I've been struggling with a whining noise (turbo whine?) after upgrading my car audio system this June. I've narrowed it down to being a bad negative from the battery to the chassis. Thanks, Mark! Your video came just when I needed it 😊
how much more power did you add when the whining noise started? struggling with the same thing but idk what to think. and when I turn off my amp the noise stops.
I’m going to be doing “The Big 3” upgrade this weekend and I’m hoping it solves my whine issue. There is slight static in my system when I just have the radio going and when I start the car the whining starts. Hope it works! I’ve tried about everything else…
I've done the Big 3 and whining is still there but when i connect my Rca straight to the amp there's less noise. I suspected I'm getting noise from My crossover and the Equalizer
Dude! You’re speaking to me. That whiny noise when I accelerate… I had my subwoofer/amp and aftermarket radio installed by a so called professional audio store. It’s very frustrating having those weird noises because they didn’t tune my system correctly like you said. I didn’t get a box and had my subwoofer mounted in the factory ‘hole’ behind my back seat since my car was a base model with no subwoofer but has a built in hole with a plastic cover. I also think the amp is mounted on the frame with metal cover it came with. Everything you’ve talked about in the video is exactly what’s happening.
I had noise and absolutely everything checked out perfectly. Turns out it was the head unit itself that was causing it. New unit no noise. It's worth keeping a known good hu on hand for testing.
Thanks for explaining i recently bought one of those screens that connects to the current radio stereo and the whining and static noise drove me crazy while its connected via aux, i switched and connected them via FM and both issued went away, at least now i know why i can hear it more when am accelerating!
After few months if not even listening to my stereo I'm going to dive back into it.. i think ive done just about everything. Doubled up my 4 awg big 3. Ran new grounds to a busbar. From there to the head unit, and amplifiers,dsp and 5farad cap. I think one of my 3 amps is bad tho so im about to throw some more money at it. If i could find and get rid of this loop id be happy!! Ughh.
Love your videos they are so so informative. But man I have a problem that is beyond me. I have a dsr-1 integrated into my factory 2014 taurus limited headunit with the correct harness to match. At no volume nothing at 1 volume I have a static that just crackles and will make a literal beep sound "not any louder" but when at high volumes you can pretty much hide it completely. My power and ground are opposite from each other everything is top grade equipment and wiring. Could I email a video? I feel its something so simple that's causing a electronic disturbance sound or something.
I currently have a very loud hiss accompanied by a whine that matches rpm. I have a 2ga big 3, 4 ga power wire, 4 ga ground ran through the body and bolted directly to the frame. I cleaned off all the paint, used a self tapper through the solid copper wire lug, then painted over it afterwards. Im using high quality RCAs, and an RCA noise filter. Still having issuee
I have a static noise coming through my speakers and my stereo is stock so i used an rca converter and ive tried disconnecting the rca cables but the static is still thrre im not sure how to resolve this
This would be worth a good shot just before you do that and given how much you've put into that go aheadand go ahead and get a high output alternator for your vehicle there and I guarantee 99.9% anyways that will fix your issue given how much you spend on your stereo system chances are you probably should have a high output alternator anyway so if you do well I don't really know what to say at that point however if you don't this is probably the step that would be necessary....
Hi, my amplifiers are connected in high level mode and I still have hisses rising together that rise and fall with the gas . How do I fix it? Thanks for the answers
Hi, I installed an amp in my car with high level inputs cables directly to the amp (keeping the factory stereo) and I get a lot of static using the radio, CD or aux. I have a ground cable bigger than the power cable. What should I check? The ground cable is bolted really tight.
So i ran a ground wire from my battery to my amp, but once it came into my car i ran it in a different route to the amp. Would this cause whine? Also should i run all 3 sets of RCAs along with the ground? Currently they are on the same path as my power wire.
I have a question. I have a recently hooked up a aftermarket amplifier to my original head unit on my 20 fourteen, Honda Odyssey. system works good and everything. But the moment I close my door I get this vibrating sound of my subwoofer. It's been driving me crazy. Is there anything you could give me advice on to try to fix this problem? I really appreciate it, thank you.
