whining noise!

[sammy1 10+ year member]

ok, I have whining noise and I'm not sure where its coming from beacuse I've wired the RCA's and the power/ground on opposite sides. I'm not sure if its the wires or the amp(i'm doubting its the amp, but maybe one of the wires). anyway, I was thinking of getting one of those noise reducers but I was afraid of losing sound quality because I installed one of those.

can you guys give me the pros and cons of installing a noise reducer? thanks!

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[tRiGgEr 5,000+ posts]

Check the amp ground and the Head unit ground. Usually the cause is the ground.

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

If you cut your arm 4" deep are you going to put a band aid on it? Same thing for noise reducers, find the problem. It is usually a ground wire or ground potential. List your installed equipment.

 

[sammy1 10+ year member]

ok, I dont have exact models but here is what I have:

my headunit is a Pioneer

my amp is a MA Audio (6 channel) amp

and my subs are also MA Audio

If it helps for me to get model number etc. I'll do it. let me know guys. Thanks in advance for the help. I'll check the ground wire(hopefully its something stupid like that).

if the terminal holding the ground wire to the body is dirty, would that cause whinning noise? stupid question, but had to ask

BTW, that was funny about the bleeding arm. LOL!

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

I was going to guess that you had a PIoneer head unit, no BS. Pioneer has notoriously poor internal ground planes that can result in a breeding ground for noise. Most head units are made for the people that will never use them with an amp or amps, thus no noise is ever heard as there is no difference in ground potentials. My guess is that you have a major difference in ground potentials between the amp and the cd player. Check the grounds on both. Remove the cd player from the dash and ground it to the amplifier. Make sure the cd player does not have the antenna plugged in and is not touching metal of any kind (gearshift for example or keys). Do you still have noise.

The amp ground is highly important. It needs to be clean and as low a resistance reading as possible. There is a thread started just above / below this one that you should read about grounding. It will give you some good info. With multiple amplifiers the chance of a difference in ground potentials is that much higher, with a sigle 6channel amp, I am immediately drawn to the good ol' Pioneer and it's known ground plane issue and the ground of the amplifier.

 

[sammy1 10+ year member]

I thought I had a ground problem btu I was too lazy to try and find it so thats why I asked about the noise reducer but you know what, this weekend, I'm going to check every single spot that I can think of that would cause the speakers to whine the way that they do. i've almost gotten used to it but when I have someone in my car its almost embarrasing. LOL! anyway, I'll let you guys know of the results after this weekend. hopefully I'll figure out whats wrong. thanks for the info forbidden

 

[snb778 5,000+ posts]

Hey man, I had the EXACT same problem in my car, and the installers said I needed a sound dampner, so I bought one (this is Excel Audio in Palatine IL), and it was NOT the correct decision. Try shaking your terminals on your amp a little bit...that is what was wrong with my system.

 

[sammy1 10+ year member]

well guys, i figured out my problem //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/handclap.gif.0c301076f534e244f0460706894f19e0.gif

I had a bad(very dirty) ground. I replaced the gorund wire terminal, cleaned the area(sanded it down a little bit) it was touching and that cleared it right up!

thanks to all whom helped me //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/angel.gif.fa7795fff6653f4381ba158c55a48b74.gif

 

[sammy1 10+ year member]

well, the noise came back but I think it has to do with the HU..I'm gonna play with the ground on the HU tonight and hopefully thats the problem!

 

[ANeonRider 10+ year member]

well, the noise came back but I think it has to do with the HU..I'm gonna play with the ground on the HU tonight and hopefully thats the problem!

Disconnect the RCA's from the amplifier. Is the noise still there? If so, it is the amp ground that is the problem. If not, then it is the HU ground. Also, a whining noise can be caused by poor alternator and battery grounds (this would cause a potential difference and effectively a poor amp ground).

 

[clarity413 10+ year member]

Did your rca's ever touch the body durring the install? you can blow out your ground trace really easy by doing that. Do you have the noise when your engine is off? I ruined my kenwood deck because I had the car on when I was doing my install (110 degrees outside) and I ran the rca's with everything on. I didn't even think that it could hurt anything. Anyways, I had to buy a new deck because of it.

 

[sammy1 10+ year member]

thanks aneonrider! i'll give that a try as its pretty easy to disconnect that rca for me...

clarity413...no, they never touched but I'mreally thinking to myself that its the ground on the HU because if you read my post up above, you'll see that i thought I had it resolved but then it came back...well, when I thought I fixed it, I know for a fact that i cleaned the heck out of the ground on the amp and the area around it and I would be extremely suprised if the amp is the culprit. the whining came back was when I removed the hu to fix an rca cable then all of a sudden ti came back which leads me to belevie the ground moved and thats how i got the whining noise again.

also, when the car is off, I get no whining noise at all...its only when the car is running...

 

[BigPimpin18 10+ year member]

try your engine grounds. Like aneonrider said. A bad battery or alternator ground could be the problem.