I have a 6 yr old MTX 2150 amplifier driving my 2 front component speakers. On a recent car trip I noticed the front 2 speakers making a loud popping sound when I would hit a bump. It turned out to be something in the back of my car hitting the RCA connection on the amp causing the popping. I know this because when I wiggled the RCA connection I could hear the popping. Well being the intelligent person I am, I kept fiddling with it until finally the speakers stopped working. The amp still has power, but I get no sound to the speakers. I swapped the amp out for a different one and that works, so it must be the amp. None of the fuses are blown, I even opened the amp and all the caps look fine. Any idea what I might have screwed up? Thanks.

 

Chances are the solder joints that hold the RCA connections to the circuit board have cracked. You may be able to fix it by re-flowing the solder joints. If the traces on the circuit board have cracked the repair will be a little trickier.

 

you sure those rca jacks where working fine. jiggle them with the new amp and see if they cut in and out. if it works through all that go with what ls1 said. pray its the rca's

 

I took a look at the RCA connections to circuit board and they're fine. I'm going to plug the amp in one more time and give it a try, if it still doesn't work I think the amp is toast. Thanks guys.

 

mtx repairs amps for 90 bucks

 

Well after opening the amp, I went ahead and hooked it back up one last time. Surprisingly it worked, although now when I start my car it picks up a lot of engine noise, there's a very loud whine. Of course when the car is off it doesn't do it.

 

I figured out the problem, the ground connection on the RCA jack was messed up. I tried resoldering the connection, but that didn't help. I ended up directly connecting the ground part of the RCA jack with a wire to the ground on the circuit board. Not the most advanced solution, but it works.