Car Stereos: Subwoofer - Alpine Car Stereo, alpine car stereo, subwoofer alpine

Question
Brian - I have a 2001 Lincoln Continental with an Alpine stereo system. About 6 weeks ago, I noticed the absence of bass reponse from my subwoofers behind the back seat. The 2 speakers still play, but no bass as before. I climbed into the trunk thinking that there was a seperate subwoofer in the middle of the back seat where the cover is - but found no speaker in the middle. At first, I thought someone had stolen the subwoofer, but have since read that there is no speaker in the middle??? Is that correct - just one speaker on each side??? There are also 2 amplifiers, I would assume there's one for each side speaker? I checked the radio fuse, which was fine, since the radio still plays. I looked at the Lincoln manual to find the fuse location for radio/subwoofer - there is only one. I can't figure it out - if there's no middle speaker (subwoofer) and there's a seperate amplifier for each side back speaker, how or why would they both go out at once?? Is there another fuse somewhere, or have both amplifiers died at once. Any help you can give would be gratly appreciated. Thanks - Jim.

Answer
Hi Jim,

Some Continentals are equipped with an 8" sub in the middle of the rear deck, and some are not.  All of them have the subwoofer panel and the cut-out in the rear deck, however.

I don't have very specific wiring information for your particular amplified sound system, but if it's similar to most Ford premium systems, one amplifier will be for the front and rear door speakers and the second amplifier will be for the two rear 6x9" bass speakers.  That means your problem may originate with the 6x9"s amp.  I haven't seen your particular problem where the speakers are still playing but the bass is reduced.  If it's fairly easy to get to the rear speaker wiring, you might try disconnecting one or the other to see if it makes a big difference in the output.  At this point, however, my top suspect would be the amplifier.  You can check the fuses, but it's rare for a fuse to blow unless there's a problem with the amplifier; in any case, if the amp had no power at all I wouldn't expect the rear deck speakers to be making any sound.

If I were troubleshooting the vehicle, I'd probably start by using a multimeter to verify that there's power at the amplifier harness, and check for AC voltage (varying with audio volume) at the speaker output or the speaker terminals.  If you haven't yet, you might want to check the balance and tone controls on your head unit too.

Hope this helps!

Brian