Pictures Included! Need some advice

[Iowa]

Let me start by saying I am not experienced in this department, and mostly this system has been installed by friends of friends, etc etc.

I have a 2010 VW golf, great car. I got my hands on a Kicker Comp-r and an Infinity reference 1210a for a great price. How I get audio to the amp / sub is quite strange. I start with running an AUX cord from my phone to an AUX splitter (turns one AUX cord into 2). From here, I run one of the AUX cords to the cars AUX port, and the other AUX cord to an AUX cord that splits into the red / white plugs for the amp. I currently have it running from my battery to my amp, and the ground going to the 12v power supply (the fuses for the power supply are blown, and I plan to properly ground the device tomorrow)

To power the amp I have tried two things:

1. Use the 12v power supply in my trunk, makes it easy to unplug and turn off at night.

2. Use some wire (16g I think) from the positive end of the battery to the amp.

With each of these power methods, I am experiencing two issues:

1. Background hiss with the cars speakers, not from the sub

2. The sub or amp stopping when the volume is turned up too high.

I have tried adjusting the amps settings to stop this from happening with no luck. With my limited knowledge of car audio, my thinking is I should be able to have this thing at full blast when set up properly. Right now, even with the phone audio turned slightly down (like 70 - 80%), it bangs very nice. I mostly listen to EDM and a little rap if that makes any difference.

What I would like to know is how I can eliminate the background hiss, stop the amp / sub from cutting out when the volume on my phone is turned up to max, and anything else you guys, the experts think! Pictures included for reference.

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[cfox10 10+ year member]

I don't even know where to begin to help you out here.

Let's try...

First, that amp needs MUCH thicker wire. At the minimum I would say it needs some 4g wire, iirc it's over 1k rms amp

Secondly, you to get rid of the hissing noise you need a dedicated ground to your chasis. You need a clean ground free of paint, so you may have to sand down wherever you ground it.

Third, you are using a phone as the source for the amp. Most phones use an internal DAC and won't produce the sound all that great via the 3.5mm jack. You really should be using RCA's directly from your headunit to the amp, if it's a stock unit you should at least use high level speaker inputs.

How do you have your gains set? I have a feeling they aren't set properly as well. Post up your amp settings and we can help a bit more.

Oh, and the amp stopping when volume is too high is likely because you're not feeding it the proper power to run. You're going to kill the amp if you keep running it like that.

 

[Iowa]

Here is a picture of what the amp is set at, the bass boost is set to just over half.

So 4g wiring, for everything connected to the amp, or just for the power supply?

The ground yes, I have a friend tell me tonight how to properly ground to the chasis and we plan to do it tomorrow, found a spot and everything.

I decided to go with the AUX cord because I do not want to devalue the car by messing something up, or just having a different system with different parts someone else may not want. Nothing is hardwired excluding the battery, which i can remove by just unscrewing it from the battery. The quality of the audio from the speakers and the sub is fine for me.

As for the amp cutting in and out, i have it set on my phone so that does not happen, i figured it was not a good thing to keep testing new settings and having the same result with the amp cutting in and out... figured it was bad for the amp.

Edit* I should add everything excluding the bass boost and the imput level are set to lower than higher.

Can you elaborate on the proper power run part?

 

[cfox10 10+ year member]

Here is a picture of what the amp is set at, the bass boost is set to just over half. So 4g wiring, for everything connected to the amp, or just for the power supply?

The ground yes, I have a friend tell me tonight how to properly ground to the chasis and we plan to do it tomorrow, found a spot and everything.

I decided to go with the AUX cord because I do not want to devalue the car by messing something up, or just having a different system with different parts someone else may not want. Nothing is hardwired excluding the battery, which i can remove by just unscrewing it from the battery. The quality of the audio from the speakers and the sub is fine for me.

As for the amp cutting in and out, i have it set on my phone so that does not happen, i figured it was not a good thing to keep testing new settings and having the same result with the amp cutting in and out... figured it was bad for the amp.

Edit* I should add everything excluding the bass boost and the imput level are set to lower than higher.

Can you elaborate on the proper power run part?

You are getting a very weak input signal when running directly from your phone which increases potential noise. I would advise to at the very least look into splicing into one of your rear speaker wires and running a speaker level input. But, that's completely up to you of course.

You should use as short of ground as possible that is the same or larger than your power wire.

I would suggest a minimum of 4g for your power run, and 4g for your ground. The amplifier will shut itself off when it reaches 10v, you want to try and keep it as close to 14v as possible. A little more or less is fine. Speaker wire isn't a huge factor, don't worry about it for now.

You shouldn't use bass boost at all.

You should see a very big improvement on the loudness once you feed the amp proper power.

Edit: does this car have a stock stereo?

 

[Iowa]

Yes, everything is stock and I should say is all very nice hardware. None of the 6 speakers are blown and give really good sound.

For the phone it is strange, because I had a friend plug his phone in and we heard 0 background hiss, so the issue may be my phone. When I first tried to install this, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out the door panel trying to hardwire to one of the speakers, so I opted to try something else and not break something. Srsly VWs are built funny.

So go buy some 4g wiring, and wire it from my battery to the 12v port on my amp. Do the same for my ground, and make the ground wire shorter than the battery cord? As for the sup speakers it came with some blue wires that seemed to be pretty good quality.

