Filtering Power Noise

[fosgate3]

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.

[solacedagony]

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.

[fosgate3]

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.