Kicker hideaway- final upgrade to the $250(+) 3rd gen premium upgrade (+Kicker Key 180.4 amp)

Do you have a multi-meter by chance?

 

yes

 

Check all the speakers for continuity to ground.

(on the chance you don’t know what that means...
-Black lead on ground (metal in the dash or the outside metal of the cig lighter is fine)
-Set meter to continuity. Looks like a WiFi signal on most meters, but yours may vary.
-using red lead, touch the ground wire in the harness to verify working meter. Should get a beep.
-touch every speaker wire in the harness. None should beep. If one does, that wire is shorted somewhere and needs to be inspected. We have our problem.

That’s about the last step I have

 

• Each ground wire showed continuity
• None of the speaker wires showed continuity
• The small green wire in the factory male connector showed continuity also. This connects to the orange/white labeled as illumination in my diagram. (No clue if that's normal)

 

Next would be a chassis ground
then a battery power run.

still weird that there’s hiss with t-harness completely removed

 

Yeah, it's infuriating. I pulled the harness completely out and reconnected it in the open cab without any change. Part of me wonders if just putting the dash back together might somehow solve the issue. I'm wracking my head to think of what I'm missing.

Crutchfield #2 does not think it's a power or ground issue, and is sending a new Key (I'm doubtful this will work, but it's worth a try.) He also thinks a small amount of noise in the system, such as what I'm hearing from the HU, is normal.

I may temporarily splice some wires to bypass the stock speaker wiring and TT tweeter harness. If kicker recommends a battery run and chassis ground, I'll do that too.

 

I’m hoping the replacement Key fixes it. That means the product is defective (hey, it happens) and you did everything right.
I just hate not knowing what the problem is. But I keep coming back to the hiss WITHOUT the key even installed.
Kicker will 100% recommend power straight to the battery. The manual says you can use factory wiring, but “for best results” go to the battery and a chassis ground

 

I ran a power straight to the battery, and used a factory chassis ground right behind the AC controls. No change.

Kicker seems to think that an amp that hisses with gains low and no input is faulty. When I confronted him with the fact that the tweeter hisses slightly when connected to the HU, he reasoned that is either an inherent weakness of the stock HU, or the HU has an issue. Basically the amp is bad and and the stock HU sucks.

 

yeah that's pretty much it at this point. I 2nd the faulty amp thought.

 

I know the Key doesn’t have a particularly high signal to noise ratio, but I don’t think I’ve read a single post about someone being unhappy with the noise floor. That said, the majority of people are not using components and Bi-Amp for the fronts only. Will this setup make the noise floor more noticeable?

 

I’ve done it in bi-amp and had zero audible hiss with gains low (all windows up, in my shop with the garage door down. Super quiet environment)

 

Anyone found a location for the remote bass control that they either love or hate? Screwing into the trim panel below the steering wheel seems a logical choice, but I'm curious if anyone has found other creative choices.

 

I used double sided tape and put it between the E brake and the cup holder but not where it would interfere with brake usage.

 

i put mine where @LtPeteMitchell shows in post #7

 

It's not the amp. The replacement is exactly the same. The speakers sound incredible, but I am having a hard time believing that the noise floor I'm hearing is normal. It is tolerable with the gains on the tweeters set no higher than about a 3(of 11), but anything higher than that, and as soon as the music stops, it's obvious the gains are too high. I would think that an average gain setting would be at least half of what is available.

At this point I am frustrated and in over my head. I need someone to actually listen to the system and give me some feedback. If I head into Best Buy, would they be able to work with me to trouble shoot? Should I go to a dedicated car audio shop?

 

I don't think mine are set as high as 3 except for the rears which may be on 4. I will be pulling my dash soon to add a front camera and I will look at my settings. Destin may be able to chime in with normal gain levels

 

Thank you, this is helpful. Can you tell me if you can hear white noise at any time whether in ACC mode, engine on, music off, music paused, etc?

 

I could barely, and I mean barely hear white noise when I set it to bluetooth audio with no hookup/paused and the engine off while parked in the garage with the door down. And that was standing outside the truck with the door open and my head pretty close to the speaker. After setting the levels and moving to the driver's seat, I could not even begin to hear the white noise. That's why I'm thinking that I can probably bump the levels up a smidge higher than they currently are. With those settings, I haven't turned up the audio past 40, and that's like windows down volume.

 

Ok. I can hear the tweeters (zero gain) when I'm in the drivers seat with the music and engine off. With the added noise of the radio on pause, I can hear them with the engine idling. It only gets worse with gain. With the gains at half, it's like sitting in front of a tv that just lost signal. I don't know if it's more disappointing to know something is wrong or to know that it's possible nothing is wrong.

Maybe I'll just buy another Metra set and start over.

 

Gains at half sounds way too high. From what I've read, you barely have to set the gains to get good volume. Are you not getting enough volume for some reason? I'm trying to see why it is that you want your gains set so high.