Hey everyone, well last summer I bought my 90 GTA and it already had a a cd player installed with amp/subs (see picture)...and I noticed that every time the car is on there is a slight and sometimes more annoying buzzing/static sound in the background. It happens when music is playing and when music is not playing. The only time you don't here this sound is when the car is off. So eventually I got a new deck installed cause the older one was old and it still made this noise. What can it be? I don't know much about car audio so could it be a wire hooked up wrong to the amps or what? Could it be something interfering with the car itself? Any ideas? Thanks, Josh

 

anyone?

 

if it's coming out the subs there is noise interference...anything from a bad ground on the amps, the RCA wires from the deck are cheapo ones, or the RCA wires are run with the power wires down one side of your vehicle which it's supposed to be power and signal wire on one side and RCA on the other side of the car IIRC. If it's not that...i've had the problem that for sum reason my deck wasn't getting enough of a ground to eliminate the interference so i added a ground with success, something of a 16G size wire added to the ground on there, as the OEM grounds that are in the harness aren't usually as effecient as an added one.

 

This problem can be solved.
Does your noise increase in frequency when you rev the motor or does it stay the same?
It would also help if you let me know every component that you have installed for the audio system. Stock and aftermarket.

 

It's called "ground loop noise/interference". Connect a single wire from the chassis of the cd player to the chassis of the amplifier. You can buy filters for alot more than they're worth, but a simple and easy fix, is to run that wire.
For future jobs, when you prep your RCA's and remote wires, go ahead and add in an extra wire (the same wire as your remote is fine) that way, you already have the wire run, in case you later find out that the vehicle needs one.

 

It could be youe alternator? Or check all of your ground wirers? And the other you could have junk speakers & subs or just bad wiring to the subs & speakers. If you use small guage wire it could cause the problem too. Its going to be trial and error to find the problem. Wish i could help little more but thats all i could come up with off the top pf my head.

 

Maybe we should make a sticky with everything to do when you get unwanted noise. Here's a little guide from the crutchfield website. I like it for tracking down problems, but the solutions are lacking. If you use it to track down where the problem is and tell us what you come up with, we can help out a lot more. Just, don't buy any noise filters as it has that for most of the solutions. It's not the best, or right way to fix the problem.

 

Hey thanks for the responses...I won't be able to check anything until spring and the snow is gone...but thanks for the ideas, Josh

 

its more then likely a bad a ground or bad RCAs or maybe both

 

^^Yeah, I don't like to guess what the problems are, but if I had to bet I'd say reground the head unit to the floor with some 12 gauge wire. For all we know whoever installed it could've ran the power wire right next to the RCA's though.

 

i had similar problems.i found out i was using to small of guage wire for my ground. i switched it to i think it was 8 gauge? it came with the amp wiring kit i bought at wal-mart. fix the problem right up.

im hoping yours is just a ground. i spend days trying to find out the problem. so annoying and frusterating. i threw abit of a angry fit afew times haha

 

Something quick and easy to fix that... we sell an adaptor called a Ground Loop Isolater at Best Buy for a few bucks(like $12). Take the RCA's out of the amp, plug them into the Ground Loop, then take the Ground Loop Isolater RCA's and plug them into your amp, works great to cure the symptoms you have.
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Regrounding the head unit generally won't cure that problem, unless if it he is running a 4-channel amplifer(which case it's the amp ground, not the radio). All the radio ground is gonna primarily do is allow the radio to power on.

Yes, if your using a smaller gauge wire for ground than you are for power(8g ground - 4g power) then yeah you can receive feedback/static because the ground can't handle the load. Also, if you have multiple ground points near each other(multiple amps, etc), then the grounds can receive feedback from one another. It is recommended(MECP Standard) to run all nearby grounds to one common ground point.

 

The factory ground on the head unit isn't the best and can cause noise. I wouldn't put in a ground loop isolator, it's kind of a half assed way of fixing the problem and definitely shows. But if he wants a quick solution, then yeah, check the grounds for the amps and throw in a ground loop isolator.

 

Yeah you guys and your big speakers and amps whats that get you nothing. I would rather put my money were it counts.

 

The purple "Boss" RCA on the right amp already has the wire I was talking about running in my earlier post.

 

Wow that was an absolutely worthless post.


Anyways, back to the OP.
Like many have said, check your grounds.

Try and keep your amp grounds as short as possible, and make sure they are connected to a good clean piece of metal.

Also, keep your amp power wires and RCA apart.

Here is another test you can do to help you troubleshoot.
With the engine running, and you hear the noise. Unhook your RCA wires, if the noise is gone. Then you know the noise is coming through the RCA's,

If the noise is still present, then you know it's coming from the ground/power wires, or a it's a problem with the amps.

 

BlackGTA
I sent you a PM.