Hi Morphsuit, here in the great (sogg) PacNW I've heard all of my life when vehicular electric components start going mushuga I've often heard "Your grounds are bad" not knowing what it meant. Belonging to a Jeep group and noting posts by an auto electrical guru he's posted the following;"JEEP WAS THE CHEAPEST AMERICAN COMPANY I'VE EVER SEEN.
They simply didn't add dedicated 'Grounds' unless forced to and every circuit is 'Undersized', meaning you can't expand on it without out stripping the capacity of the circuit.
RULE
#1 .
IF THE JUICE GETS IN, IT MUST GET OUT FOR ANYTHING TO WORK.
RULE
#2 .
IF YOU WANT IT TO WORK, ADD A DEDICATED GROUND. (see 'RULE
#1 .')
RULE
#3 .
EVERY ELECTRON YOUR VEHICLE USES COMES FROM THE ALTERNATOR, NOT THE BATTERY!
RULE
#4 .
CRIMP CONNECTORS AND 'SCOTCH LOCKS' ARE NOT PROPER ELECTRICAL CONNECTIONS!
RULE
#5 .
YOUR JEEP IS ABOUT 7 ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS FLYING IN CLOSE FORMATION, BUT NOT ACTUALLY CONNECTED UNTIL YOU PUT IN DEDICATED GROUND WIRES.
RULE
#6 .
WHERE RUST IS, ELECTRICAL CONNECTIONS WILL NOT BE.
(If you don't have any rust , this doesn't apply to you!)
RULE
#7 .
STEEL IS A HORRIBLE CONDUCTOR OF ELECTRICITY.
RULE
#8 .
JEEP WAS CHEAP! THEY ONLY INSTALLED MINIMAL CIRCUITS TO MAKE THINGS WORK. IF YOU 'ADD ON' ANYTHING, YOU WILL HAVE TO PROVIDE MORE ELECTRICAL CURRENT TO MAKE IT WORK CORRECTLY.
RULE
#9 .
HEADLIGHTS ARE SACRED, ESPECIALLY LOW BEAMS, AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH TO KEEP YOU ALIVE!
RULE
#1 0.
CIRCUIT PROTECTION (Breakers, Fuses, Fusible Links) KEEP YOUR VEHICLE FROM BURNING DOWN. USE THEM! "
While 'JeepHammer' focuses on Jeeps his remarks cross over to most other vehicles, especially given the wimpy wiring I've seen myself on late model autos. All that being said, did you ground the speakers back to the head unit wiring? Or to a body panel? If it's more of a popping noice an old school fix is to add a capacitor on the power feed line to head unit, but I'd suspect addressing your grounds first. On my Jeep, I pulled a ground bus bar from an electrical panel at Hab for Humianity ran a 6 gauge wire from my negative battery terminal of my secondary battery, and in turn ran all of my grounds to the bus bar. It's amazing how simple things like this have such a large impact.