I added a equalizer and it causes really bad ground noise I had to disconnect it and make a better ground on it. I knew that it was the eq because I didn’t have the noise prior to installing it
Are signal cables the cables going to your speaker because I have my amp under my passenger seat and I have my power coming from the left side of vehicle and my left door speaker wire will be near the power wire
I installed a whole new system. Got bad static. Removed whole system other than AM headunit and still get static. Re did grounds. Still static. Returned & Replaced head unit still static. Put oem head unit back in and no static. Currently pulling my hair out.
what if its a factory radio and it just started? This is in a kia optima. Can't imagine how this would start all of a sudden. Car is about 9 years old.
I tapped a new ground and moved my amp to another location and I'm still getting noise. If I turn the key backwards to radio only there's some noise, when I turn the key to acc there's lots of noise. When car is started it sounds like a jet plane. Also when I use my windshield wipers. Only thing I haven't done is mess with the ground from the body. It might need cleaning since it's over 30 years old
I have a question I can't seem to find an answer to on the world wide web. My son recently acquired a 1997 BMW 318IS (new driver, his 1st car). The cigarette lighter is constantly powered which is not beneficial to him as he uses the lighter plug to plug in his FM modulator, so when the car is off, it continues to power the Transmitter which drains his battery. Can I rewire this so that it only goes on when ignition is on? 1st question: Can we change this so that it's only on when ignition is on, and if so, any known videos out there? 2nd question. The cig lighter also has bad ground issues as when he plays music through his FM modulator, there is a high-pitched humming noise. Can this be improved? I know it's not the fm modulator as when used in my other car, it works fine. Maybe a better solution is can I add another cigarette lighter socket to the car and make it so it'sonly one whne the car is on, and will that help resolve both issues? Any help would be appreciated!
I had problem, I just installed amp and preamp. Everything goes well but when I turn on signal, I can hear the sound of the signal from my sound system. Can you explain why?
Could a speaker be bad if I have buzzing from an OEM system. I admit I listen to my music a bit loud so could this constant use cause a speaker to maybe go bad or something. It only just started. I drive a 2018 Nissan Frontier SV
i have a 4 channel amp for my door speakers and still getting static noise from all speakers and tweeters even after using triple shielded rcas. Everything else seems to be good... not sure what the problem is ill check my gain
Stock radio and aftermarket amplifier... makes static noise I was told it was my LOC line output converter... I’ll need a better and adjustable one ... my ground and power cable and rca cables are all ran down the drivers side of my vehicle... can you please help me out
Hi am having a winding kinda crackling noise only when I now start up and put on my system then it goes away like after 5 minutes... any help would be appreciated 🙏
I am getting a winning noise and the speakers isnt hooked up yet. I hooked the power to it and tested to see if it came on and it started whining. So what can that be?
hi mark i have this problem with my unit if i wire a mono amp or 2 channel amp i dont get this engine noise. as soon as i wire a 4 channel amp to my unit using front and rear rca from my pioneer unit i get this engine noise doesn't matte if i play only cd or fm or bluetooth. when i wire a 4 channel and use only rear or front as bridge to my 4 channel amp i don't have the engine noise. i checked my grounds my rca cables i tried a different unit but still have the same problem. this problem i only get if my car is started.
I have a mad max project...young people always think of Fury Road, but I'm talking about the original..when Max hears the engine along with the wining sound from the blower..the sound gets louder or faster as the engine is revving...now how can I get that really enhanced sound by using my radio and outdoor speaker mounted behind the grill? maybe with an amplifier to.....asking for a friend...ok, so I have no friends except for my dogs and they don't care for some ridiculous fake blower sound...they just want to ride.
i just installed a 60.00 ebay 11" touch screen radio with D4S amps (3) and a dayton DSP. its all kinds of fucked... troubleshooting starts tomorrow *yay*
Hi Sir. I hope this will find you. Briefly, my issue is in a 12v boat system. I use a little bluetooth device with the 3.5mm connector serving the speakers. The charging cable to this device is via the micro plug (like a phone charger plug) via a USB and powered from the cigarette lighter port on the 12v panel. Noise is experienced like a clicking sound and hmmm, only when connected to charging cable. Clean whilst running on its own battery power. I tried different battery charger socket units, put ferrite filters on the charging cable, tried capacitors on the line but no effect Any suggestions would be appreciated Thanks Gerry
Mark I'm going nuts trying to set the gains on my Kenwood excelon 5 channel amp. Every time I try to measure it with my o-scope it's reading some whack 8khz Signal or even higher when I play my 1khz test tone. On my old car I've never had a problem. Have you ever run into an issue like this? When I test the RCA signal it reads perfectly.
