SnackMasterX

Hello,

I have an 08 xB and have replaced all speakers and have everything amp'd and using the premium stock head unit but I am getting whining noise from my speakers that changes in pitch with the RPM's of the engine and its intermittent. One other thing about this is that sometimes when I am stopped if I put the vehicle into park the noise will go away for a while but might come back again when driving or when music is turned back on. I have tried using ground loop isolators which seem to have done nothing and in some cases made the noise worse. My father suggested the noise might be caused by the spark plugs however I am unsure what to do, does anyone have a suggestion of what I could do for this problem? Circuit city said when they have a problem like this and can't figure it out they ground the outer ring of the RCA cables however I wish to keep my install looking professional. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in Advance!

jallamas

It sounds like a ground loop. Check all grounds to everything. Also make sure that the RCA's and power wires are not close to one another.


Good luck!



John

SnackMasterX

I have the RCA cables on the driver side and power/ground on the passenger side. That's one thing I forgot to mention, CC said part of the problem might be that I am running a ground wire from the battery (not sure why this would cause a problem) however I have it grounded again in the back to the mount point for the back bench

XBFred

try to ground in a couple different places, but at the battery should be a pretty strong ground.

Also check your gains, are you getting any clipping, your gains may be set too high.

also, what kind of amps, do you have others that you can try, might be a bad amp

randomsuper

i had the same problem. my grounds were too long and weren't all that great. check your grounds.

SnackMasterX

I have a Hifonics amp for my full range and I had a Crunch amp for my subs but that blew during lunch today. I already tried turning the gain down and that didn't really do much of anything, I might try grounding a channel and see if that helps. Worse comes to worse I can always just ground the RCA's. As for the ground I have 2 AWG commercial grade wire running from the battery (its right next to the power wire which I was told might be part of the problem) and I have that going to a distribution block in the back which has an 8 AWG ground wire going to the mount point for the back bench.

SERKUS

SOUND LIKE A GROUND LOOP! you don't want to ground near the power you get a current pass through. even though your cables are shielded.

Also check to see if the speaker wires are not touching any metal anywere. sumtimes that can cause that. good luck hope you fix it!

SnackMasterX

Well I'm not sure this topic needs to go much further now, since my sub amp blew earlier today my speakers haven't been whining at all, I'll see how they work over the next couple days. Gotta call and see how much it will cost to repair the amp but sadly every last penny recently has been going to gas...greedy oil companies!

SERKUS

i feel ya... check to see if you amp has fuses inside.. sumtimes you get lucky and there is a fuse somewere inside that blew. good luck

jallamas

I think I might of said that! way up top!


John

Slody4Futbol

this stock radio IS made by pioneer... which pioneer radios are known for having this issue... make sure where you grounded the paint is sanded away and that the ground is tight against the surface... you can have ground near your power... what do you think your car is? all the metal in the car is a ground... i always have my wires zip tied to each other so they're not separated and moving around.. i've actually had rca's, speaker, power, remote, zip tied from front to back with no engine noise... run a wire from your radio ground, to your amp ground, and if nothing else, use a line output converter, that will more than likely solve your problem. the rca preouts on pioneer radios almost always have this problem, especially if plugged or unplugged while the radio is on, or the rca tip hits ground while plugged into the radio

SnackMasterX

Alright I will give it a try once I can afford to fix my sub amp, thanks.

BigJim75

I had this same issue AFTER switching my amp. I knew my ground was good as it worked with previous amp. Noise was very noticable. Note i changed the amp with battery hooked up but car OFF which was a meatball move on my part but from what I hear lesser things can cause the issue outlined below.

If you Google "Pioneer Pico Fuse" You'll find lots of information on the known weakness with Pioneer. Basically a small pico fuse, mounted on the radio circuit board, protects the radio from voltages via the rca inputs.

This fuse blows and costs $100 for replacement (all labor).

What happens when the fuse blows is it ends up using the RCA patch cables to ground the radio rca's all the way back to your amp's ground. Obviously not efficient.

What I did was took some wire, stripped the rubber and wrapped each rca jack. Once all RCA's were wrapped I tied this in to a screw on the back of the radio. Basically grounding the RCA's back to radio chassis so they didnt ground 15 feet back into the trunk (or whereever your am is).

The other way is to solder a wire on each rca sleeve (metal) and tie it to a screw on the back of the radio.

I know it sounds crazy but eliminated ALL of the whine I had in my system.

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...=13889&page=13

Let me know if it works for you!!

SnackMasterX

Well best way I could test this is to find another sub amp to toss in there but I thought for a while that my amp might be backfeeding into the stereo, I will just warranty the thing after I get the amp repaired but why would removing the sub amp stop the full range speakers from whining? Do you think it might be because of how high the voltage is on the sub amp?

BigJim75

Try leaving your amp on as is and unplug the rca connections. Turn your car on. Do you hear a whine? Mine would not whine when the RCA's were disconnected.

I think you can also feed your amp via ipod or such with an adapter. Give it a good clean signal not from HU and with car running see if you hear the noise. No noise, good ground..

I reread your original post and it sounds like Circuit City reccomended the same thing I did.

As to the whine in full range I am assuming you have those amp'd as well? For me I changed a sub amp and then ended up hearing the whine from the front amp'd door speakers. This is why it took me a bit to draw the conclusion.

Easiest thing to do is warranty the HU and be very careful when hooking up the pre-amp'd on the new HU. I did mine on a couple of occasions with no issues then the last time the fuse blew. As to why, no idea.

I'm actually replacing my HU because of the lack of equalization control so this was all pointless but an exercise nonetheless.

SnackMasterX

The whining was only with the full range speakers. My sub amp used to whine (out of the amp itself and not the speakers) but I turned the gain down and it went away but the full range speakers whine through the speakers and not the amp. I have tried unplugging the RCA's before and it did stop the whining completely, haven't tried using an adapter though from the IPOD headphone jack to RCA but I got a pair of those, just gotta find 'em. Hopefully my past luck with toyota and warranty's will continue, only time they ever take my car for a drive now is oil changes because those are free, they crashed my gen1 xB so can't really blame me for not letting them drive this one, there was engine damage on the last one and they didn't want to replace the engine...as fun as a scion is to own I will never buy from that dealership again.

bmph8ter

I hate ground loops. You can also pick up choke coils to help get rid of them if shortening the ground for your amp (as short as you can get it) doesn't hep.

SnackMasterX

Whats a Choke Coil?