Ok, the electrical gremlins are still haunting me. ( possibly due to the previous owner). Working on a 98 XK8 with premium sound. Radio inop when I purchased the car. No power up, nothing showing. I used it as a bargaining chip. Checked all fuses in ALL fuse boxes. All good. I pulled the console and radio stack. Found the ground wire was NOT attached to radio chassis. Hooked up ground. Radio powered up with NO sound. Checked the rear amp, found 2 plugs NOT plugged in. Plugged them in, tuned in a channel, radio is alive. But……only sound from rear speakers. Used the balance and fader. Still no front speakers. The question is……coukd there be yet another plug not plugged in. The PO, I’ll call him Bubba, got me again. I have no answers from Bubba, evidentally he found someone with less knowledge than himself to work on the car. I have no idea why this stuff was all unplugged. Is the a connection under the console that controls the fronts. Or in the boot. (there I’m getting the lingo) The only loose plug is under the center and that one that appears to be for a phone, that was never used.

Sorry for the long read, but I need to plan my next move. I have used the search function on this forum to no avail. At 71 years old, I’m not as spry crawling around inside the car. BTW, it’s 98 XK8 Convertible. Totally love the car.

 

Not long at all, in fact thank you for all the details!

I'm afraid I can't think of any plugs that separately drive the front speakers.

If I were you:
1. Prove this happens with cd and am/fm.
2. Verify are speakers in place? Friend that ring sail super tweeter doesn't put out enough sound for you to use as reference imo.
The speakers in the dash can be easily viewed, the plastic cover just pops off with little effort.
3. Look at the plug coming out of the amplifier. Any cut wires? All intact?

I'm going to have to ponder a bit. The dam DIN plug prevents you from switching inputs to track down amp or head unit issues.

This is a tough one to trace from here.

John

 

BTW where in pa are you? Near Lambertville? Or Doylestown?

 

I verified the door speakers are intact. Will check the dash speakers and for any cut/broken wires from the amp. Just waiting for a double digit temp day. Heater in the garage is working hard.


I live a little further West. Near Harrisburg.

 

Darn if you lived close I'd offer to help. Take a look at the image from 1998 premium diagram. It shows wire colors to speakers.

1. Not worth checking for dash speakers at this point unless you want.
2. Let's see if the connection from front door speaker to amp is in tact.

Car off.
See if you can pull the connector on the amp with speaker wires out. As you see in diagram its connector 18.
We're going to find the wires to one of front door speakers.
Front right: Slate / Pink [pin #13] and Slate / Orange [pin #14] wires go to this driver from amp. Note they change color inside car.
Front left: Purple Orange [pin #4] and Purple Pink [pin #12]

Ok, got connector 18 off and accessible? Tools needed:
9volt battery
Hat pin, paper clip, or needle probe
Pair of wires with laughter clips each end.

You probably already know this but no assumptions here:if you touch a 9volt battery to a speaker terminals ÷ & - the batteries dc voltage will either move that speaker's cone forward or backward depending on battery polarity. Good news: you will hear "pop" as it moves. Heard pop? Disconnect battery immediately- no harm done.

Sidebar - this test will not work with a capacitor in the line not relevant her just fyi.

Peocedure: identify pin hole #4 & pin hole 12. Insert metal tester (pin, paper clip, probe) in pin holes. Connect alligator clips to terminals on 9volt battery. Touch other end of alligator cable to pin 4. Take remaining alligator clip and brush the test connector sticking out of pin 12. Hear the pop? Wiring is good between amp and front speaker.

Problem then Points to radio or amplifier. Now we're back to that DIN cable. I'm not able to think of a way to test inputs to the amp. I invite discussion what are the odds that only 3 of the 4 pairs of speaker outputs on the amp die vs Radio front channel?

My gut says radio, but maybe we should await continuity test results?

Sky, this just occurred to me. Its ez if you've done 1st test. Set your DVM to continuity (ohms).
Test the other 2 pairs (dash squawk) plus other door speaker wires to ensure you get at least 3 ohm reading. My thinking: if a short circuit developed, amp may be able to isolate front speaker channel by disabling it.

Questions, better image, just ask.

FWIW DIN = the round all inclusive cable from radio to amp input. If it was RCA inputs we could swap front & rear to ID radio or amp failure.

John

 

This time with image

 

Last year I had an issue with my premium sound system. It showed power on the display but no sound. And I had no way to test the amplifier.

Generally I dislike just throwing parts at a problem, it in this case it seemed reasonable to try an inexpensive eBay amp. It was easy enough to find several with the correct part number and I purchased the cheapest one available, IIRC, It was $34 including shipping.

Luck was with me and it worked perfectly and still is a year + later. Anyway, that’s something to consider.

If a replacement amp doesn’t fix your issue, they do make nice spares and would be easy enough to sell if desired.

Z

 

Have you checked that the Fade adjustment has not been set to Rear speakers?

 

yep, checked all the adjustments - front to rear, left to right

thanks

 

thanks for the info. Working my way through the tests.👍

 

The speaker wires goes from the amp to a connector (IC-1) underneath the armrest in the center console. Both front and rear speakers are connected there. Wires for the front speakers continues forward into connector AC-14 located behind the glovebox I believe. See pictures here:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...or-em2-170956/

 

thanks. I’ll look into that