My problem is that I have whining noises in my subwoofer and it’s really getting on my nerves. Every time I’s start driving my truck. I hear a ticking noise and it gets louder when I Reve up the engine.
my system worked great over a year then a loud hiss developed . i got a different amp , new quality rca's , and check all grounds and connections but still HISSING loud even with amp gains low . I even got ground loop isolators and they did not help one bit . No alternator noise just steady loud background hiss. I even replaced my power and ground wires to 4 guage, and doubled the car battery ground wire. Now Im thinking its the kenwood kmm bt318u head unit causing the problem . i guess ill have to buy another but that still might not be the problem. Ive also changed speakers a couple times but ill try that again tomorrow . The noise is so loud i have to blast the music in order to not hear hissing . Also tried the speaker wire test. Its annoying that my system worked perfectly over a year then out of the blue i have horribly loud hissing , SUCKS . New head unit on the way soon i guess. Dam expensive habit on a minimum wage income .
In the last shit box car I threw subs into I got drunk while I did my install and ran my power wire right next to my RCA wires all the way back to the amp. 😅😅😅😅 When I get on the gas there's a high pitched whine. Too lazy to fix it. Silver lining though. If I don't accelerate very hard it doesn't whine so I'm getting better gas mileage 😎
Is the wire connecting to the e-brake a ground? I didn’t install it because I did a built in bypass on my pioneer radio... im getting static noise as soon as I turn the radio on
late response but I just got a new JVC aftermarket radio and installed it. I don't have my door speakers or tweeters hooked up to an external amplifier, just the deck. I got it all wired and when I fired the car up, as soon as the radio starts, a loud static/screeching sound plays through my mids and tweets. The tweeters get no music just static, the mids get music and static. I am curious if I should cut the car harness's factory ground wire that is running to the headunit and run a NEW & seperate wire from the headunit to the amplifer's ground? Or should I keep the cars factory harness's ground wire and run a secondary ground wire from the chassis of the headunit to the amplifer? Another question is should i use the radios harness black wire (the ground) to run a new wire to a new ground location or should I just connect it to the radio's chassis and run it to a new ground location? Hard to explain but sounds like I'm riding inside a UFO.
Mark, your final advice on the ground loop isolator was my problem...you helped me in out where my local car audio shop owner told me it was beyond his knowledge...you are the man thank you for being so smart at car audio
@@emilz85 The one's I tried cut a huge portion of the lows out. Basically a highpass on the source signal. I wrote the manufacturer and they said that's how all the passive ground loop isolators work. I was shocked that so many people thought it was an acceptable solution.
One other important item I learned when tracking down noise in my speakers: Your RCA cable type DOES matter. There's two types: shielded/coaxial and twisted pair. If your amp has Single Ended (SE) inputs, then you should use shielded/coaxial RCAs. If your amp uses Differential Inputs (DI), then you should use twisted pair. My amp used SE inputs, but I was using a twisted pair RCA. Swapping over to a shielded RCA fixed my noise issue. Symptom I has was a constant, high pitched whine, regardless if car was on or if music was playing. I performed all the tests in this video and everything checked out, so it really came down to either my headunit or my RCAs. It was the RCAs.
Thanks for sharing. Luckly I have two different RCA cable types running to my amp. Standard for Sub and Twisted for speakers. I'm going to switch them up and see if this fixes it. Gonna come back with the results
Quick question for you since I'm experiencing something similar. I installed a new head unit and a new amp along with two new speakers paired with two existing speakers. The stereo runs fine the amp turns on a few seconds after the stereo there are no issues. Everything plays fine. But when I replaced my headlight from a stock model to an aftermarket LED model, I get a whirring noise. I believe it's a noise of some sort. As I turn the lights from high and low the wiring noise can change and as I turn the headlights off and leave the DRLs on the noise goes almost away completely. If I disconnect the lights the whirring is gone. I'm not blaming the LEDs yet but I feel like either the wires or putting off some noise next to my RCA cables going into the amplifier or to the wires going to the speakers. Should I try disconnecting one set of wires at a time? Like remove one's RCA at a time and then remove one set of speaker wires at a time to see if one of those is catching the interference? It's very tight in the fairing of these motorcycles. I know what can be done correctly where things are kept separated I'm just not there yet with my installation. Thanks for any help you can offer
I’ve had my speakers in for 6 months they were fine when I first installed them but now they buzz at low volume when the bass hits, once I turn it up fairly loud it goes away. It’s really frustrating
If it’s just when the bass hits your may want to check that they’re still fastened well to their baffles, and if they are perhaps put some weather strip under the contact points between the metal skin of your door and the interior plastic. Good luck with the issue!
