I dont know jack about amps or subs as far as the technical stuff goes. I did, however, hook my system up. My question is, my subs stopped working. I think i have it narrowed down to the amp as the source of the problem. I have a cheapo amp from radio shack, i am getting power to the amp, cause the power light is on, but the light that says "protection" is not lit. I checked the fuse, not blown, replaced it anyway, still not working. Any sugestions? or is my amp fried? Thanks guys.

Okay, there's a lot of things that could be wrong.

Check your ground, may have came loose. The remote wire will turn on the power indicator even if the amp is not on (crazy, I know). Do you have a Volt Ohm Meter? If so check your voltage across the amp (red lead on positive screw, black on negative) to make sure you're getting power through the amp. If you are check the speaker terminals to see if anything is coming out there. And also switch it to Ohm and check your speakers. If they are "4ohm" subs and reading anywhere above 4 or below 3.6 they're blown. If all this tests out okay then check your RCA leads going to the amp and make sure they are okay.

Narrowing down a problem like this sucks...good luck!

unplug your RCAs and see if the amp still comes on. if it doesnt turn on anymore, you had a bad ground for the amp and youve now blown out the RCA output(s) on your headunit. if the amp still turns on, its probably just that the amp is bad.

also in responce to the above post, you cant really check the nominal impedence of a sub with a VOM. the subs impedence will vary dramaticly with depending on the frequency and the box its in. if a sub is REALLY blown (like the voice coil has melted down), you will get an extremely low resistance because it has created a short circuit. that said... if you decide to test a sub with a VOM, it usually comes out close to the rated nominal impedence. just didnt want anyone to get scared and think thier subs were blown because they got a freaky ohm reading.;)

True true...I didn't take that into account. I'm used to testing subs sitting on a flat plane out of a box and testing right on the posts. Thanks for catching that one :thumbsup