I have some odd stuff going on with my Alpine premium stereo system, and could use some input.

The tweeter on the driver pillar doesn't work. The subwoofer doesn't work. The aerial antenna extends up but doesn't really seem to capture the more distant radio stations my previous XJR could easily enough.

The car was previously owned by an elderly couple so I'm not inclined to think the stereo was overdriven and speakers blown out. Even if so, I could understand bad sound, but not complete speaker death.

Anyone have any suggestions what and how I should check things out?

 

To test a speaker most guys will just put a multimeter on it ($5 at harbor freight or online). Here's a link to a youtube video

 

Tweeters are a common failure. I bought a used one on Ebay for something like $5. No need to overthink this.

 

I don't believe I'm overthinking this. I am just curious that with all those anomalies added up, I wonder if there are bad connections on the back of the head unit.

 

Unlikely its the connection mate. Tweeters are very delicate and oft they have a capacitor on them (xover), caps fail.

 

I managed to blow the subwoofer in the XJR with the Propellerhead's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". The cone detached from the metal surround, all the way around.

BTW, for a basic continuity test, you can use a 1.5V battery. It even tells you the correct polarity. Correctly connected, the cone should pop out slightly. If it pops in, you are backwards.

 

The sub is likely repairable. You likely didn't really blow it, it just foam rotted, which is common. You merely accelerated the problem. Do some searches for speaker refoaming. It's not expensive nor all that difficult if you want to keep the speaker. The foam surround of a speaker is actually a wear item that's usually only good for 10-15 years.

I actually added series capacitors to the tweeter outputs in the HK amp in my '99 VDP. Both tweeters had blown and I was surprised in the amount of bass content fed to the tweeters. At that time sources for the tweeters was scarce outside of Jaguar and a used pair I tried was also blown so I fitted a pair of Pioneer tweeters and they have been fine ever since. Don't ask for details as I did this over 10 years ago and barely remember it :-).

-Mike

 

I had to buy 100 pieces of a pioneer tweeter. So I have 98 spare, anyone that wants a pair can have some for free. They have the capacitor on them already. So no xover needed. Dont know if they will fit your rides, but I got them because they were one of the best sounding.