I don’t think you mentioned this, I was dealing with alternator/buzz/whine noises for awhile, but my noises were intermittent, sometimes they would disappear over bumps. Looked into everything. What it ended up being was the ends of the RCA cables that plug into the headunit, were touching the body of the car, introducing noise. Probably my fault for not organizing the wires nicely behind the headunit. Just wrapped the ends with tesa and 0 noise, that was driving me nuts lol
Holy crap I was dealing with the whine issue for months and must’ve done everything I could’ve imagined to fix it. Read this comment, realize I didn’t try this, facepalmed, and tried it. Worked like a charm. I can’t thank you enough for this! This has changed my life
@@evanmcardle3618 Happy to help! It’s something I stumbled upon accidentally actually, I’ve done a lot of research and nobody seemed to have mentioned it.
Experiencing the same thing, planning to disassemble my head unit in order to check if the bluetooth adaptor is integrated or ir can be replaced. If possible I m planning to add a ground loop on the adapter.
I've just looked online for a usb ground loop isolator and found a couple because for me the whine noise only happens when I've got my Bluetooth on and my usb plugged in to charge my phone
The most difficult noise issue I've ever dealt with was a popping sound when turning off my stereo. I don't use the speaker outputs from my head unit so I knew it was coming from the amps. I initially believed it was ground related and tried multiple attempts at improving ground connections to no avail. I even swapped out my RCA cables which fixed nothing. In the end the cause was my headrest monitors which were powered on by the remote turn on from my head unit. Electrical issues can be such a pain to deal with. If you're persistent you can get through it.
Use a relay to power headrest monitors never use remote turn for anything more than turning on 2-3 amps , if you have this problem other wise properly use a relay or capacitor inline with the remote wire .
Yes, once. No matter what I did I could not remove it until I got a RCA ground loop isolator. This was back in 1989 in a 76 Vega. I think I bought the thing at Radio Shack.
I bought Radio Shack RCA’s back in the early 90’s. Heavy duty, gold plated with noise suppression. I’m glad I hung on to them and eventually found them. My alternator whine is gone and signal to my sub amp is fully restored without a ground loop isolator. I used Kicker RCA’s for my Alpine 6 1/2’s on an MTX Thunder 2 channel, and Radio Shack RCA’s with a small terminating RCA by Monster cable on my Skar 2000.1d feeding 3 DB drive 10’s. Just remember to do what this guy says and keep your RCA and power cables on opposite sides of the vehicle. And use really good RCA cables. This is where a lot of people mess up when doing their own installs.
Something that may be helpful to others to note. If you are using a cheap passive (non powered) line out converter off of your factory radio and you install it directly behind the factory radio you may be getting a lot of noise there as well. There are a lot of electrical components going on back there and you can test this just by moving the loc around with the vehicle on and powered up. If your stubborn on using one of these cheaper loc's, you may benefit by extending the speaker wire your tapping into and getting the loc gar away from the back of the factory radio to underneath the glove box compartment for example but not as far as the kick panel because you will generally have huge looms of factory wiring there that can interfere with your signal as well
late response but I just got a new JVC aftermarket radio and installed it. I don't have my door speakers or tweeters hooked up to an external amplifier, just the deck. I got it all wired and when I fired the car up, as soon as the radio starts, a loud static/screeching sound plays through my mids and tweets. The tweeters get no music just static, the mids get music and static. I am curious if I should cut the car harness's factory ground wire that is running to the headunit and run a NEW & seperate wire from the headunit to the amplifer's ground? Or should I keep the cars factory harness's ground wire and run a secondary ground wire from the chassis of the headunit to the amplifer? Another question is should i use the radios harness black wire (the ground) to run a new wire to a new ground location or should I just connect it to the radio's chassis and run it to a new ground location? Hard to explain but sounds like I'm riding inside a UFO.
