Stokestack

My rear Mach 460 amps went bad (or at least one did). I think I had the same problem: no bass.

What I found was that the Ford wiring runs the woofers in mono, making the stock wiring useless for replacing the amps and setting up a proper system. There's only one signal wire for both left and right woofers.

i ripped out as much of the Mach 460 wiring harness as I could and ran my own speaker wire to the doors and rear speakers. I have a convertible, so there were two amps (Motorola) behind the rear seat and a third below the head unit forward of the center console. I all of those, bought two Pioneers, and mounted the Pioneers in the trunk.

So if you're having problems, it may be because the person who hacked into the wires didn't realize that the Ford woofer wiring is mono and crap. I have the Mach 460 wiring diagram somewhere (and I happen to be about to dig it up), so let me know if you need it.

Stokestack

REMOVED all of those. Where is the edit function?

Saroo

Ok from scratch.. I have a 98 ford mustang v6 w/ a mach 460 sound system (minus factory amp) it was a Police impound and when they pulled his system the idiots took the stock amp as well. I have 2 15' rockford fosgate subs with a 1000w sony amp (not the best but cheaper) this system set up has been in all 3 of my previous vehicles n sounded fantastic (rattled my mirrors and ery thing ) i hooked it up to my mustang and now when its on low sound it sounds ok but radio is louder than subs? Then when i turn it up stock speakers and subs sound distorted and start popping? It sounds like s***. litteraly and i cant figure out why? I had absolutly no bass untill i installed an aftermarket hu (jvc) all i could afford at the time and the bass got little better. Any suggestions on what the prob might be? Ive checked my ground, my rca cables, speaker wires and fuses already... Am i missing something? Plz help!!! Email me at s.mclaughlin49@yahoo.com w/ suggestions plz plz plz im desperate i miss my sound system!

jrp1588

Figured out my problem so I figured I'd update. The previous owner had installed aftermarket speakers, namely, Infinity Kappa 682.7cf's. These speakers, according to crutchfield, run at an impedance of only 2ohms. The odd wiring I found in the back by the amps was intended to run the aftermarket speakers off the headunit in parallel to the stock tweeters. I found the same setup in the front door speakers.

Running these in parallel brought the impedance down to 1ohm if my understanding of the subject is correct. I believe this killed my stock headunit. My stock amps are actually fine.

To fix all these issues, I got a cheap JVC headunit and put that in. I had sound again, but I knew those 2ohm speakers would be the death of my amps before long, so I got ahold of some stock Mach speakers. I tore out all the non-stock speakers and wiring and hooked everything back just like stock and now I have PLENTY of bass. I'm actually quite happy with the Mach 460's sound. I don't think I'm going to mess with it.

11GTdriver

I'm glad you're happy with it, however, with the stock Mach 460 speakers and an aftermarket head unit of any kind, you're still not going to get the most out of your now-factory speaker setup. Unfortunately the Mach speakers are oddballs and run at 3 Ohms in parallel as opposed to the aftermarket standard of 4, 2 or 1. The only way to truly solve this is by either putting in a stock Mach stereo or to change out all the speakers and run your own wires. You can use a newer Mach radio such as the Mach MP3 stereo and make you're own harness so you don't have to cut anything. It's what I ended up doing and it was much better than the JVC unit I was using for awhile.

jrp1588

This works well enough. I'm not really an audio guy. I'd rather save the money for engine or appearance mods.

11GTdriver

I understand what you're saying, it's just that the aftermarket HU will eventually ruin those, at a minimum, 8 years old speakers.

ttocs

an aftermarket HU will in no way ruin those. no reason to run speaker wires and you can tweek a mach system to get more out of it then you think with an aftermarket stereo.

If you have questions check out page 2 of my cardomain site, ride 2395420 as it shows a little bit about the mach and how to integrate into it.

frankz089

I had same problem with my car this is what i found out the rear amps power the woofers so the only way you will luse your bass on the speakers is if one of them is not working the mach 460 system needs bouth amps to power the bass if you bypass one of the amps you could hear the bass depending on the side the amp is located right side powers front woofers left side powers rear woofer what i did since i found out one of my amps was not workingi just change the posision of the amp but remember you need to have them connected or u need to bypass the one is bad to get it work now is bad to have only one runing because is running alot of energy by itself and you will burn it my recommendation is to remplace the broken amp and you be just fine