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Kicker Amp Dead (sub only)

Wedowee_Boater

Wedowee_Boater

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Hello all,

Just wondering if others have had this same issue. I have a 2018 23RSB. Has the Kicker sound upgrade with subwoofer. What is in the boat is a kicker 5 channel amp. It has 3 total amplifiers in one box. 2 amps for the regular speakers and one for the subwoofer. Whenever the system is powered on the subwoofer makes a 'thunder/cracking' type of sound. Dealer looked at it last fall and thought they fixed it. I isolated the amp from the rest of the boat and it still makes the noise. Also no audio output from the sub other than the noise. Dealer says I have to bring it in for them to troubleshoot. Its a 91 mile one way trip for me so I thought I would ask here if someone else had the issue and a simple fix.

...summer is just around the corner :)
 
Sounds like a warranty issue! Make a day out of it, grab some lunch and check out the new Bennington’s on your dealers showroom floor.
 
Maybe have a local shop / mobile service diagnose, then send the broken part to the dealer to "diagnose" and replace. A little investment might be worth saving a day of travel.
 
I tried that. I have an electrical engineering degree and am very handy. Installed many car/boat stereos in my life. I diagnosed/troubleshooted all of it and determined the amplifier to be bad. ...even went as far as removing the amp and sub from the boat and connected it to a spare battery. Dealer said that Bennington would not warranty the part unless his tech did the diagnosis.
 
I have had the same problem. Had the kicker amp replaced twice. Same problem both times. In addition, they cut a ventilation hole in the helm that didn't help. Finally gave up and put my "tried and true" 5 channel marine Soundstream amp in the place of the kicker amp and no more problems. In my opinion, the Kicker amp cannot handle the configuration that Bennington has installed it in. It is going into protection mode because it rapidly overheats at any reasonable sound level. The combination of speakers that are wired to it is causing too low of an impedance (2 ohm or less). Kicker says the amp can handle the load, but reality says otherwise.
 
So far no more problems with this replacement. Its actually a newer model from Kicker. They dont make the same amp any more. Maybe they fixed the issue. Only time will tell...
 
They kept giving me the same model amp. Definitely hope it works for you in the long run.
 
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