nice video, I have a Nissan Sentra 2015. A coin was stuck in the DVD player and after that my back camera goes off and having a lot of noises in the speaker. If i tap on the side of the Stereo the noises disappear and the camera start to working again. Please advise to get is resolved. Thanks
I've used many different types of GLI's and coming from an electrical background I can say that there is only one true fix for the major of times this issue exists. Having a nice and healthy ground to return your power flow, (though not all the time), is usually the fix for these. A quick and reliable fix is the chassis ground that is manufactured on the aftermarket unit itself. This grounding point is underrated and underused, but is a little bit a gold nugget! Keep up the great work Mark!
@@kivitropikal6755 ahh I don't remember i think that might work but certainly depends on what powerbank you use I daily a 20000 milliamp powerbank which lasts me for 2 or more days with my use So I charge it wen I'm going to bead
Its not just the quality of RCA but type and matching them with the type of signal input you amps and output from your componnents are built upon. If your head unit uses unbalanced (many do) and your amp has balanced inputs. (About 85% of amps use unbalanced generally higher end amps use balanced) look into audio control as i think eveything they make has the ability to change from balanced to unbalanced output with internal jumper. 1. Balanced input is where the shield of the input is isolated from the negative power input or the metal chassis of the amp. These setups youll want to use twisted pair RCA 2. Unbalanced input is where the shield of the RCA is NOT isolated and shows continituity with the negative power input and metal chassis of the amp. These setups use a coaxial style RCA.
@@chipirriti maybe you should. Balanced is short for balanced-differential. Unbalanced is just a name for single-ended or ground-referenced inputs. I didn’t make up the terminology I just know the facts. Do your research
I actually went a different way with this. I had very bad noise when I installed a bluetooth audio receiver, but instead of using the filter I build an induction power module out of a phone induction charger building kit and a stepdown voltage regulator and i put everything in a 3d printer case. It severed the ground in the power input instead of the audio line so no ground loop, no noise and no reduction in sound quality whatsoever.
ANC Mics will also cause whining or a "robotic buzz" when listening. Ambient Noise-canceling microphones(ANC Mics) are designed to get rid of any noises that the factory head unit and ANC unit deem not part of the stereo output in order to make the ride seem a lot quieter than it really is. It sends the "opposite" sound out in order to cancel out any unaccounted noises. So if you install subs or a multichannel amp to add extra sound, your ANC system is going to try an cancel it out unless disconnected. Most of the time you can find the ANC module and just unplug it or else you have to cut the mic wires(and I don't recommend it if you don't have to, those things are expensive to replace). A lot of newer(let's say after 2013) might have this, new hondas, certain GMs, etc.
20 years ago, I installed my first system and had no idea what I was doing. loomed the power, ground and cheap signal RCA leads from the head unit to the amp... needless to say I had all kinds of funky noise going on :)
I disconnected my deck from my equaliser and the sound went away. Then I just grounded the body of my equaliser and plugged the deck back in and surpression noise went away. I struggled for a long time to figure this out.
I always run a ground wire with the rca's and turn on wire to ground the radio at the same place as the amplifiers. Avoids a potential ground loop there too.
@@todderickson9436 thx man. I completed that this afternoon. Unfortunately, I’m using two stereo Kicker LOCs off an Android head unit (TS10) and still have alt whine though better than before. I’ve 100% isolated the issue to the LOCs. I’ve grounded everything to the same location. Really don’t want to patch the issue but I’m considering ordering the RCA inline isolators because I’m out of ideas.
Awesome! I’ve recently installed an aftermarket head unit and all was well before the install, but now I definitely have a very noticeable whine and hiss. I’ll try doing a proper ground instead of using the existing harness ground and see how that goes.
Did you fix it with a new ground connection? I'm currently trying to figure it out with my new headunit as well and really don't want to have to ship it back to China.
