I drive to work, turn off my car, walk into work. Well, 6 hours later I came out and noticed some loud music playing in the parking lot.
It was coming from my Durango. It seems somehow, my empeg turned itself on, cranked up the music to max and just started playing. The amp was cutting out because my battery was being sucked dry for the past 6 hours.
I finally had to pull out the empeg because the volumne wasn't responding correctly.

Luckily I got a jump and everything has been working fine so far. It was a bit hot that day so I'm wondering if the heat would have something to do with this or if anyone's ever had the same issue?

I haven't had any problems with it in 3 years.

The empeg was professionally installed and shuts off when I turn the car off (can turn it back on by moving the volumne knob within a short window of time, otherwise after that time it will stay off).

It was just a bizarre thing and people all around were wondering who's car was blasting Simon and Garfunkle.

Another reason whuy not to leave the empeg in the car...

Seriously, i had this happen once after a thunderstorm when the temp went from 90f to 68f really quick and lightning was hitting really close. The empeg came out of standby sometime during that storm and the volume was at max.... I was outside at the time watching the storm and yanked the empeg before it blasted the speakers... I never mentioned it before as I thought it was a "freak of nature".

Sean in NC

There are other threads where this has been reported. Did anyone ever find a cause for it?

Perhaps a voltage spike on the ignition line waking up the player before its standby timeout?

I had this happen to me for the first time this weekend also. It was also a hot day with the car parked outside, which is rare as the empeg is usually pulled out and my car spends the majority of the time out of the sun. Luckily it was only parked there for a few hours and my battery was fine.

I've written this off as the price of being able to turn the stereo back on after the car is off. However, it might be a good idea to try having the empeg not wake up by IR, only physical buttons, and perhaps not the knob as it's known to be noisy.

Matthew

Those who are having this problem... Did you try setting your timeout to, say, 3 seconds, so that the player totally powers off shortly after you turn off the ignition? Does the player still wake up after that?

Remember that nothing except the ignition wire going high shouild wake the player if it's completely powered off. Even IR signals and physical buttons won't wake the player in that state.

I've found that when I set my timeout to only a few seconds, I still have time to reactivate the player after turning off the ignition, yet it does a good job of shutting itself down quickly and preventing problems if it's still in the dash.

It was also suggested in other threads that an iffy AC jack could be the problem...

Hey, wait a minute. Those who've had this problem also reported the player was at full volume. Darn it, I'll bet that's it, then. An iffy AC jack. The thing thinks it got plugged into the wall socket so it booted in AC mode at max volume. That's the only other thing that should get it to wake up when it's in full-off mode: the AC switch detecting a plug-in.

And since the AC jack is a physical switch, it wouldn't surprise me if temperature changes (like those described in this thread) could have made it happen.

Has anyone who's had this happen ever have the AC jack problem? Has anyone ever seen the player wake up and do this but definitely NOT be in AC mode (for instance, mid volume instead of max volume)?

This makes too much sense to me, I'm going to FAQ it. If anyone can disprove the theory I'll update the FAQ.

I want to think about that because it's just possible that you've cracked it.

The better test would be to check for the Dimmer setting.

I want to think about that because it's just possible that you've cracked it.

I can't take the credit for it, someone else posted that elsewhere on the BBS and all I did was put two and two together (full volume, AC sensor switch, what things can wake the player after it's off). I forget who it was, but they flat-out said that waking up in the car could be a symptom of AC switch trouble. Was it Mark or Stu, or Rob S? I seem to recall it was someone with player-repairing experience.

The better test would be to check for the Dimmer setting.

Of course, if your player is blasting at max volume and draining your battery, you're probably more likely to yank the thing from the dash in a panic, but yeah, if you've got the presence of mind to turn down the volume and dig into the menus, that's a good test.

*ahem*...

Ah, my AC volume is rarely at full. Most of my AC use is next to my linux workstation, using the PC soundcard and speakers. I find it easier to keep the PC and speaker volume constant and adjust the empeg's volume. I make a point of reducing it before I unplug.

Now DC mode however...

Twice now people have borrowed my empeg. Once someone was debugging a sound problem that they thought was their empeg (wasn't...), and another time someone wanted to see how the backlight buttons looked in their car. Both times I forgot that my DC mode volume is fixed at -3dB 'cos I feed through another headunit.

Mine has been doing this every once and a while, and happened tonight. Volume is never at max, and my timeout is 60 seconds right now (will try dropping it). I went into Home Depot to get some tile at 9:30 tonight, came back and it was on. So heat was not an issue for me. (3.0a7 hijack v394)

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Right, so my question is, when the player starts up by itself, is the volume blasting at the AC volume level (in your case, -25db instead of 0db)?

I'm not sure, so I've turned it all the way down, and I'll pay attention next time it happens. In the month and a half it's been installed this has occured probably about 3-4 times. I'll report back next time I see it happen.

Just a random side note: When I turn my car off, the empeg goes to standby but my Alpine unit and amp go cold dead. I can wake the empeg and have it play, but no sound comes out.

Maybe my installer wired it up this way as a safeguard? Or, as a mistake. ::shrugs::

And, I *think*, if I wake it to play, it still shuts down completely 30 or 60 seconds after I switched the car off; cutting cold-off while it's playing.

Yeah, something is pretty screwy there.

Agreed. Check the wiring to your amp. It sounds almost as if the amp remote wire is swapped with a permanent power feed at the amp.

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Just a random side note: When I turn my car off, the empeg goes to standby but my Alpine unit and amp go cold dead. I can wake the empeg and have it play, but no sound comes out.

Maybe my installer wired it up this way as a safeguard? Or, as a mistake. ::shrugs::

This part does sound perfectly normal to me. Remember no other car stereo is a cool as the empeg. All the other aftermarket head units I have owned would need you to keep the ignition to On, or Accessory mode to turn on. When you turn the ignition off, you cut power thru the ignition sense wire, and the HU turns off. With the HU off, the amps will not power up because they get their signal from that HU, not the empeg.

As for the other part, I have no clue.

edit: That's pretty cool, the bbs now shows a cake above your name on your birthday. Wow I feel special!

Happy Birthday, Micheal.

Back to topic: What he's describing is still strange because the amplifiers should turn on when the amp-remote line goes high, unless the installer wired them funny. The amplifiers should be wired to constant power direct to the battery through a waterproof fuse block in the engine compartment. The fact that they don't come back on after he turns on his ignition means that they aren't wired that way.

He doesn't mention turning the ignition back to on, just turning it off. We are all just used to the empeg's stand-by feature and being able to wake it with the ignition off. We forget other HU's don't do this. I am assuming that since he is running an Alpine HU, he is feeding the empeg into the AUX input of the Alpine, then out to his amps & speakers. I'm betting his remote turn on is connected to his Alpine HU. With the HU not getting the signal to turn on from the ignition sense wire, it is not turning the amps on. Hopefully I clarified what I was trying to say.

Unless for some strange reason the installer wired the amps remote wire to the ignition.