Connecting 4 EV TX 1181 Subs to Amp

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To see if the cables may be a problem after running the subs on Channel A unplug Channel A Speakon and Plug the Speakon to Channel B and see if you get sound. If you do then that means you may have a miswired speaker cable set or the cable went bad. If you still don't get sound start with the XLR cables one by one, swap the working cables of Channel A to it's Channel B counterpart. If that still doesn0t work your crossover or amp may be the culprit.
 
djoutlaw said:
In parallel I did have sound coming out of the subs on channel B, but it was muted. The gains were all up when I tested it at home, and I'm pretty sure they were all up when I did the school dance. But I will double and triple check the next time. I am still going to check the amp using my tops to rule out any possiblities. Thanks for your help.
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There are two possibilites here...

A. You had a bad connection between the Amp B to Sub: Check your cables.

B. You have a bad channel on your amp....


Just for sytz and giggles be sure to check your wireing from xover to amps.... something like this:

View attachment 25089
 

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DJ SVO said:
To see if the cables may be a problem after running the subs on Channel A unplug Channel A Speakon and Plug the Speakon to Channel B and see if you get sound. If you do then that means you may have a miswired speaker cable set or the cable went bad. If you still don't get sound start with the XLR cables one by one, swap the working cables of Channel A to it's Channel B counterpart. If that still doesn0t work your crossover or amp may be the culprit.
Click to expand...

What mode should I be in when testing the cables--stereo, parallel, bridged?
 
jokerswild said:
There are two possibilites here...

A. You had a bad connection between the Amp B to Sub: Check your cables.

B. You have a bad channel on your amp....



Just for sytz and giggles be sure to check your wireing from xover to amps.... something like this:

View attachment 25089
Click to expand...

I could have had a loose cable....I didn't think of that. The second picture (parallel) was how I had the gear connected. I will go through all my connections again...but all I did was go from bridge to adding another cable (parallel), switching a lever on the back of the amp to parallel mode, and adding two more subs. The issue could be a loose connection that I had missed or as you stated a bad channel on amp, which I will check using my tops.
 
Check it in the mode you plan to use. Then in stereo.
 
Total shot in the dark but......... I'm guessing that you have subs spread and paired in the big room setup and have one of the subs is phase reversed effectively cancelling the other in that pair. If each sub works individually and this only happens when you run them together, double check your polarity.

In fact, everyone should be checking their tops & subs for polarity every time you setup!
 
Scott Harris said:
Total shot in the dark but......... I'm guessing that you have subs spread and paired in the big room setup and have one of the subs is phase reversed effectively cancelling the other in that pair. If each sub works individually and this only happens when you run them together, double check your polarity.

In fact, everyone should be checking their tops & subs for polarity every time you setup!
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Sorry, you lost me when you said..have one of the subs is phase reversed effectively cancelling the other in that pair. Checking the polarity is something I haven't learned yet.
Yes, I have two subs on my left and two on my right that are daisy chained with speakon cables in parallel mode.
 
djoutlaw said:
Sorry, you lost me when you said..have one of the subs is phase reversed effectively cancelling the other in that pair. Checking the polarity is something I haven't learned yet.
Yes, I have two subs on my left and two on my right that are daisy chained with speakon cables in parallel mode.
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The way you check to see if all the speakers/subs are in phase is using a small battery or multimeter on the leads going to the speaker. When you apply the battery positive to positive on the speaker and battery negative to negative on the speaker, pay attention to the first movement on the cone. Lets say all three move outwards at first touch and the last one moves inwards at first touch then the leads need to be reversed on the last one so that all transducers move in unison. If using a battery do NOT let the wires touch for more than a second or two.
 
Here is what I have done so far. I bypassed the x-over and connect directly to the amp in question (Q1212) and connected my four tops to it to test it. I first tested it in stereo--worked fine. Tested it in parallel--worked fine. I even turned down one channel on the amp while the other was up; then I turned that one down and the other channel up to see if there was a problem with the amp--no issue. I could hear sound coming form each speaker and from each channel. I then connected my subs (two on each channel daisy chained) with the same cables I had used before; still bypassing the x-over. I tested it in stereo and in parallel--turned each channel up/down while listening to the other channel--no issues. I then connected every thing together, including x-over--tops and subs--same cables for tops and subs; just like I did for the dance. Sub amp is switched to parallel mode. Once I heard sound I turned down my channels for my tops so I could only hear the subs. I could hear sound from each side and sub. I again turned down each channel on the sub's amp, one at a time, and was still able to hear sound from the subs on that channel/side. The volume was down so I wouldn't distrub my neighbors. Therefore, I couldn't tell if one side was muted or not. That will be for another day. But it seems to me that the amp in question is not to blame--that's good news for me. As others have said, it could have been a loose connection somewhere. I won't really know until I increase the volume to see if one side of the subs is muted or not.

Just to throw this out there, could the muted side be a cause of a bad sub, loose wiring/connection? How can you tell if a sub went bad?
 
The cable may be bad, or the cables to the side that don't sound properly may be reversed, see Scott's post. Now what model crossover are you using, most quality crossovers have a phase switch.
 
Usually if you have a bad cable, it can cause intermittent crackling or on and off. Bad cables don't necessarily lead to loss of volume. Jiggle each cable at each end while the music is on and see if anything changes. If not, more than likely it is not the cable unless it is broken somewhere in its length. The out of phase that Scott mentioned makes perfect sense as I have seen that happen before. Its amazing once the polarity is reversed how the bass will increase. I would run that amp in stereo if I were you.
 
DJ SVO said:
The cable may be bad, or the cables to the side that don't sound properly may be reversed, see Scott's post. Now what model crossover are you using, most quality crossovers have a phase switch.
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I will check the cables--I hadn't thought of cables being reversed--I'll try that if it happens again.

The x-over is dbx234XL.
 
ahoustondj said:
Usually if you have a bad cable, it can cause intermittent crackling or on and off. Bad cables don't necessarily lead to loss of volume. Jiggle each cable at each end while the music is on and see if anything changes. If not, more than likely it is not the cable unless it is broken somewhere in its length. The out of phase that Scott mentioned makes perfect sense as I have seen that happen before. Its amazing once the polarity is reversed how the bass will increase. I would run that amp in stereo if I were you.
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The issue might be the xlr cable from the x-over to the sub's amp channel A then using parallel mode to send the sound to both channels. That might be the reason why one side is muted. I just purchased an xlr splitter cable to send a signal from the x-over to both channels on the amp (will run amp in stereo) like I did when I was testing the amp in the previous post. I'm hoping that will solve my muted issue on the subs.
 
The 234XL has the reverse phase switch, I also have one.
 
DJ SVO said:
The 234XL has the reverse phase switch, I also have one.
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So, if I push this button in on the front (channel 1 of the dbx) it will make all four of the subs in sync--is that correct (based on my speaker connections from the opening post) or just fix the one that is "out of phase"? If I push this button out, will the subs go back to the original state before I pushed the button in?

Now lets say the subs were never out of sync/"out of phase"; what happens if I push in this button?
 
If you're running a SUMMED MONO that means you're running a single XLR and the reason you're running in Parallel mode. So if you invert the phase then your subs that were running properly should mute themselves and the ones that were muted will start running properly so you would be looking at a problem with wiring (Reversed polarity).
 
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