I've been trying to diagnose an audio problem with my car for several months now. The sound started cutting in and out, and crackling sometimes, then it would cut out for minutes or hours then come back, and then eventually just stopped working at all times. I checked the plugs at the amp and at the back of the head unit to make sure the connections were positive and not corroded, and replaced the head unit, and still have the same issue.

I'm looking for either a writeup or a schematic of the main plug at the amplifier for a 2001 chevy monte carlo with the premium cd/tape/am/fm sound system. The amplifier is model 10309547, and has two plugs. One plug has only an orange and black wire, and is power and ground. The other plug has all the other wires. I need to know which wires are audio in and which wires are audio out, + and -, and for which speakers, and which wire is the remote switching wire.

I read a GM tech answer a question on one of the wikianswer boards saying that the plain white wire is the remote wire, but my harness has three plain white wires (way to go, GM), one that has 13.xvDC, one that has 0vDC, and one that has 7vDC, all when grounded to the power's ground wire. Just trying to see if I'm getting signal in and/or out to verify that the issue is with the amplifier and not a short in the remote wire somewhere in the wire harness.

 

this happens to all the speakers? when the sound is on sumtime open the trunk and wiggle the connections to ur amp and c if anything changes

 

Yes, all the speakers. I've already eliminated the connectors themselves as the issue...I was thinking it was the volume IC in the head unit, but didn't want to take the time to open it up and replace it, so I just got a used one off ebay (got a great deal on it, so it wasn't worth the time to fix the current one anymore)...that didn't fix it, so I'm running out of possibilities. The power is steady and consistent to the amp, and the problem is always at all four speakers, so either the amp itself is gone, or the remote wire isn't sending signal anymore due to a short somewhere (the odds that both head units would have a failed remote out signal are fairly slim...)...but I can't figure out which wire is the remote wire.

Not sure if I mentioned it in the original post...the sound was cutting out at first but after about a week or two of it getting progressively worse it just stopped altogether, and I haven't heard a peep out of the radio in about a month or six weeks or so. :-(

 

go to installdr.com and look up ur car it will give u a diagram

 

Couldn't find the 01 Monte listed on that site man... :-/

 

Did you solve the issue? I'm having the same problem with my monte carlo. All 4 speakers were cutting in and out and now they are completely off. I have a subwoofer and amp in my car too and the subs are always on and still working! It MUST be the factory installed amp.

 

Yeah, it was the factory amp. You can get them new on ebay for $250. I found one used for $75, though it took me several months of searching before I found anyone that had one available.

 

Wow, that's quite a while with no tunes in the car! Maybe I'll get ahold of crutchfield and just get an aftermarket amp for $100-$150. I wonder how hard it would be to install something aftermarket? There are quite a few wires running back there.

Thanks for the reply though. Now I know it's most likely not a connection problem.

 

From what I understand, GM has so many features running through the head unit on these cars that you need to buy a harness to properly convert everything for use with an aftermarket amp. I think the harness alone is like $80. Not sure on the price, but I know it was prohibitively high, to the point where a comparable aftermarket amp + harness would be more than just buying a new OEM one at $250.

But yeah, it was definitely the amp. The amp I ended up buying was a previous model to the amp I had originally, and the sound quality is noticably worse (have to keep the settings at almost full bass with half treble to get the same sound tone the previous amp gave at almost even EQ settings), so I kept my old amp and I'm hoping one of these days to get it to an audio electrician buddy of mine to see if he can't work his magic. lol

 

I just fixed an amp from 2001 monte carlo, it was cutting in and out with temperature, and occasionally when hitting a bump or if the sub was cranked. The trunk mounted amp gets audio from the head unit, then sends it to the speakers. The amp chips have a mute and standby line - I didn't follow the traces to see which one was the culprit, but I did measure a couple dead resistors in the area. They are near a blue capacitor next to the incoming choke filter circuit, and covered with soft glue. Thankfully the glue comes off easily, but it's a commonly known issue that too hard of a glue on components can crack them - which I assume is what happened.
My fix was R706 and R707, both measured well beyond their rated values when in circuit (and the amp was off). These are both 0805 package, 5%, 1/10W resistors, and should measure as follows:
R706, labeled as 104 = ~100K in circuit (bad one was way higher)
R707, labeled as 103 = ~10K in circuit (bad one was way higher)

After replacing those two resistors, the amp worked just fine, no cutouts - and it had been completely dead for months, and cutting out for a couple years prior.

Good luck fixing, e-mail me and i'll try to fix yours for a fee
Dave - easily found as djs2571 in many places if IM / PM doesn't work here.