lemaylexus

I posted this yesterday in the Audio/Video forum, but I thought it might get a few views around here, too, since it's SC specific. If this is a problem, my apologies in advance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The head unit (HU) I'm discussing here is the stock 97 SC300 head unit, Pioneer version, not Nakamichi. Stock sub, amp, and everything else.

I did some searching on this but couldn't find anything similar. Hopefully I didn't miss it somewhere obvious. Anyway, I get up and get in the car this morning, and all is fine. I drive to school, turn the key to accessory when I park in my parking spot, and the radio shuts off.

Normally it stays on and I can listen to tunes. I cranked the volume up and could hear the music very softly (I use my iPod plugged in through my stock HU's tape deck). Then I realized if I turned the key to On, the speakers came back on at normal volume. When I came out for lunch and turned the car on, I realized I wasn't getting any sound from my left channel what so ever. A quick tweak of the fade and balance ***** showed that my left rear speaker was just barely putting sound out, and my left front tweeter and lower door speaker were completely silent. This is the case for the tape deck, CD, and AM/FM. The right channel seems fine.

This makes me think I blew the left channel on the amp. The strange part is, when the HU beeps to indicate me scanning the radio or changing song, it beeps loudly and through all of the speakers, including all the left channels. I should mention, too, that I pulled the trunk lining out and checked all the connections back there. Everything seems fine, but after wiggling the wires around I got the stereo to stay on when the key was in Accessory. I did notice, though, that the drain which runs from the gas cap area had came loose and fallen down to the bottom. I reattached it. No water or dampness whatsoever, but there is some rust in there. Makes me wonder if the amp has received water damage.

So,

Does the Pioneer head unit power the speakers in addition to the power amp?

If so, could that explain why I've lost my left channel when playing music but not when the HU is beeping at me about changing stations?

If not, what in the heck is going on? Could I have blown my left channel?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the excessive length of this post, I even got bored while proofreading.

1QWKSC

The pioneer unit does send the signal to the amp so if there is a problem, with the deck it would be passed along to the amp as well. Rust also is a bad sign, definatley means moisture was in that area. Let me know if you have any more ?'s, been doing car audio for the last 8 years.

lemaylexus

Thanks for such a quick reply. I have my suspicions that the amp has gone bad, I'm just confused as to why it still beeps normally through all of the speakers when I change radio stations. It seems like it would either do both (play music and the beeps) or neither, instead it does one and not the other.