Question about Kicker ZX400.1 Car Audio Amplifier

Power Protection Circuit (SORT) Engaged

I have a Kicker ZX400.1 amp that was running a Alpine Type R 10" 4 Ohm. I switched to the Kicker CVT 10" 2 ohm, after i finished hooking up the new sub, my amps protection circuit led came on showing Red for 3-4 seconds then green for half a second and this keeps going on and on. I checked all of my connections, they are all good and tight, don't have an ohm meter to check voltages however. Re-hooked up the alpine sub, still didnt work. I am running 1/0 guage wire to a distrubution block, then 4 guage to the amp from the distrubution block. my other amp, Phoniex Gold 6600 is working just fine.

Anonymous Sep 19, 2008

my protection light is on, and i have already replaced this amp twice with my warrenty, and the protection is on again. Now, i am on my third amp in a year and a half, and i dont even crank the gain and bass on it, but still they keep going. In my opinion Kicker is a horrible amp, i will be letting everyone i know not to buy a kicker if this isnt fixed

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62 Answers

Umm a ohm meter would help you here. Double check the wires from the sub to the amp...make sure its not shorting out. Try starting the amp without the wires on the terminals...if the protection shows up then there is a short inside the unit and it will need to be replaced/repaired.

Posted on Mar 25, 2007

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1 Answer

I have 2 10" Kicker Comp Subs

That amplifier is only rated at 150 watts at 4 ohms, or 300 watts at 2 ohms. Not a very strong amp to run 2 kicker comps. My guess is you have the subs wired wrong for your application. There are 2 types of subs, one is a dual 4 ohm, and one is a dual 2 ohm. Most people bridge these coils together and that cuts your ohms in half. For example. Lets say you have the 10cvr104 subs. Thats the dual 4 ohm sub. You wire the coils together in parallel, now its a 2 ohm sub. You have 2 of these subs running off of your amp, if they are hooked up in parallel, now you have a 1 ohm load, out of the amplifiers normal operation. Your amplifiers internals heat up really quick and there is a thermal overload, putting your amplifier into circuit protection mode. My suggestion for wiring your subs is as follows: for each speaker, wire the coils together like this- positive coil1 to negative coil 2 and negative coil 1 to positive coil 2. That is called running in series, and doubles your ohm load. Next, we need to wire the speakers together properly to hook up to your amplifier. For this, since the coils are hooked together, you only need to use one set of terminals from each sub. And take the positive from sub 1 and hook it to positive of amp. Take negative sub 1 and hook it to positive of sub 2. Take negative of sub 2 and hook it to negative of amp.

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Kicker zx650.4 amp turned off and on

could be a couple of things going wrong. could have overheated and shutdown to protect it. could have hand to many incoming wattage/voltage from your head unit and shutdown. could be that the ohms rating on your speakers is to low or that the speakers could have heated up and bumped the guilds and caused it to shutdown. don't know if you know how ohms works. but here is an exp. if you have and have that is rated at 4 ohm stable and that is the lostes ohm recomened for it. and you have two 4 ohm rated subs. you can run them and run them with no problem as long as you don't bridge them. run them off of the same port on the amp. when bridging them it devides the ohms in half. so 2 4ohms would become 2 ohm. 2 8ohm would become 4 ohm etc. if you are running 4 speakers in pair that are 8 ohm each the total together would be 2ohm. hope this helps. try to duplacate the conditions that was going the other day when it shut down same bass settings same song etc and see if it happens again if so try unhooking one of the speakers and try it again if it don't do it it was overloading it if it was overloading and you know its right ohms etc. send it in sorry this is so long.

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1 Answer

Is this a good amp

I classify this as a sleeper of the car audio industry. it is powerful, well built, cheap, feature laden, sounds great! very comparible to the big names such as kicker, alpine, fosgate an all the rest. i would prefer this amp over any of them any day of the week! here are the specs for it incase u didn't have them.

Max. Power Output: 800W x2Ch.= 1600W @2 Ohms
Power Output:
- 330W x 2Ch.(@2 Ohms) Less Than 0.5% THD
- 220W x 2Ch.(@4 Ohms) Less Than 0.3%THD
- Bridge: 660W x 1 Ch.(@4 Ohms) Less Than 0.5% THD
All Measurements Done @ 14.4V DC, 1 KHz Input Signal.
Dual VU-Meter
Dual Fan Cooling System.
LPF (Low Pass Filter) Variable 30Hz-250Hz
HPF(High Pass Filter) Variable 50Hz-l KHz.
Slope Adjustable 12-24dB.
Variable Bass Frequency(30Hz-120Hz).
Variable 0-18db Bass Boost.
High & Low Adjustable Level Input.
Dual LED Indicated Power Status (Protect/Power).
Mosfet DC-DC Switching Power Supply.
Built-in Protection Against Short Circuit, High Temperature & Overload.
Auto Power On/Oft By Remote (+12V).
Dimensions(mm) : 300(W) x 57(H) x 697(L)

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1 Answer

My amp goes into protection mode when i turn on my car. It gets hot too. I had 2 kicker 12" l5's and blew the subs with that amp, could i just have a simple problem with the amp? What are all my options?

