I just installed infinity perfect components in the doors and they sound great when the car is off. When i turn the car on and i mute the sound i get this buzzing coming from both speakers almost equally. I made sure to keep the power line away from the rca's. Has anyone ever heard of recieving noise from a miss in the plug wires..almost like an arching. Like i said, the speakers dont have any buzzing when the car is off but when i turn it on I recieve this annoying buzzing that u can hear all the time. Anyone have any ideas how to fix it? thanks!

 

no clue....I bet someone can help u though.

 

Ground loop or alternator whine. If you are using an amp for the components, try unplugging the RCAs from the amp and turn it all on. If it's still there sounds like a ground loop issue so check all connections. If it went away then it may be your RCAs picking up interference. Either re-route it if there is anything that may be a problem or just get the isolation transformers from Radio Shack.

 

don't get the ground-loop isolators, you are just masking a separate problem

answer a few questions for us first.

1. Did you also install a new amplifier in the car, or was it already powering a different set of speakers. If so, where were they installed, and how were they wired(wire route.)

2. Which side of the car is your power wire running, and which side for the RCAs?

3. Where are the amps mounted?

4. Does the sound increase with RPM, or is it basically just static? (could be RCA grounding issue.)

5. Lastly, check the grounds on the headunit, amp, and battery/engine block to ensure they are all good.

 

This is a new amplifier that i ran to power the new components. It sits above the gas tank in the rear end of the car. I have it grounded at the same spot that i have my sub amp grounded and my capacitor in the well of the trunk and i never had any problems with my sub but that could mean nothing im assuming. The sound isnt very apparent that it follows my RPM, it sounds more like static to me. I went to radio shack the other day and i just replaced one side with those ground loops and it minimally decreased the static. As u said..its only a bandage and i want to do it the right way so i took those back. The only ground i have in the headunit is the grounding from the black wire. I dont have any bracket mounted to the chasis. I ran both sets of rca's along the right side of the car and i have my power running along the left. The only time they ever cross is right before my amp for the connections, but i was also assuming that would not cause any interference.

 

you probably aren't getting any interference from them crossing near the amp, so...

get a battery-powered cd player, and hook it up to your amp... or anything you can somehow convert to RCA for your amp. if you still have static, it's the amp, or the wiring of it.

If the static goes away, it's the RCAs or the headunit. For run, you could try running an external RCA for testing purposes. If you don't have one that long, then you may try this. Get a small wire and touch it to the outside metal of the RCA connections behind the heaunit, and the other end of the wire to the metal chassis of the actual headunit... this can help rule out a bad RCA protection fuse on the inside of the headunit.

If the sound is still there, then you've got a bad heaunit, or the power/ground is bad to the headunit. It is entirely possible this headunit has been bad the whole time, and your sub amp is filtering out that frequency, so you never noticed it. That is a problem I had with my 8600mp.

try some of that and let us know.

 

I tried your idea of grounding the rca lines to the actual metal of the headunit..but no go with that. I also ran my line around the front of my car instead of so close to the wires because i assume my racing wires would transmit interference. I'm thinking of buying a distribution block to better ground all my components. I haven't gotten any other rca lines so im waiting for the moment when i have some time on my hands to rip out the rca lines and just wire them outside the carpet to see if that does anything. If you have any other ideas plz plz post them. Also, this is strictly a static fuzz because it does not increase with rpm. Thanks!

 

did you try disconnecting the RCAs completely from the back of the headunit to see if the sound goes away?

also try a portable cd player or something else with the same RCAs... try eliminating each part of the equation.

 

you shoul be able to pick up a headphone to rca cable at radio shack for a couple of bucks. also GIJOES usualy has 25' rca cables for DIRT CHEAP. i bought a bunch last time i was there.

 

Does this make any sense..i took the rca's out of the amp to c if the wires caused any interference. The static decreased a minimal amount and could only b heard with my head next to the tweeter so thats not so bad. But, the weird part is that i realized that the static came and gone. When the car was cold i had very lil static if any. As the car ran longer the static increased to the level i can hear. i rechecked the ground and also rescraped the metal to make sure everything was clear. If you think its still important to check the line with a cd player i will make sure to head out to radio shack to get the hookup, but other than that i need to get some rca's. I may also just rip them out and rewire them down the middle to see if anything dissapears.

