I was driving today with the audio off and heard several loud pops from the speakers. Later, I noticed that the lower, full-range speakers in the front had no audio output from the CD or radio. I can still hear the nav lady and phone through the driver's lower speaker. I had disconnected the center speaker, but reconnected it to test and it's working fine. It's weird, with the center connected and the sound stage placed slightly to the rear and the bass boosted a bit, it almost sounds good, but I know I'm missing those lower speakers. What do you audio whizzes think? A head-end or amp problem? 2005 with JBL system. I recently added sound deadening to the doors, but I pulled the inner plastic panels to check and all connections are solid.
How is the clarity of the nav and phone through the speaker? If it sounds clear then I would think it may be something wrong with the amp. Still got bumper to bumper warranty?
Phone and Nav voice are as clear (?) as ever, no change. I'm thinking it might be the amp too. I have 21K miles, but I just got the Platinum extended warranty, before this happened.
I think i'd tend to go the other way on the diagnostic, actually. My understanding of the system is (from playing around with it and looking at diagrams months ago when installing my sub): radio feeds into the MFD (both commands and audio). Audio feeds into the amp, which then send the signals out to the rest of the car. The audio is fed into the amp through several data lines, from what i could tell. So, it would seem to me, since the Nav and bluetooth and other speakers work fine, that the amp is probably ok. Instead, i'd look for a problem in either the radio, the MFD, or the wires between the two. is it possible that one of the wire harnesses is loose?
just a thought, if the radio is off and the bluetooth and nav are still on this could be no more than a static charge build up causing the static you heard. Might be worth putting a static strap on the car and see if that stops it. Now I'm the first to admit that I wouldn't drive it with the strap on it all the time but to see if this is the problem no big deal. http://www.cyclessentials.com/static_strap.html
Anything is possible, of course. When I reconnected the center speaker to see if it was working, I gave a push to the connectors I could reach on the back of the MFD. I also pulled and reconnected the plugs on the amp. Does the nav and phone sound go through the amp or directly to the driver's speaker?
