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That's good to know. I bought the last three that radio shack had today and put one of them on the RCA cables (I was able to get both cables to lie flat in the filter) about 3 inches from where they enter the amp. There wasnt any noticable change.

Keep in mind that the placement of the ferrite on the wire IS going to matter. I'm not sure how to determine where, though. Smoker might know more on that.

As for moving the RCA's, Ive done that a million times now, or so it feels like! lol Currently, they are run through my head liner, down the driver's side front windshield pillar, through the top of the dash cavity into the radio area. That has minimized noise but thats it. I dont necessarily have to have a radio in the vehicle either, so as long as the amp is powered up. Yet with muting plugs (just ask if you dont know, not to insult your intelligence), there is no noise at all which means the amp is fine.

The other night, I didnt even have a signal running through the RCAs: they were disconnected from the radio but the radio was on so that the amp would turn on without rewiring something. The radio was a foot away from the RCA's... I had noise. I then disconnected the speaker wires from the amp and still had noise. Something is radiating through the speakers, changes with the RPM, typical "alternator whine" (though the alt checked out fine).

As for digital or balanced RCA's, I havent done digital, dont have anything to do digital with. With the balanced part, I have, or at least on the front side for sure as I was using an Audio Control ESP-3 which gives a balanced output. The noise is present with or without the AC unit. Oddly enough, expensive RCAs are worse than the cheap ones. I started off with some sweet Streetwires ZN2.0's (the purple ones) and it was horrible. I moved from that to some beautiful Knu Koncepts Krystal Kables and it was still bad. All my testing is done with run-of-the-mill cheap patch cables and strangely enough, the noise is reduced.

I'll run to radioshack today and get some ferrites. I have a few on some old monitors here at home but dont have a clue about how to remove them. They dont seem to snap together like I've seen some in the past.

Try the ferrites and try moving RCAs while playing to see if there is any change in noise. Have you tried running balanced or digital?

I was curious if the ferrites helped any. I have a 2007 Saturn Ion3 and this has been the hardest system I've worked on in 20yrs. I am having noise issues everywhere and im really trying to get anything to help. So far, I've swapped head units, amps, rcas, grounds, power wires, rerouted everything, relocated everything, had the alternator checked... nothing has worked. I thought of using copper shielding tape but i dont know if that will help and even if I would have to put it on everything or not. These ferrites sound like they could help.

smoker wrote:solacedagony, do you mean the ferrite chokes that clamp onto the wire itself? i think that would be a good place to start as well if the ground doesnt fix it.

Yep, I was just reading a thread a couple months ago where a guy said he used a couple and cleared up pretty much all his noise issues.

That's the one Douglas. Try PartsExpress tho for some better pricing. Search for "ferrite" and go all the way down to the bottom of the page. There're a couple different sizes.

These go on your RCAs. However, I'm not sure how far these are going to go to fix your noise problem IF the problem is a ground problem and not a noise induction problem. But anything is worth a try when it comes to these complex issues.

Hi smoker / solacedagony -
I have to admit I've never heard of ferrite chokes. I assume you mean toroidal ferrite clamps - but what do they do, and which wires would they go on? And where?

Thanks guys - really!!!

Doug

Hi solacedagony,

Yes, the RCA's do go near the nav system, but the noise doesn't go away when I change the location of the nav or the RCA's. Obviously I can't move either of them more than a foot or so, but I would think that should be sufficient to make the noise go away. Both pieces are in the stock location.

It does seem like a logical theory that I will explore further, however, as the whine seems to begin when the nav is powered, but the buzzing only kicks in when the nav screen itself turns on.

On the ground issue, I can safely say I have no idea where the nav is presently grounded other than that it is at the stock location. I have not yet ripped my vehicle apart to find out where "stock" is.

I tried moving the ground and power for the tuner unit, but have not tried moving the power / ground for the nav, primarily since I don't have a pinout diagram to determine which pins are power/ground. I'll continue to explore...

I really appreciate your help and thoughts!

Doug

solacedagony, do you mean the ferrite chokes that clamp onto the wire itself? i think that would be a good place to start as well if the ground doesnt fix it.

I wouldn't be as worried about the speaker wire inducing noise as the signal wire (RCAs). Are the RCAs going by/behind/around the nav system? I don't think twisted pair makes the speaker wire immune to noise anyway.

I really don't think anything inside the nav system will induce noise, which is why I would go back to the ground issue. Do any installers on here have any advice beyond that?

Can you post pictures of the ground for your nav system? Have you tried running the ground from your nav system straight to your battery or to the common ground for your audio system?