Annoying ringing or whining noise...

Installed and aftermarket stereo system and ran all new heavier gauge speaker wire. (Pioneer avh1400dvd with pioneer 600 watt amp and infinity speakers). I have an annoying ringing or whining noise I can hear in the background of music that is playing. Its there even whent he music is not playing. Its obviously some sort of interference. I've tried hooking the amp up to a better ground and still have the noise. Any other suggestions to get rid of it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Is the noise there with engine on/off or both?

 

A few causes for the whine that you are talking about are first and foremost the ground. For an amp it really has to be a good solid ground. A good way to determine is if you take an ohm meter and "ring" it out. Use a multimeter in the Ohms setting and check your ground cable where it goes into the amplifier and a ground other than where you attached your ground cable. verify that you are no more than .5 Ohms. test your multimeter first by touching the 2 leads together to see what resistance you have in your meter leads. Nothing worse than having a bad lead cause alot of unneccesary work. Another is the ground cable length. It should not be longer than 8" if at all possible. If you have cheaper RCA cables than make sure they are not run alongside your power cable. this is usually not necesary with higher quality twisted RCA cables. Good Luck with your troubleshooting, I know it can be a pain.

 

^This. What I did was mount the amp under the seat, ran 10 gauge wire directly from the battery, then loosened one of seat mounting bolts & grounded it there. No noise at all on mine.

 

Ensure that the ground is free of paint and other coverings that will allow for resistance between your ground and amp cable. Another common occurance is a bad connection between your ground cable and connector. A good tug doesnt necessarily mean a good connection. I always solder my ground to the connector to ensure a good connection. I do the same for my constant 12volt.

 

It makes the noise whether it is on or off. I will attempt to reground in another location. Thank you for all the responses so far.

 

Also, try a different set of RCA cables. I have many Radio Shack's "premium gold" go bad. Has to be the wiring.

 

Well, I believe I have isolated the noise problem. I regrounded the amp and still had the the noise...ugh! I then unplugged the rca jacks to the rear speaker output, still had noise...gggrrrr! I then plugged in the rear speaker rca jacks back in and unplugged the front ones and BINGO...no more annoying noise. Apparently my brand new rca jacks suck. Soooo, off to Bestbuy we go.

 

Did that fix it, Dave?

 

I used monster cable and Stinger all top level twisted strand for my install. I did not have any issues. I have used cheaper RCA's and had problems that were intermittent. It would be fine and then I would get everything back together and it would start again.. Since then I only use the best cables I can afford and it has worked for me so far. Good luck and hope that a simple swap of your cables fix your whine.

 

Yes Rob. A bad set of RCA jacks were the culprit. I've done numerous installs and this is the first time I've ever come across a defective set of RCA jacks right out of the box. Thank you for the suggestion.

 

I was able to isolate and correct the problem. I agree with you in using high quality cables. I've just never run across the problem of defective cables right out of the box. It was a little perplexing, but the problem is solved.

 

Glad you got it working!