So, bass boost off or pretty low. How should I set the rest of the settings tomorrow once i run the proper power cord?

 

[cfox10 10+ year member]

Yes, everything is stock and I should say is all very nice hardware. None of the 6 speakers are blown and give really good sound.
For the phone it is strange, because I had a friend plug his phone in and we heard 0 background hiss, so the issue may be my phone. When I first tried to install this, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out the door panel trying to hardwire to one of the speakers, so I opted to try something else and not break something. Srsly VWs are built funny.

So go buy some 4g wiring, and wire it from my battery to the 12v port on my amp. Do the same for my ground, and make the ground wire shorter than the battery cord? As for the sup speakers it came with some blue wires that seemed to be pretty good quality.

So, bass boost off or pretty low. How should I set the rest of the settings tomorrow once i run the proper power cord?

The proper way to set it is with an oscilloscope but you can set it by ear as well, just listen for distortion in your subwoofer. I suggest playing a test tone, something like a 40hz test tone and adjust while it's playing.

Ground wire should be as short as possible. Example, I have done extra grounds from my engine block to the chasis - not necessary but I have a few upgrades under the hood and it helps. My amp's are all grounded within 2 feet. I have roughly a foot and half of wire from my amp to my ground point.

Another option for you that would be better than directly from the phone is to run a line driver. I believe most phones have an output voltage of 100mv to 1v, which is very low. The amplifier may have a minimum voltage less than that, I'm not positive.

 

[Iowa]

Thanks again! I will try this tomorrow and report back with results. Continued ideas and discussion encouraged!

 

[cfox10 10+ year member]

Welding cable/wire is far cheaper than car audio wire and it's pure copper. I suggest going that route and purchasing a separate inline fuse if you want to keep cost down.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Yes, everything is stock and I should say is all very nice hardware. None of the 6 speakers are blown and give really good sound.
For the phone it is strange, because I had a friend plug his phone in and we heard 0 background hiss, so the issue may be my phone. When I first tried to install this, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out the door panel trying to hardwire to one of the speakers, so I opted to try something else and not break something. Srsly VWs are built funny.

So go buy some 4g wiring, and wire it from my battery to the 12v port on my amp. Do the same for my ground, and make the ground wire shorter than the battery cord? As for the sup speakers it came with some blue wires that seemed to be pretty good quality.

So, bass boost off or pretty low. How should I set the rest of the settings tomorrow once i run the proper power cord?

Knukonceptz or sky high OFC(not CCA) kits are the go to budget wire kits Most of the cheaper kits are not 4 gauge, they are 10 or 8 covered in a thick jacket so quality matters here, you get what you pay for. You can use 2 gauge welding cable from royal excellene and buy the lugs and terminals to match too if you want to save a bit.

The phone itself already has a sh*tty Digital audio convertor and a weak signal and you are splitting that up even more which is a nightmare for your sub amp barely seeing any form of pre-out signal. Get a proper line out convertor and dont be scared to work with the car. Take things slowly, look up youtube tutorials and you wont mess up anything.

 

[Iowa]

I am a little confused on what you guys are talking about relating to an AUX cord substitute. Care to elaborate further?

 

[cfox10 10+ year member]

I am a little confused on what you guys are talking about relating to an AUX cord substitute. Care to elaborate further?

Firstly, make sure you get a quality wiring kit as mentioned by Jeff. That's the most important at this point. OFC wire, the brands he mentioned are great options.

I was referencing a line driver which takes the weak signal from your phone (it's very weak already, and you're splitting that signal) and increases the output voltage. It's really not a great solution here, what Jeff is insisting is that you use a line output converter - it converts the speaker level output into a suitable signal for use by your amplifier. It would be the best solution since you would no longer need to split the aux signal from your phone, giving you cleaner sound to the speakers.

It requires minimal modifications to work and will give you much better results. Here is a cheap one that would suit you well for this setup.

Amazon.com : PAC SNI-35 Variable LOC Line Out Converter : Power Converters : Car Electronics

 

[Iowa]

so a line driver is something i would plug into the amp and would increase the incoming signal strength from my phone?

 

[Iowa]

I feel like the AUX cord will be staying for the time being, I really see no deterrent in having it... pretty good audio quality but just a little background hiss. I just want to be able to turn my amp all the way up and have a really loud sub. I just look at it now as its not even at half power, or half the potential it can be at and its cutting out.

 

[OKAY]

I feel like the AUX cord will be staying for the time being, I really see no deterrent in having it... pretty good audio quality but just a little background hiss. I just want to be able to turn my amp all the way up and have a really loud sub. I just look at it now as its not even at half power, or half the potential it can be at and its cutting out.

More background noise increasing along with other bad reasons forcing your system to work like a slave IS a deterrent.

You really shouldn't turn the amplifier gain any higher. You don't need to. Clipping the amplifier sending distortion signals to your subwoofer will kill it like cancer..you may need to raise it since you dont wanna get the line driver..but, noise will increase and the amp will work harder..you want your system to run efficiently as possible. Your not gonna get loud n low without first giving the

amp proper voltages in both power / signal wire.

Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk

 

[Iowa]

when you say amplifier gain, what setting is that on the amp?