Car Stereos: cd player has no sound, 2002 acura rsx, acura rsx type s

Question
What's up man, I just recently bought a 2002 acura rsx type s, and I'm loving it. However the car had an aftermarket cd player in it, the radio works fine but when a cd is put in, it reads it, counts time, and changes tracks even. But no sound. The stock harness has been cut up by the previous owner, I'm just wondering if this is a fixable problem? I took it to an audio shop and they kept my car for 2 days and couldn't figure it out.

Any help would be appreciated

Thank you for your time
--Casey

Answer
Hi Casey,

It sounds like there's an amplifier in the system--either an after-market amplifier, or a factory amp.  Right now the amplifier is only turning on when you select "tuner" as an audio source, but not when you're playing a CD.  The most likely reason for this is that the amp's activation wire is connected to a power antenna output at the head unit, instead of a true remote output.

Here's what to do:  pull out the CD player, and check the wiring at the back.  Among the wires, you should see one that's solid blue, and another that's blue with a white stripe.  

Disconnect anything that's attached to the solid blue wire, and switch it over to the blue/white wire instead.  This should fix the problem.

Hope this helps!

Brian

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P.S.  (2/18/09)

Casey,  

Your original question arrived on 1/21; it actually showed up twice in my inbox.  This happens now and then; generally I answer the question, then use a standard "I've already answered this" button to respond to the duplicate.  I just noticed the follow-up question you later posted for Justin, from which it appears you received the "duplicate" rejection notice, but never saw the original answer.  I know it's probably too late to do you any good, but I'm editing this answer just to let you know I didn't intentionally blow off your question.  I responded with the message above, and it was published on 1/23:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Car-Stereos-3638/2010/1/cd-player-sound.htm

For some reason or another you never got the original answer.  I'm sorry if this gave you a bad impression of the Allexperts service, and I hope you were able to get your problem solved, one way or another.

Brian