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Darthness wrote:welll... help me find somethign with a higher output voltage, non-pioneer, that won't add noise and that i could buy tommorow that won't cause me to be broke for a week (keep in mind that i work at mcdonalds :P)

i'm a big fan of the eclipse decks. they are one of the few main stream decks that do the rated output of atleast very close to it. as for the pioneer thats what i run and love it. no noise in any of my systems.. not the best unit there is thats for sure but for the 3-400 i was looking to spend it had all the features i wanted. my next deck will be an eclipse

from initial post:

gain is set too low and amp isn't putting out any power. that's teh gist of the problem.
you need to tack down that noise and get rid of it. bad ground at amp, head unit, or line-outs probably.
could be a bad amp, too.

ok. so i went through and fixed up some wiring stuff i've been putting off for a month or so.. i now can fade left/right, which is a big improvement (had the rca's hooked up wrong! whoops!)

its getting dark so i'll try and check the ground at the amp tommorow afternoon. i have no clue how to ground the head unit properly. i'm voting for the amp and line outs... by line outs i assume you mean the voltage and not a ground issue.

by line-outs I mean jumpering the outside of the RCA (ground) to a chassis ground in case it's not done properly inside the head unit.
common source of noise.

hrm... i havn't noticed any noise recently. hell, not even in the morning with the defroster, head lights, system, and headlights on and at some point AC on.but i know as soon as i touch that gain (or think about it too hard!) it'll come back.

how do i ground the RCA's?

I've pretty much used Pioneer HUs exclusively and I haven't had any noise problems. That's not to say your HU isn't the problem. It could very well be. I'd say it probably is. But no promises of course.

What they're talking about is ...

You know the end of your RCA wires at the head unit. If you unplug one of the wires at your HU and look at it, there's a penis looking part in the middle and some fins circled around it. The center pin is the signal and the fins around it that hug the outside of the area you plug the wire into at the back of the HU, that's the ground. What they're talking about is taking a piece of wire, any old wire, and connect one end to the ground of the RCA (the fins around the penis) and connect the other end to the chasis of the deck or directly to a grouding point somewhere.

Often times this will eliminate the alternator whine many people experience. It may or may not work for you, but there's only one way to find out.

But be warned, you CAN NOT let ANY strand of wire touch the "penis" part.

Oh yeah, don't let the wire touch the penis. You're stereo will go off like a shot! lol. Best bet is to have the rcas plugged into the radio and then massage the wire up to and around them as best you can without taking any chances of ... you know what.

Interesting, learn something new everday here.... so the penis usually isnt the problem, its the hole that it goes into? :happy055:

MobileAudio219 wrote:Interesting, learn something new everday here.... so the penis usually isnt the problem, its the hole that it goes into? :happy055:

Sir I bow to you!!!

Rock on.