I love comments saying "I'm gonna try this and that" and then they proceed to do it and completely forget to post the solution, cuz now their issues are gone 😢
I've been having a static issue for almost a year. Can I hire you to help get to the bottom of it? I feel like I've tried everything but haven't figured it out yet
I have a small hiss (I guess that is the best way to describe it) coming from my speakers after installing an amp in two cars (both cars do it). But it happens when the radio is turned off. It’s almost silent but it definitely is there. Is this normal or is something wrong? The amp gain level is, at max, 50 percent. Again- only hear it when the head unit is turned off
I just wanted to thank you very much for your informative videos. I decided that my 11 Caddy speakers were dying and needed to be replaced. I didn't realize that meant an avalanche of problems doing so. First the new tweeter blew, then the Metra conversion box blew 3 TIMES and then the amp went to hell. After I figured everything out, I had a terrrible hissing sound. I watched your videos on solving it and not only did the hissing go away but the sound improved. Thanks a lot for doing them.
I have one front coaxial speaker that goes in and out, in and out, when I hit bumps on the road or when I slam my driver door. Also a buzzing coming from that one single speaker. What could this be? thanks in advance anyone who helps me out.
A couple times in my competition systems. I solved one issue by switching from rca to optical and on another system reversed the direction of my stinger 8000 rca cables
I have two amps on a new build and I was testing the speaker amp (other is a bass amp) with no subwoofer speaker connected and it had a whine. When I unplugged the RCA from the sub amp it went away. The RCAs are split from the same source but I only get the whine when the RCAs are plugged into both amps. what gives sound bros?
@@gaona. Not really. I changed the grounds routing and switch some things around but it didn't help. I put a ground loop isolator on the RCAs and it went away.
Hi! Just had a new sound system installed and I always use Bluetooth to play music. Once I started up my car with new sound system (speakers, sub, amp and audio signal process. Sec I start up car I can hear the humm/static instantly. Regardless if the volume is up. Any suggestions?
Had a strange one that I finally got fixed, after installing a new headunit, two amps, front and rear speaker I had the engine whistle, I used high quality RCA and speaker wire and carefully ran all cables so I was sure that wasn't it, tried a noise filter on my headunit power leads, helped a tiny bit but it was still there, tried ground loop filters with no change, even replaced my 4 channel amp thinking maybe it was bad, still no change, all my grounds tested good, power wires were perfect ( 0awg OFC ) so I started looking into other things, replaced the factory ground cables from the battery and engine to frame, again still had noise, I even replaced the headunit thinking maybe it was bad, still had noise then finally the one thing I didn't upgrade fixed it, I finished off my big 3 upgrade, the very last cable I did was from the alternator to the battery, bam noise was gone, the only thing I hear now is my USB dash cam data pulses but only at high volume level with nothing playing ( I used a Android head unit and this is a common flaw with them ) so since you didn't mention that, do the big 3 upgrade, factory power feeds are way undersized and dirty, get nice clean power to the amps and enjoy.
Hell tbh I just installed a dvd player in my car and now I have static and I cant find it I'll try this and c if I can figure out where it's coming fro nvm cause its driving me nuts
I hear the whining noise from the left speaker when I plug a 3.5 aux cable into the port. My phone isn't connected on the other end, it's just the cable only. If I play a CD or the radio, it's fine. It only happens when I plug into the aux port. I picked up a GLNI and it's still doing it. Do I maybe need a higher quality 3.5 aux cable or is something else at play here?
I'm getting a low hiss but it's audible I believe it's from my amp. I have set the gain's but still getting the hiss if I turn my amp gain's down it goes away
I was using Bluetooth adapter for my aftermarket radio.thats another story but it whines like you sead also when I press the gas so I tried just the aux but it still does but I don't ever use a charger in my car to my phone I will get that ground loop isolator thing but it's so annoying to here that his and whining I don't want to listen to my music ...and I love my music
I want to upgrade my car head unit with bluetooth through 3.5 jack. From phone-to-3.5 jack there is no issue. But if I put my phone on the car cigar USB charger it makes hissing, whining, static noise through the radio. If I only put my phone to the charger generates the same noise. I made a ground loop isolator with DC-DC 5V to 5V converter (cigar charger USB-isolator-phone USB cable), but the issue remains the same (with or without the jack connected). I read that the problem coming from the cigar charger itself. It is probably poorly designed cheap one. I do not want to change the head unit because it is an integrated with the climate control. So which cigar USB charger do you guys recommend (with RF suppression)?