Protection LED on, no output? Amplifi er is very hot = thermal protection is engaged. Test for proper
impedance at the speaker terminals with a VOM meter (see the diagrams in this manual for minimum
recommended impedance and multiple speaker wiring suggestions). Also check for adequate airfl ow around
the amplifi er. Amplifi er shuts down only while vehicle is running = voltage protection circuitry is engaged.
Voltage to the amplifi er is not within the 10–16 volt operating range. Have the vehicle’s charging and electrical
system inspected. Amplifi er will only play at low volume levels = short circuit protection is engaged. Check
for speaker wires shorted to each other or to the vehicle chassis. Check for damaged speakers or speaker(s)
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No or low output? Check the balance control on source unit Check the RCA (or speaker input) and
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1 Answer

Sub cutting out

500W x 1 @ 2ohm

How did you "switch the sub from 2ohms to 4 ohms"?

If you have the swr-1222d as listed, your only options are wiring 1 or 4 ohm, as it is a dual 2 ohm voicecoil.

If it was wired @ 1 ohm - you may have already done the damage to your amplifier - as it is not rated @ 1ohm mono.

There are 3 reasons the amplifier will go into protect mode while playing...
Thermal - overheating due to too low impedence.
Ground Loop/Short Circuit - Blown voicecoil, bad amplifier ground, tinsel slap, etc.
Overload - Impedence not within specs.

Disconnect every wire (including RCAs) from the amplifier. Reconnect only power and ground - make a short wire to loop from power terminal to remote terminal.

If the amplifier stays on without turning off - remove the jumper, add the remote wire, and try again.

If it turns off - the problem is internal and needs repair.

Still on? plug in 1 rca, and re-try.... then the other.

Still going??

Now use an Ohm Meter - or Digital multimeter set to ohms 20, and check both voicecoils. They should read 2ohms +/- .5ohm.

If they are OK, wire up the 4ohm load (series the voicecoils) and turn the gain on the amplifier to 1/2.

Retry -

If the amplifier continues to fail at higher volumes - the thermal protection relay has become weakened because of your improper wiring, and will need to be repaired to solve your issue.

Thanks for using FixYa - a FixYa rating is appreciated for answering your FREE question.

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1 Answer

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No, thats what you don't what to do. Even if you have 2 matching amps you don't do that. Every amp puts out different, and for 2 subs, you want to play at the the same time. If your only running 2 10's, I personal would just run the alpine (it's a mono amp made especially for subs) thats plenty for what you have. make sure you bridge them to get the full response. And your other amp i would use for your highs or mids, but run it @ stereo , which is 300 w @ 4 ohms. (Note: 600w @ 2ohms would be bridged and would play in Mono)

Building Competition stereo's is a big hobby of mine.

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With a single 4-ohm subwoofer, usually the best choice is a 2-channel amp that can be bridged to a single channel. In your case, the sub is rated for 1000 watts. Not many amps are rated for that kind of continuous power into a 4-ohm load. Kicker doesn't list a minimum power rating, which isn't unusual in subwoofer specs. Depending on your budget, I'd look for an amp rated for 300-500 watts minimum; the higher, the better, up to 1000 watts. Most amps will have several power ratings, based on the load impedance and number of channels driven. A typical 2-channel amp might be rated like this: 150 watts x 2 channels at 4 ohms 300 watts x 2 channels at 2 ohms 500 watts x 1 channel at 4 ohms. The power rating you'll want to look at will be the 1-channel, 4-ohm rating. You can look at mono amps, too, but in the power ranges you're looking for, a 2-channel amp will probably give you the best value. However, if you can find a mono amp with a high enough 4-ohm power rating, it would run cooler and might last longer than a 2-channel amp with comparable power. When looking at mono amps, you'll find their highest power output will be at 2 ohms or 1 ohm; make sure you're checking the 4-ohm rating when making comparisons. Some amplifiers that might work well for you: Kicker SX900.2 Kicker ZX850.2 Alpine PDX-1.1000 Rockford T600-2 Hifonics ZXi 1006 Premier PRS-D2100T Power Acoustik OV2-2200

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