 

are you using twisted-pair, or standard home audio rcas?

 

knukoncepts triple shielded 4 channel twisted pair. They really seem heavy duty, so i have a hard time believing that they are really intercepting signals..

 

The fact that you still have SOME static when you take out the RCAs makes me think that you have a problem with the amp... either the components on the inside are bad/cheap, or the power/groundwires...

Do you get any static with the car off, and the RCAs disconnected? (It could be a barrage of problems.)

 

I have NO static what so ever with the car off..

 

let me get this straight, with the car off AND the RCAs disconnected, you get no static? What about with the car off, with the RCAs connected?

 

ok, this is what i have come up with. I ripped out my rcas and wired them externally to see if they were the reason. Thats a big negative. I replaced my old headunit with the clarion dxz955mc, and still no difference in the static. With the new headunit, I made sure to ground it right to the chasis. But...with the new headunit, i turned up the sound and listened to the static more clearly and i can hear that as i rev my engine the static seems to follow. Well, i originally had my power wire outlining the left side of the car around the front of the firewall, and through the firewall on the driver's side. Just to take the power line away from the wires and distributor, I wired the power line over the radiator and around the right side of the engine bay through the firewall in the same spot. Well, that didn't change anything either. I looked at a power line noise filter and it comes with like a 16 guage wire and there is no way i will hook that up to my 4 guage. My engine seems to have a miss and I am in the process of eliminating it, but my father insists that the miss is the reason why I have static. Could this be it, or should i be worried about my alternator? One thing I have trouble understanding is how far away the wire has to be from a component that it stops picking up rfi signals or whatever signals it is picking up? I feel there is no problem with the amp, no problem with the headunit, no problem with the speakers, no problem with the grounds or the wiring of the speakers, and no problem with the rca line, so it has to be somewhere else. I'm starting to get frustrated and I feel i will never figure this out...and dropping a grand in the past month on this project really makes me want to pull my hair out.

 

pull the RCAs out of the back of the headunit, and leave them in the amp... do you still get noise then?

next try the portable cd player with the amp.

 

i don't get any noise with the rcas out of the amp and i dont recieve noise when i just take them out of the headunit. I went out to radio shack and picked up a power line noise suppresor but that didnt help a damn bit either. It has to be coming in through the power line..

 

it's definitely not the power to the amplifier, it must be the power to the headunit...

have you already tried plugging in a portable radio/cd player into the amp directly? that can rule out the amplifier being bad completely.

 

Whenever I run into this problem I redo all my grounds. Sand the chassis/frame down again, clean all connectors, and redo it. Even if it was previously there and working good before messing with it I still do this. And if that dosnt solve it I will find a new spot to ground it and see if that makes a difference. Usually by then I find a good ground and the static goes away.

 

when I was testing my amp, I used a portable 12v battery to run the amp and headunit separate from the car, and I isolated each one from the other to find the problem.

 

Ok so your saying that no matter what, this has to be a problem with my ground connections? All my grounds are directly to the rear well which i used an air gun to bring down to bare metal. Using a micrometer i found that the ground was fine..it was reading .01. the only other ground I have is my headunit which i grounded the exact same way with the gun right at the chasis above the trans. I mean i dont know how much it would help to run a wire from my ground in the rear well to the closest part of the frame near my battery but if you guys think it would really make a different i will try it. I just have come to the conclusion that it has to be an engine component that is giving me this static. btw, i do run race wires which may cause intereference and i dont know if an msd distributor has an signal blocking but that could be a cause too. Do you guys know how far the power line has to be away from any components. Also have any of you ever used an alternator noise suppresor. I was thinkin about trying one of those to see if that did anything. I am goin to take back the power line noise suppresor that i had hooked up to the power line off the headunit because it does absolutely nothing.. thanks again guys i appreciate your patience with me.

 

so if the car is on, and the RCAs are unplugged at the amp/headunit, do you have any static?

if so, it's gotta be the amplifier itself, or the power/ground.

if the static goes away, it could still be the amp, because it may "turn off" when no RCAs are detected...

if you would just use a walkman of some kind and wire it to your amplifier directly, you'd be helping yourself out a lot.

the best thing you could do is pull the amp AND the headunit and run them off of a separate 12v battery... if you have NO static, then it's your vehicle's electrical system...

