, I doubt the subs will actually take 2kw... Audiobahn are frankly a rubbish brand. I'm going to geuss you got a similar quality amp, and poorer quality amps are much more likely to clip sooner as well.



You also really REALLY need to think about how you talk to other people. Imagine if you worked for that company and received that email... you'd start of wanting to help, but at the end of it you just sound like a tool. You don't get peoples help that way.

djpleasure

Hi and thanks for the response.

The choice of amp and subs was not decided by me, but packaged by "car audio centre", as a package deal, so you assume they know their stuff, obviously in this case not. I opted away from their cheap packages and took one of their top ones.

Having taken a look at the amp, the gain was set at only a smidging over half way. The remote bass control was set at 1/2, as well as never pushing the amp as I have standard rover door speakers, powered by just an alpine headset, playing too loud the bass would in effect drown the vocals and the vocals would be distorted as the rms of headset is 20w rms per chan, my plan was to change the door speakers and add a 4 chan amp for them and an active crossover. If on this Alpine I turned the bass down so I could get more clear sound out of the doors, the bass to amp was also cut, leaving the subs ineffective

In regards to the manner in which I addressed the complaint, my manner is a reflection of the manner that I have received previous communication with them, from the start they have displayed a dire attitude with me, stand offish from the start, of course I am going to be angry at the thought of being fobbed off and being left seriously out of pocket. I knew from the start that they would try it on.

At the end of the day the company is to blame, firstly judging by responses here, they sold me a package that was seriously mismatched, taking into consideration what I have explained, clipping should not have occurred.

Would it be fair to say, you buy and amp/sub package as provided, you would rightly expect to be able to use safely running it at an estimated maximum quarter of capacity? I have never experienced such a poor result with car audio products in all my past systems, which often have been much cheaper set ups.

Here is the full package deal and info

Flyboy152

Is this one of those awful boot mounted base speakers that go, "BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM..........?"

djpleasure

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Is this one of those awful boot mounted base speakers that go, "BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM..........?"

No, it was two of those awful BASS box mounted speakers, that no longer go ""BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM, THUD, BOOM..........?"

But they will be replaced one way or another, so you can rest in peace, or not as the case maybe.

Flyboy152

Then I am sorry to say that, at least for time being, we can all expect some peace and quiet. These things need to be banned. Maybe it was a neighbour who "blew" the speakers and is finally getting some rest.

djpleasure

omg, they don't need to be banned at all, as long as people don't extract the urine and blast at all hours in residential areas, and if they do, they are at risk of being done for causing a disturbance. I'll thank you in advance flyboy for your constructive help with this matter, I'll reach for the thanks button now shall I? I believe the topic title is "Car audio consumer advice please" NOT "Should loud car audio be banned"