Ground Noise?

[sungwei 10+ year member]

When my car starts a high pitched, static-like, noise is heard over the speakers. When the engine is not running I don't hear it. The noise does not increase when I step on the gas. You can hear it fluctuate a little when gas is pressed down.

The noise was not there before installing my sub. It was only present after sub was installed.

My power wire runs down the driver side of car and my driver side speaker wires. My RCAs run down the passenger side as do my pass speaker wires.

My ground cable is 4' long and 8 guage and attached to top of trunk with nut and bolt and paint is sanded down. Power wire is 4 into 8 gauge, but I just bought a 4 into 4 connector which is going to replace it. I also got 4 gauge ground wire which will replace existing ground.

Any idea on what this noise is and how to get rid of it?

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[tplaya07 10+ year member]

Try a different ground location(on bottom of trunk preferably) and make sure you sand down to bare metal. And also try seperating the speaker wires and power as much as possible.

 

[sungwei 10+ year member]

Ok, I'll try relocating ground. ****, I knew I should have bought a longer length!

Any other suggestions feel free to chime in. I'm still wondering why this only happened after I put my sub in.

 

[sungwei 10+ year member]

Solved problem! Turns out the xtant 403a has balanced inputs which you can turn on or off. Well I turned them on and the ground noise is cancelled out completely. Amazing amp! I am still going to do the 4 gauge power wire and ground just to be safe. Never hurts to take extra precautions.

 

[paikiah 5,000+ posts]

what you really need to do is:

upgrade the ground cables in your engine bay, as well as your positive wire on the alternator.

 

[sungwei 10+ year member]

Should I still do that even though the balanced input cancels out the noise?

 

[paikiah 5,000+ posts]

you wanted the "safe" route, and that was jsut an option. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif