Questionhey, i just got a stereo about 8 months ago. its a 400watt sony. it came with an 8 inch subwoofer, four 4 inch speakers, and two 2 inch speakers. well i have a big room so i hooked more speakers into the inputs in the back of the stereo and ran the wires around my room so that sound was comming from all directions. i hooked up another 2 inch, and 2 6 inch speakers. well then my stereo shut off when i turned it up to a cirtain point. so i checked all the wires, to make sure none were touching ( because that always seemed to be the problem) and none of them were. so just to be safe i unhooked all of the rest of the speakers to where all that was hooked up was stock, and it continues to shut off. i cant turn it up anymore then half way before it shuts itself off. is there anything i can do?
AnswerYou overpowered the amplifiers by adding the extra speakers.
(By the way, let me correct your statement that you "hooked more speakers into the inputs". Speaker connections are always "outputs").
Doing what you did was to place an excessivly low impedance on the internal amplifiers, run the temperature up too high and the insulators on the power output devices either melted or became to dry and the heat cannot now transfer to the heatsinks.
The damage to the amplifiers is semi-permanent. You will need to take it to a shop where the can restore the heat protection of the amplifiers.
You might experiment by removing the speakers from the amps that you doubled up on and you will likely find that it now does not shut off. That will verify the solution outlined above.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Cleggsan
