I've been pulling my hair out trying to get rid of the alternator whine while my MP3 player is plugged into the cigarette lighter and the aux in of my car stereo. The whine goes away when I unplug the power adapter so it's got to be a ground loop at the cig plug. I thought that if I grounded the cigarette lighter to the same ground as the stereo the whine would go away but it didn't. I know I could go buy a ground loop isolator and put it between the RCAs in my aux input port but I'd rather fix it right. Is there anything else I can try? I was thinking maybe if I use both the stereo constant power (yellow) and the stereos ground it may get rid of it. Or perhaps a powerline filter on the positive of the cigarette lighter. Anyone have any other ideas? BTW I have no amplifiers on my system.

 

In the past i found out that keeping all my rca's and audio cables far away from my power wires helped out. They pick up an electric current through the wire jacket.

 

I don't have any power cables, other than the stock wire harness. My setup is as follows panasonic HU - rca inputs - mp3 player - power adapter. no amps

 

does it do the ground noise in both power units, center console and near the shifter one?

 

yup

 

It could be just that brand mp3 player or the power adapter. If the batteries work fine, i would just pick up a couple of rechagables and use them. Batteries do last a long time in those mp3 players.

 

It's a Zune with an internal battery. The battery will last 12 hours, but unless it's plugged in the backlight will go off and I like to see what's playing.

 

I have the same problem with my 60gig iPod (or any aux audio device) when usting the 3/4 mini jack aux input and power from the cig lighters.

 

You need the ground for the headunit or aux plug to be the same as the cig plug. This will eliminate the ground loop. You can run a ground from the headunit to the cig plug and see it if helps.

 

same issue in my 07 while the ipod is charging via the plug in the console (also does it from the cig lighter port)

 

Well I rewired the power outlet so that the power and ground are shared by the head unit. However the alternator noise is even worse now. Am I missing something? I'm just going to try a ground loop isolator and see if that works. It just bugs me that I can't fix something as stupid as a little noise.

 

I just picked up my new tC and when first using the AUX input with my MP3 unit and the cig lighter in the center console, I got the whine. I bought a ground loop isolator from Radio Shack and put it inbetween the AUX input and the MP3 player and everything went away.

If anybody knows of another way to take care of this let me know, but for now I will go ahead and just keep using the GLI.

 

I broke down and bought a ground loop isolator (scosche brand). It seems to do the trick.