I have a 2005 X-Type VDP with premium sound. My sound system speaker volume is very low. My first thought was that a fuse to the amp might be blown. Found no blown fuses. My next guess was that the amp itself was bad. I replaced the amp with one from another X-Type. My sound is still very low even with the volume all the way up. Any help would be appreciated!

 

Our radios have a circuit wired to the tach and speed sensors!

It is called AVC, automatic volume control.

Perhaps yours is set on stun.

From the radio manual:

Press and hold the volume control knob until AVC is displayed. To de-activate AVC, momentarily press the volume control knob again. The level of AVC control can be adjusted by turning the volume control knob whilst in AVC ON mode.

 

I appreciate your response however, when I hold my volume button in it does nothing - when I press it it turns my radio off.

 

In my case, I need to hold it for about 7 or 8 seconds; it will bring up a menu (bass, treble, fade. balance, AVC)

 

Oh, I understand what you are talking about now. Mine has a menu button beside the volume button to access that feature. All settings there are normal.

 

OK, the next step is to check the individual speakers.


The door speakers are actually pretty crappy, and the coil can break loose and short out.


The amplifier will go into a power foldback mode to protect the output transistors.


Checking is actually pretty easy; momentarily disconnect each speaker, if the volume goes up, you have found the culprit.

 

Ok I will try that. That will probably take a while… I guess I will need to remove all four door panels to do that.

 

Actually, the covers can be carefully popped off, and the speakers gotten at from the front.

You may try using the balance and fade controls as well, sometimes you can isolate the critter that way...

 

Thank you. I am going to try that today.

 

Lurking and reading, I'm confused now

Could you clarify this a bit more? Other threads say that you have to pull the door panels, because the speaker covers do not come off.

 

Unless mine were modified, they are held in with tabs, and they were pretty easy to finagle out. The speakers are bolted in from the front, and were easy to remove.

The replacement I got came from the boneyard, cover came off the same way.

The few others that I worked on, only one required opening up the door, although with the correct trim tool, that was easy to do as well.

I'm heading out to mine right now to change the steering wheel, and open up the panel to fix the passenger door outside handle. Perhaps some pix are in order...

 

There doesn’t seem to be an issue with any of my speakers. Is there something to check next. If it helps any I am now also having an issue with my navigation unit - it says there is no map disc installed. My amp and GPS unit are both mounted in the trunk, one over the other, in my model Jaguar. I don’t know if this makes a difference but mine is Alpine premium sound.

 

denshiff, if you fade front to back and left to right and the speakers still put out the same low level sound, you've disconnected them 1 at a time to see if the sound changes with no luck, and you've changed the amp, it's very likely your head unit is going out. At least that would be the next step to troubleshoot. I have a VDP with Premium Sound, just not the Navi and CD changer. Mines is simple and stupid but it does what I need it to. When I've scouted on eBay I've seen some Navi units for not much. You might pick one up and swap them out. If it doesn't solve your problem then just sell the one you bought on eBay, on eBay again.

 

Ok thank you and wa3ra for all of your help. If anyone can thing of anything else please let me know!

 

OK, two last checks:

The Nav unit and CD changer share some circuitry, and they use a common power source.

Measure the voltage at the trunk side of the power circuits. Check the grounds and all of the power and data connections.

Your trunk units send their signal forward on fiber optic cables in direct digital, all of the DA conversion takes place at the unit. if there is low power, both units may malfunction.

The next question , and I should have asked before, is the low volume limited to the CD mode?

The last of the 'free' tests is disconnecting and reconnecting both sides of all of the cables.

If that doesn't work, it is time to pull and test the head unit on the bench to determine if the problem is there, or in the boot.

 

Thank you - I have checked to make sure power is going to the unit but not the voltage - I will check that. I have disconnected and reconnected all cables with no results. That is when I realized that they share a power source - when I disconnected the Nav unit the stereo lost power also - it caused a loss of power to the amp. My low volume is all sources - radio and CD. Some times it sounds a little louder and better sound quality that other times which I do not understand - still low volume but some times better. I do not now how to pull the head unit - maybe I can figure it out.

 

Hunt around on here; there are links to you tube videos that show how. The 'intermittent' sometime good, sometimes not sounds like it could be a broken solder joint, if it is all inputs, I'd suspect it to be in the head unit.

Always best to eliminate all of the 'free' options before getting to the hard stuff.

Head units turn up regularly on ebay for fairly low prices.

I've got to go hunt for a replacement cruise control switch pack for my 'new' wheel now...over the years, stuff does break!