whining sound in mids and high's

[joshpoints 10+ year member]

I am having trouble with alternator whining noise. Two amp manuals that I have say it is almost always caused by badly grounded rca patch cable? What does that mean my rca's are crappy? I'm running knukonceptz rca cable. Could it be the amp? I wonder if some expensive extremely well insulated rca's would fix it? Has anyone else had this problem switched to a different brand rca and then had the noise go away?

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[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

How do you have the amps grounded?

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

do you have an ipod or portable cd player? use that and get a mini-jack to rca out cable and plug that into your amp instead of your headunit, and play a song and see if you got noise. if you do, you can eleminate the headunit and rca's

 

[jacka 10+ year member]

is it a pioneer? could try grounding your rca's. i had a whine in my speakers and grounding my rca's fixed it. I got ~18 gauge wire and stripped enough to wrap around the connection part of the rca (the outside, not the pin in the middle) and then grounded that. worked fine afterwards

 

[joshpoints 10+ year member]

do you have an ipod or portable cd player? use that and get a mini-jack to rca out cable and plug that into your amp instead of your headunit, and play a song and see if you got noise. if you do, you can eleminate the headunit and rca's

You my friend are a genious. I'm going to radio shack today.

 

[joshpoints 10+ year member]

is it a pioneer? could try grounding your rca's. i had a whine in my speakers and grounding my rca's fixed it. I got ~18 gauge wire and stripped enough to wrap around the connection part of the rca (the outside, not the pin in the middle) and then grounded that. worked fine afterwards

Interesting. I'll try that pending the results of portable cd player. Thanks for awesome tips guys.

 

[joshpoints 10+ year member]

do you have an ipod or portable cd player? use that and get a mini-jack to rca out cable and plug that into your amp instead of your headunit, and play a song and see if you got noise. if you do, you can eleminate the headunit and rca's

Well whining went away, so at least I know it's not the amp. I guess it comes down to the rca's or the hu. I really think it's the rca's. I have the hu grounded. I guess I'll try and ground the rca's now. Do I want to use the same grounding point that I'm using for the amps?

 

[jacka 10+ year member]

well first you can see if it really is the rca's.. just grab any wire, strip both ends, then touch the outer part of the rca's with one end and your chassis with the other. if the noise is gone, its the rca's. ground em. i did mine at the headunit so it doesn't show in the trunk.

 

[joshpoints 10+ year member]

is it a pioneer? could try grounding your rca's. i had a whine in my speakers and grounding my rca's fixed it. I got ~18 gauge wire and stripped enough to wrap around the connection part of the rca (the outside, not the pin in the middle) and then grounded that. worked fine afterwards

How did you get the wire to stay around the rca cord, zip ties or something?

HU is a panasonic. But I had this same whining problem withe the sony hu I had in before. In the past if I play with the rca wires (move them a little bit) the amount of whining decreases. In my opinion rca's shouldn't be this sensitive and the shielding should be sufficient to prevent this interference. I have my power wire run down the opposit side of the car. In the back of the car the rca's and power wires are close but there's nothing I can do about that and the rca's are probaby touching some power wires behind the hu because there's a lot of wires back there.

 

[jacka 10+ year member]

well to test it, just hold it together so the wire and rca touch. then hold the other end to your chassis. for actually grounding them, you can use electrical tape.

 

[joshpoints 10+ year member]

well to test it, just hold it together so the wire and rca touch. then hold the other end to your chassis. for actually grounding them, you can use electrical tape.

You get huge reps for this. Very little noise now. It is only noticeable when my volume is a 2 (hardly on) once I'm passed this volume it's inaudible to the ear. I'm guessing it is slightly noticeable at 2 because the signal isn't that strong. Also noticed my AM stations come in super clear now. Before I'd have to turn the AM stations way up because the whine was really really bad. My rca's actually unscrew so I was able to unscrew them and then wrap the wire around the rca and then screw them down tight to clamp it into place (that probably doesn't make sense without pics but it worked).

 

[joshpoints 10+ year member]

Well I guess it was a coincidence. The whine is back even after grounding the rca's. F-knukonceptz rca cable. Maybe their newer cables are better but this set I bought a few years ago sucks. Maybe I'll get monster cable. That's going to cost me a lot considering how long the cable will have to be.