HELP! car stereo alternator noise
 

Ok first of all this is by far the first time ive installed a stereo. Heres the prob. Alternator noise everywhere. Ive ran 4guage from battery to 1 farad cap, to dist block. Chassis ground to dist. block (seat bracket bolt.) I have ran clean power from the positive in back to the head unit and the ground also. Im still getting whine. Use muting plugs on the amp no noise, plugs on x-over no noise, EQ no noise, but sure as can be plug the RCA's and if ive got the Head unit in the back of the car....no noise. Mount the head unit in the cage...noise. Im running Ixos RCA's from the head unit to the EQ if i change then out run them another path doesn't matter still get noise.

That said, the noise has to be coming from the H.U. right?
Where? where is this noise coming from. The antenna gives me noise. but when i take it off the HU I still get noise. I pust a "bandaide" pac filter on the rca's its a little better (at the HU) that helps but kills Sound quality....since thats what im competing in thats not an option.

Got any ideas? Ill take anything right now. Ive contacted David Navone and he hasn't got back to me yet but maybe, maybe some one here has had a problem like this.

Pleas help!

Jeff

Did you try running a ground from the deck to a ground inside the dash? If I understand you correctly, you have a ground running from a distribution block in the trunk area all the way up to the deck. This would mean that your deck ground is probably 10 feet long.

Also, do you use the same RCA cables when you have the deck in the back and get no noise, as when you have the deck mounted? If you are using a different set of RCAs for your testing, I would try a different set of RCAs from the amp to the deck as well.

FWIW, I would expect that the chassis of the deck tends to act as a ground, and having a ground away from the dashboard area may have resulted in an unintended ground loop.

If you haven't tried this, give it a shot and let us know what happens.

Yes I used the same RCA's in the test setup as the actual setup. When I moved the ground from the dash it improved the noise greatly....any more ideas

The only other obvious thought I had was if you are running the RCA's along your power and ground wires.

I don't have a ton of other ideas right now. Did you post this at the other forums as well? There are some really knowledgable people there that may have other/better suggestions as well.

The RCA's are seperated completly from the power. Even in the amprack.

I have posted this other places and emailed David Navone also. Im trying to get help where ever I can. If anyone can think of anything else, please help!

ha ha fixed it. It ended up being the head unit. I repaced the head unit with an old xceleron 715 that i had laying around and low and behold...all noise left went by by.

so...any one know where i can get a good price on a kenwood cdc-x959?

THis is a weird one, and possibly too simple, but I had ALOT of problems with my RCA's coming in contact with the vertical support brace diredtly behind me stereo. Perhaps the different deck routes them diffferently so that they don't contact the brace? I might be off, but it made ALOT of noise with my setup. try shrinkwrapping, or taping etc as well?

actually both decks route the RCA's in the same place/direction. The difference is the quality deck. I had a mid grade Kenwood cd/mp3 player, much like the one that come stock in the Mazda MP3. The one I replaced it with is an older xceleron x715. The cd/mp3 deck doesn't put out as clean/high voltage pre outs. My audio control EQL line driver was pickin the noise up and amplifying it. The exceleron also has an internal isolated power supply that grounds the rca circuit insted of the common chasis ground the cd/mp3 deck has.:wtf:

Well anywho its fixed. Although I have to find a new head unit now.