From good to bad : amp swap

[eas 10+ year member]

Hi,

Pretty limited experience here, I know the very basics of installing a simple system, so was hoping some experts could help me out here with some advice.

I decided to up the game a little bit on the audio front in the car & ordered a 5 channel Kicker amp (4X75 + 1*250) to replace my 4 channel (4*50) Pheonix Gold amp.

I got the new amp yesterday & thinking that it would be a simple swap out, I unhooked the Pheonix and dropped the Kicker in. To my disgust, when I turned the car on for a test, engine whine central!

Never heard a hint of whine with the Pheonix Gold at any volume, so now I'm confused about where it could be coming from?!? I'm having some issues with the rear channels of the amp as well, seems to be acting up a bit but I havent really had time to troubleshoot properly.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking the whine could be a problem with the amp - nothing in the set up changed with exception of the amp.

Just wondering if someone could let me know any other reason why this could be happening? I know the Kicker is considerably more powerfull than the Pheonix Gold.....but still.

thanks

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[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

this is a noob question... but.....

did you unhook the battery before you swapped the amp in? did you 'hot swap' the rca's? what headunit?

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

your power wire crossing any of the RCA's?

 

[05fronty 5,000+ posts]

model of both amps

 

[eas 10+ year member]

thanks guys, answers below...

did you unhook the battery before you swapped the amp in? did you 'hot swap' the rca's? what headunit?

yes, unhooked neg. on battery first. Head unit is a pioneer DEH-9300SD

DEH-9300SD CD Tuner with iPod Control, Music Browser, Front USB, SD and 3 Hi-Volt RCA Pre-outs (White) (2011 Model) - Pioneer Car Audio - CD Player

your power wire crossing any of the RCA's?

No, power runs down one side & insulated RCA's down the other

model of both amps

KICKER-08ZX7005

Phoenix Gold Octane-R 5.0:4

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

pioneer HU = whine

ground your RCAs and i bet it helps a LOT

 

[eas 10+ year member]

thanks for that - I will try groudingRCA's but wouldnt if it was a problem with the RCA ground, wouldnt it have been the same with the Pheonix Gold?

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

those PICO fuses in the pioneer units seem to be fragile. thats why i asked about the rca's hot-swap. i stay away from pioneer for that very issue. i'm not 100% guaranteeing that is the problem though.

you do know how to ground the rca's, right?

(similar to this)

 

[eas 10+ year member]

cool, thanks for that. This is the first I've heard about this pico fuse BS. I knew I should have stuck with alpine.

If hot swapping causes this to happen, then it's possible that I've blown that fuse, I was swapping RCA's around trying to figure out another issue.

Head unit is a complete pain in the hole to get at... I hate this stuff.

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

you must have google'd pico fuse. lol

 

[eas 10+ year member]

bingo.

WTF...again, should have stuck with Alpine.

I'm going to hook my old amp up first though, just to see.

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

you might can do it at the amp? hell i just do all mine and it's been fine.

 

[nateberrier 10+ year member]

probably the deck, if its reeeal bad that is.

 

---------- Post added at 08:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:03 PM ----------

 

on that note, grounding it will fix it and you wont notice

 

[eas 10+ year member]

ok, so spent the past hour or so troubleshooting this.

Before I turned the ignition on I did a test, no noise. I did a 4 channel balance/fader test just to be sure all was good there. I found that the signal into the front left speaker was quite weak compared to the front right. First thing I did was reverse the left + right speaker cable on the amp, the problem followed the cable to the right front speaker...problem in the speaker cable connection to the amp?! Unhooked & rehooked the cable several times, the problem was not with the connection on the amp side. So, I gave up on that problem & moved onto the bigger problem, the engine whine.

Starting with the earth, found a solid place for the cable and dremeled the paint clean off. Tested, nope..still loads of engine whine. BUT....I noticed it was mostly (or all) coming from the bum speaker I tried to fix earlier. Went to the amp and unhooked the speaker. Bingo, clean signal in the rest of the system.

So, the speaker cable is what's causing the problem & it seems it's only to one speaker. Now, as much as I hate to admit it, I think I'm probably a victim if my own lazyness....I may or may not have been as carfull as I should have been while hooking the new speaker cables to the OEM lines. When will I ever learn....

2 possibilites as see them are

1) as stated above, it's behind the head unit

2) the cable has become damaged somewhere between the amp & head unit.

Any other theories ?

I'm still confused as to why this did'nt seems to cause issues with my other amp?!?

thanks for help above.

Cheers

 

[eas 10+ year member]

ok, another update...

I was wrong earlier when I thought it was speaker cable. After 5 hours I've finally solved the problem, it was an RCA lead.

Basically had the head unit out so figured I'd give it a go - had a spare lead so ran it from the head unit directly to the amp, voila!

Still not sure why it's the lead or how changing amps had made this problem come out. One thing is for sure, I didn't think swapping an amp would result in so much work.

Hopefully that that's the end of that!