No idea whats wrong. . .

[Istari1 10+ year member]

Ok, so I just got a new Eclipse 8445 cause the face on my old alpine had gone nutty for a while and then my whole system started sounding like crap (staticy to hell, barely can hear the actual music) and I figured the Alpine had finally just completely blown. ANyway installed my new HU and the system sounds the same //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif Hard to describe the sound, sounds sorta like very horrible radio reception, but even the CD sounds that way so its not just bad antenna. So its not the HU since I swapped them and still get it. I tried disconnecting the left speakers/ then the right to see if it was the speakers. No change. So I have narrowed it down to the HU or wiring. The system has been in my car for two years, is it possible a RCA has gone bad? How would I test this? Any other thoughts? The amp (JL 300/2) has only the power light on, seems to think its fine. I'm at a loss. Hope someone can help me.

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[Istari1 10+ year member]

bump . . . cause I know some of you audio experts have seen something like this before, or can get me going on a process to debug this. I have a small volt meter also.

 

[Decipha 10+ year member]

probably amp going bad... can you swap that out?

btw whats the ohm load on the speakers present at the internal amp of the HU?

sounds like you could possibly have it too low

 

[tRiGgEr 5,000+ posts]

If you swapped the head unit and the problem is still there. It's obviously not the head unit. If you can try some new RCA's. Or try swapping the amp. You started at the head unit now just keep going...

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

get a mp3 player, walkman, or something portable. get a headphone -> RCA cord from radioshack (or your junk drawer lol) and remove the RCA inputs from your amp, plug in the portable media player, and turn your car on. you are now using your portable media player as the "head unit."

if it still sounds bad, your amp has shitted the bed. if not, its the RCA's because you have already tested the headunit. i can almost guarantee its not the headunit or the RCA's.

sorry for the poor new mi amigo.

 

[Istari1 10+ year member]

I'm thinking its the amp also, I guess the bigger question is, if it is the amp then I need to diagnose why this happened so the next amp I buy will not get shot down the same way. When I first did this install I had an issue with the door speakers grounding themselves to the door panel (I have to use thick spacers so the windows dont hit the speaker when they roll down). I insulted the door and the speakers terminals very well so this wouldnt happen and my guess is maybe somehopw it happened again. I'll be very upset if an expensive amp like a JL doesnt protect itself from crap like this though, very dissapointing. . . I like the Ipod idea, my girl has one. So basically I can get an ipod adapter that will use an RCA output? Then run that into the amp and see if it plays on my speakers? Good idea.

Anyone else with some good thoughts? Thanks for all the advice guys.

 

[tRiGgEr 5,000+ posts]

A speaker grounding out will not cause that. If a speaker were to ground out(cut wire exposed to metal) it would just shut the amp off.

What type of noise is it? Alt whine? Or just white noise?

 

[Istari1 10+ year member]

The only way to describe it is that it sounds like horrible radio reception. I can vaguely hear the music but its crackly and almost lost amoung alot of static. To me the static sounds more harsh then simple white noise, but I could be mistaken.

 

[truckstoy 10+ year member]

have you checked the ground to your amp

 

[snoopdan 5,000+ posts]

yeah, my amp for my mids and highs sounds like static if the ground is loose, or I forgot to hook it up alltogether and its trying to reverse ground off of the RCA cable sheaths instead.

 

[Istari1 10+ year member]

Actually I will admit I have not checked the amp ground. Its grounded to a VERY large bolt though in a manner that I dont believe there is any way it could get loose. Good suggestion though I will check it and see if maybe it got loose. Do grounds "go bad"?

 

[bri487 5,000+ posts]

its probably the amp that is bad, and it is killing the decks. try swapping amps if possible, then if it still does it, it sounds like the install is faulty or the amp is feeding 12v back through the rca's.