hello all,

I have a humming sound coming out of my sub. THe noise rising and falls w/ the idle. The rca's and the powerwire are on the same side of the vehicle. Also the noise does not come on when the vehicle is not turned on, the sub works fine. I dont know if my ground might be screwed up.

Please anybody help.

 

IT's cause the power and rca's are on the same side.

1. General rule, dont run power and rca on the same side.
2. run them on oppisite sides, should reduce, if not eliminte whine.

 

but when i had a system in my camaro, those were ran down the same side, and there was absolulty no whine at all?!?!?!

 

The power wire is bound to cause interference. It's a electrical current, running next to your sound current.

You might want to check your ground to. But I'm telling you now, it's the cables being run right next to eachother.

I had the same problem, it was my newbie mistake. That was a year ago now. Wow that went by fast.

 

One thing it could be is that either the ground on the head unit isn't good or the amp. (assuming that you don't have any other electronics connected in between the amp and the head unit.)

The type of noise you speak of usually comes from the fact that there is voltage and current going through that of the grounded part of the RCA cables. For example. Lets say you have a really good ground on your amp but the head unit's ground is crappy. What is going to happen is power will run over the grounded part of the RCA cable from that of the amp to the head unit. This power running over that of the grounded part of the RCA cable can create this noise.

Now, you might just have a bad diode in the alternator or something like that also so what I wrote above is more so a guess on what it might be.

Oh, and if you were thinking of a ground loop isolator to try to solve this you probably want to look into making sure your grounds are good first. I've heard that some of those ground loop isolators can make your system not sound that great.

I hope this helps!

Ted

PS - What type of equipment are you using? If you are using really cheap equipment the equipment itself may be causing the noise. I doubt this is the case but just bringing it up as an idea.

 

ty u 2 guys,,,

its a kicker amp and sub, so i dont think that these are the problems, i will go rewire, and post the results..Thank you!!

 

Are you using a high quality RCA cable? Make sure you double check those grounds. The ends should be firmly screwed down to clean metal, and if your running multiple amps, they all should be grounded to the car at the same point.

 

Yeah, Kicker amps seem good from what I've heard so that shouldn't be your problem. Good luck and have fun!

Ted

 

are you saying the noise changes as your rpms change? if so, its alternator whine, and can be alleviated by moving your rcas away from your power wire.. since it doesnt happen when the car is off, its most likely not a ground loop..

 

Aggreed, that is definatly Alternator whine, like I said before. Change one set of wires to the other side of the car.

 

Yes it diffently changes w/ the rpms.

Thanks for all the help.

 

Since it dosen't happen when the car is off you say it's most likely not a ground loop. I'm curious why you say this?

Yes it could be the power wire running on the same side as the RCA's but it might not be that simple. If he has a ground loop then shouldn't it go away when he shuts the car off? The fact that the alternators pulses are going through the RCA's grounded part when the car is running and not going through the grounded part of the RCA's when the car is not running would make symptons of what he speaks of wouldn't it? Heck, like I said before, it could just be that he has a bad diode in the alternator that is causing this so we are in reality all guessing here.

The people that speak of having alternator whine and then put a ground loop isolator on usually only have the noise when they have the car running. I may be off on that so please correct me if I am.

Ted

 

as everyone else has said you don't want to run the power wire and RCA's on the same side of the car but what i haven't seen anyone tell you is to pop the hood and make sure the power wire isn't by the wireing harness for the motor. you can pick up alot of feed back their. so if your still hearing a little hummmm try looking under the hood and if need be move the power wire around.

 

Well, ive never really encountered a ground loop that only appears when the car is on.. certainly doesnt mean its not possible, but ive just never seen that before.. ground loop isolaters cost like what, 10 bucks? would be a nice experiment

 

well, I would bet a thousand dollars that it's a ground loop, make a good clean ground, stip the metal around your ground and make sure it's got the correct connector on it and it is very tight. I see this all the time. If you power wire and ground wire on are the same side, that really wouldn't cause that type of problem unless your running dual 1/0 gauge wire or something. Good luck

 

will you seriously put a g on the table?