Help wiring 4 channel amp

[NightRider05 10+ year member]

Well I decided to amp my 2 planet audio 6.5" component sets. I got a alpine v12 4 channel amp. I wired the amplifier up and ran all of the speaker wires back to the speakers after running the RCA's. I have the front two speakers on channels 1 and 2 and the rear speakers on channels 3 and 4. I ran into a problem on where to hook all of the RCA's up since the back of my head unit has 3 sets outputs(its a pioneer 960mp). One of the sets was for the subs and the other two were mids/highs. On the amp you can put 3 sets of RCA's on it(1&2,3&4, 1+3). I had it all hooked up the way i figured it should go and it sounded great, except for a loud whining noise that got louder as the engine revved. I figured it was a bad ground in the amp so I regrounded it to a place I know is good. Well when I went to turn the amp on it wont kick on, so I finepointed that to the remote wire(I guess it got cut somewhere along the line) so i just bridged a wire from the Positive on the amp to the remote to get it to kick on, but now it sounds crappy. Anybody have any help on how to hook the RCA's up from the head unit to the amp? I have done a search and didn't find what I was looking for. The only thing I found to explain the whining noise is a bad ground in the headunit.Any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S-Just wanted to add that some feedback or weird noise is also coming through the sub.

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[ashaman 10+ year member]

You should just use the 2 sets of RCA's on your amp. 1,2,3 and 4 channel. Putting two component sets in a car is not really a good idea. It can really mess up your imaging. Try just using one set and see how it sounds up front. As for the whine, check your ground for your amp as well.

 

[NightRider05 10+ year member]

Well I was just using the two sets of RCA's and not using the other one that says 1+3. It actually sounded really good when I first had it hooked up, except for that whining noise. Im not really sure what imaging is so I cant agree or disagree with you on that. I did check my amp ground and I went ahead and grounded it to the same place my other amps are grounded to. The only ground I havent checked is my HU ground. Thanks for the help.

 

[Hybrid90accord 10+ year member]

I hope you did mess up your ground trace on your headunit like i did if so you will have to send it off to get serviced or get a new headunit.

 

[NightRider05 10+ year member]

Why would you hope that? Oh and thanks for the help...not

 

[datguyclark 10+ year member]

i think he meant "he hopes you didnt", he is just a retard or something

 

[johnecon2001 5,000+ posts]

For the whining noise that didnt go away... reground the head unit to a piece of the frame under your dash. The remot wire should really be coming from the HU not the 12v constant line. Do it right, the first time, so you don't end up with problems in the future.

I wouldnt worry about a bad HU just yet, try the above things and if its not working for you THEN have the HU checked out.

 

[axel]

Accually man. I have the same exact problem.... its accually common with the 960 and 9600 for the ground to blow... this is the second unit that i had to get and replace for this same reason.. Loud car noise and a constant whinning. I Just took mine apart to see if i could find the problem, but i didnt now i have to take it in. The reason my ground trace messed up is cause i touched a negative and a possitive on my speaker together... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif Any suggestions guys?

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

Putting two component sets in a car is not really a good idea. It can really mess up your imaging.

It takes some work, trial & error, and a lot of fiddling around to get it right but it's only a bad idea if you're not willing to invest the install time to get it how it needs to be. I have two sets of components in my car and the imaging is just fine, IMO, tyvm.

To be honest it was a huge pain in the posterior getting the rear tweets aimed and attenuated right but in the end I found it to be well worth the trouble.

As for the original poster - it does sound like he's encountered the infamous Pioneer ground trace problem in their recently produced head units. If your head unit and amplifier grounds are good (check these with a multimeter to verify the solidity of the ground connections) then I'd have the HU looked at to see if therein lies your noise problem.

 

[axel]

Well what exactly is a ground trace?