Grounding of my headunit / amp, help!

RoachForLife
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Senior VIP Member
Im having some grounding issues with my setup and its been going on for some time... finally want to fix it.

Setup:

Alpine Deck

Alpine 4x100, powering 2 6.5 RSD components

Alpine 1x1000, powering 2 JL 12s

Cabling: Kicker 0/1 power and ground, then splits to 4gauge for each of the 2 amps and ground.

I think my issue is the grounding on the headunit itself. Originally I had a wire connect to part of the metal on my dash (ie just behind the headunit area) and had some static sound every so often. Then I went on the forum for my specific car and everyone said to use the OEM wireharness for the ground, so I tried that, and same.

Its intermittant, so sometimes its fine, sometimes its very minor, other times its loud as hell and drives me crazy.

Last night I pulled the deck while the headunit was on, I noticed that wiggling the wires where they connect on the back to the preout, I could make or fix the grounding whine sound. Simply moving the wires would make it go away. Pressing back into place it came back.

So now Im thinking... are the preouts fucked up? Are the wires bad? Im not too knowledgeable in car audio, just enough to be dangerous... any suggestions on what to try next without replacing everything, would be helpful

Thanks

 
Ive read about similar things but the entire wire was stripped? Or should I basically be touching one exposed end to the RCA metal and the other to the HU casing?

Thanks

 
with the rcas plugged in wrap one end of the wire around the exposed metal of one rca then the other to the metal case of the hu usually best to do this while its playing, if the noise stops when the wire hits the case of the hu then you have found your issue

 
PR, Again my apologies but if this is the case, what is the long term solution? Do I make it so the wire is perm touching the RCA and the case? Also I have 4 RCAs plugged in (2 for sub, 2 for 2channel amp), should I do this with all 4?

Also what causes this bad ground? Are the RCA cables of lower quality?

Thanks

 
there is only one done on my hu and it solved this problem when i had it. yes, just wrap the wire tightly around the rca, not much happens behind the dash so is should stay just fine. then find a screw close to them and tighten it down on the other end of the wire.

 
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RoachForLife

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