 

alright, i will try that. Since i have everything ripped apart anyway i could just run patch wires to power those guys. ill c what luck i have.

 

Ok, lets see if you can make something out of this. I looked on crutchfield.com and found that to test out the rca connectors you should take a stereo rca and look one 'side' into the left and right. Well i hooked both red connectors into the rear side of the amplifier and when i turned the car on i heard all the static. When the car was off i heard none of course, but what would that mean as for hearing my engine rev? Should i move my ground spot to somewhere different?

 

OK, if the first part of this statement is true, then it’s not coming for the power wires to the amp.
What do you mean by ‘race wire’? Are they solid core?
What’s the make and model of the amp and the first HU?
Is this noise there in tuner mode and CD mode or just one or the other?

 

NEEDAZ, couldn't it still be the power wire, because don't some amps 'mute' themselves when the RCAs are disconnected? Meaning that when he pulls the RCAs, there would be no static because it's basically off. That's why I wanted him to test a portable CD player so we'd know for sure if it was the power or RCAs that were the problem.

 

usually when you have alternator whine, it's because of a poorly-grounded headunit... in my experience.

 

Needaz, the old headunit was a panasonic model from like 2001. The new amplifier is a 05 infinity 4 channel pushing 111 rms. I meant that they r taylor solid cores and i also run shorty accel plugs to fit under the headers. I am running an msd ditributor also. The noise is throughout the tuner and the cd player.

Scrapmaker, i forgot i had a connection to hookup my mp3 player through rcas so i gave it a shot. I get absolutely no static when the car is on or off.

I was wrong...i still have my rca wires ripped out so i figured with the new headunit i would see if the amp mutes the sound when i pull it out of the amp, and it does. When i pull the wires out of the rca inputs of the amp, the sound dissapears when the car is running but when i pull the plug from the headunit the static remains. i don't think its originating in my rca's though because: #1. the rca's are already wired external and moving them around makes no difference. #2. triple shielded isn't for nothin. #3. i took the subwoofer rca's and wired them up to the rear speakers and got just as much static.

Should i pick up an alternator noise suppressor? or should i try grounding my amp at a different spot, or should i try a different ground for my headunit? When you say that i have a bad ground i just have a hard time believing that because after power sanding everything down to the metal shine, it won't get any better. Maybe i need to figure out a better ground for my engine or alternator? any other ideas..i have tried everything so far and no luck what so ever. Also, I figured I would just leave the radio shack headunit power noise suppressor in so i know that is not the problem.

 

Can i get static from my remote wire? I did realize that it runs almost parallel with my power line.

 

Well, that’s all good quality equipment. I hate to drop this, but you may try swapping out the plug wires. I’ll admit I don’t have much experience with solid core wires, and there’s a reason. Solid core wires are notorious for RFI. And at this point I’m leaning to RFI, not grounds. Don’t be disappointed, chances are if you have a stereo, you don’t need solid core wires and will not see any difference by going to standard 8MM. To save a couple of bucks on the test, get the Summit 8MM wires, there made by Tylor. Good luck.

 

This is what I've gathered so far:

- Amplifier plays absolutely no static with portable mp3 player directly plugged in.

- Amplifier has static with headunit disconnected from RCAs, but when the actual RCAs are still plugged into the headunit, there is static. While there is no static if the cables are completely removed--because, as I mentioned earlier, amps mute themselves when there is no input.

- You have static only when the car is on.

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of those points.

From all of this, I'd say that for sure you aren't having amplifier power-wire issues... if the race wires were interfering, they'd do it even with the portable mp3 player.

It's either interference with the RCAs, or interference with the headunit itself, since we know it's not the amp, for sure.

Now that I think about it... it could possibly be the grounding of the headunit... because if the ground on the headunit is bad, it will try to ground itself through the antenna connection, as well as the RCAs (all the way back to your amplifier... causing rpm-specific static sometimes.)

This is what happened on my pioneer deck, and I solved the problem by literally running a small wire from the metal of the RCA cable connector to the chassis of the headunit... but that still requires a good headunit ground. Since you already tried this... it might mean that the headunit ground is still bad..

can you try this for us? just put your car in 'run' mode, and tell us if you hear ANYTHING weird... when I had grounding/rca issues, I could actually hear static then, because the ignition was running, and the fuel pump made noise as well...

 

Where was the MP3 player, front of car or rear?

 

sounded like he used the (already-externally-wired) RCAs he had laying around... for testing...

if he used the actual headunit wires, that would have been even better.

 

i get no static or anything wierd what so ever when the power is juiced to the car. i had the mp3 player in the rear of the car also. To this point now that u say that i have to believe that it is my alternator. it cant be my fuel pump because i have a mechanically driven. That was a smart idea, i never thought to narrow down ignition by turnin the key the opposite direction, haha. I will try and ground my connection at a better spot but i dont know of any. Do you think it is better to ground the connection at the chasis right under the headunit or just connect it to the existing ground wire from the mess of wires inside the headunit cavity? Right now i hav it grounded right under the headunit itself on the chasis.

 

people will argue with me, but I honestly couldn't get a good enough ground with a chassis ground on the headunit... I just used the harness ground, and it works perfectly fine... it definitely wouldn't cause static, it just may not be large enough, depending on your headunit. (most work fine)

try plugging the mp3 player in at the exact spot the headunit normally interfaces with the RCAs... lets see if the RCAs are picking up static themselves, or if it is definitely the headunit.

a side note here.

when I had the Hifonics 1601D amplifier, brand new, I could NOT hook it up on the same power circuit as my headunit, otherwise I'd get EXTREME static.

if I ran the amplifier all by itself on a separate car battery, the static was minimal... no matter how I grounded the headunit, or the amplifier, or routed the power wire, I could not solve the static.

I had static with the car off even.

I determined it MUST be the amplifier... even though that amplifier works perfectly fine in two separate vehicles that I've tested it in. I sold the Hifonics to my brother, and I purchased the eD nINE.1... no static, plus more power than the BX1601D

I hate to say it, but it may be your amp.

do you have any amp you can temporarily test on these components?

 

Where in PA are you? Close to Carrall County MD?

 

Wow that would be awesome if you got the Guru himself to show up and diagnose your problem...

 

well i live in berks county in pennsylvania. Its at least 3 hours to ocean city, thats about all i know how to get to in maryland. I will try hookin that up to my factory wiring harness ground, but in the mean time im goin to the beach so i wont be able to respond for a lil while. thanks guys!

 

how's the 'beach' where you're going?

I say 'beach,' because we all know Padre has the best!

 

ok, back from rehoboth. I'm thinkin of wiring a battery line right to the headunit and eliminate the harness all together. I read that sometimes with older cars static can come from problems in the harness so by bypassing it all together the problems go away. Short of pullin the entire motor out i think i may put an alternator suppressor on and see how that works also.

 

before you go to running all these extra wires... how hard would it be for you to pull your car battery and run your amp and headunit directly from the battery?

if you still have static then, it HAS to be the actual headunit or amplifier..

I think it's your headunit

 

the only reason i think highly against my headunit is the fact that i had static with my last headunit when i installed the amplifier and now this is a new headunit. But, if that would narrow it down, ill c if i can get another battery. Shouldn' t be hard considering im workin at a battery plant right now, haha. Somehow i think that there may be a short somewhere causing this static, because a lil while ago i noticed that on my fuse panel the ecm fuse blew and so did another fuse (i cant remember). but the point is ther not being used. and when i swapped out the computer for the carb setup, i never took anything out. So..call it a ghetto job, but i still hav those wires hangin around. I didn't know which wires to cut so i figured i would just leave the whole setup and stuff it into the fender well. quite possibly that could b causing an issue.

 

try the battery/external setup, and let us know what happens.

 

guess what guys, i fixed the static problem. My dad gave me the idea to replace the spark plugs with resistor type. In the process i found a wire groundin out on the headers because it melted the wire a lil and i ran 2 wires from the battery to the headunit for ground and power. Those plugs did it and now i have absolutely no static, thanks for all your added suggestions guys!

 

This is, in essence, what I already suggested when I told you to try other plug wires. It’s so nice to know people listen.