High pitch whine from entune headunit w/ aftermarket speakers/amp

2018 w/ Entune head unit.

Replaced all 6 speakers w/ Kickers. Great.
Installed the Kicker Key amp. Great. Highly recommend this little guy.

Gain on the amp is all the way down.

I am getting a tiny but noticeable amount of high pitch whine/hiss/interference.

It's definitely the head unit. I can disconnect the inputs on the amp and turn the gain all the way up, and it's totally silent. Plug inputs back in, hiss is there...

All of this is with the engine off, so it's not alternator noise or anything.


Doing some searching and it seems like this is a known problem with the factory head units?

Anyone know if a choke somewhere in the system will help, or is the head unit just a turd?

 

The factory audio systems have very weird tuning to try and make up for the fact that the system totally sucks. It's like trying to get drinking water out of a sewage output...

 

I get that. It sounds great. The noise I'm talking about isn't anything to do with "tuning"

 

This is the only reason I haven’t installed my subs, components and amps from my last truck. I want to keep the factory HU because in the near future my truck will be parked for days at a time in unsecured lots. I don’t want any sign of aftermarket equipment inside.

I have yet to hear of any fixes for the whine.

 

Is the rca cable and power wires ran right next to each other? Try isolating them.

Nothing wrong with the factory headunit. It works great and if you look up my audio build thread you will see the components I am using.

 

Not using RCA cables. Built a T-Harness. It's all line level.

The power cable does run with the speaker wires up the right side of the drivers footwell.

I can run power from a completely separate source to isolate it. I'll give it a shot.

 

Current through a wire induces a magnetic field around the wire. A changing magnetic field will produce a current in a wire.

The beauty of magnetic fields is that they decay according to an inverse square. That means you don't actually need to get the speaker wires very far from the power/ground wires in order to avoid noise from the power/ground changing the audio signals.

Here's a table of magnetic force at a distance from the source. You can see the decay rate is very high.
Distance, Magnetic Force
1mm, 960
3mm, 442
6mm, 135
10mm, 38
18mm, 1.2

Physics is fundamentals.

 

Just tested with a totally separate power source (small 12v battery directly to the amp)

Same thing.

The remote wire does run with the speaker outputs from the HU - You think that'd cause it?

 

Did you share a ground between the chassis and the separate 12v battery? If they didn't share ground you're doing it wrong, but if they do share ground then the issue might be ground.

 

I had the same problem. It was a grounding issue. Check your grounds.

 

I did ground it to the chassis, yes.

 

I hooked up some cheap chinesium bluetooth receiver to the inputs of the amp; no hiss.

 

My speaker wires run next to the power wire without any problems. hmmm

 

Update.

Two problems going on.

1) The high pitch whine is definitely coming from the amp itself. Took the amp out and tested it on the bench. So that's coming out and going back to crutchfield.
2) The noise coming out of the head unit is just straight (almost) pink noise. Can't really notice it if the gain is turned all the way down, which was fine enough for a factory head unit.

Happy I was able to isolate the noises. The high pitch noise was an inconsistent electrical/amp noise.

Either way, Key amp going back.

Ordered this guy, which I had in my last vehicle and liked a lot.

$259 Rockford Fosgate PBR300X4 Punch BRT 300-Watt Ultra Compact 4-Channel Amplifier

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004T163SY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I know this is an old thread, but I just went through this. I have an Entune premium, JL Audio 5 channel amp, with a JL 10” sub and 4x Alpine R Series speakers.

Turn down the gain on your amp. It fixed the sound for me.