Car Stereos: Panasonic CQ-VD7003U 7 Wide Screen Touch-Panel LCD, panasonic cq, rca outputs

Question
I have a question regarding my pre-out volume. The previous amplifier that I had recently started cutting off when the volume was raised. As soon as I turned the car off and restarted it, the amplifier would work but repeated the same thing and would cut off when volume was raised. It did this maybe 5 times on seperate days before just not turning on at all. Then stayed in protection mode even after I disconected the subwoofers, this is a standard test to see if the speaker wires were grounding off somewhere. That didnt work. The I proceeded to take off the RCA wires coming from my head unit the amp still stayed in protection mode. I then purchased a brand new Planet Audio amp VD2200. The amp powers on but the subwoofer volume is extremely low. I have it connected the exact same way the other amp was, giving that none of the speaker or RCA wires were split touching ground. What I did was keep everything hooked up the same way, but took the RCA wires out of my head unit and plugged them in my brother's head unit and the volume on the subs was normal(loud). WHat can be causing this problem, I know eveything is hooked up right the only thing is the subs' volume will only go up if the RCA wires that go to the amp come from another radio. Thanks, I really hope you guys can help me.

Answer
Hi Jason,

The first thing to check is if you have the ability to control the gain on the RCA wires through the amplifier, and if you can make it get to a reasonable volume doing that without distortion.

If your deck has the option of changing the output gain on the RCAs, you could try that too.

Another possibility is that the voltage on the RCA outputs on your deck are too low, and it's just not working, in which case, you'd need to get another deck -- one with a higher voltage pre-out.

Justin