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Audio issues please help!

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XKontour98

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Sep 18, 2002
Messages
1,358
Location
SE Minnesota
I am not real familiar with car audio and I am having been experiencing a problem that has recently started occurring. My setup consists of an Alpine head unit and an 850 watt Phoenix Gold Amp that powers my 4 infinity kappa door speakers.

This setup has worked great for over the year that I have had it until the other day. When I turn the HU on it works for about 10-30 seconds and then all I get is a "clicking" repetition of distortion. The distortion doesn't change with volume and doesn’t seem to matter if it is on tuner/Cd.

The Amp is getting power. I have the amp mounted to the back passenger side seat. I noticed when I was experiencing this problem that when the rear pass door was open it stopped until I closed the door. As far as I know none of the wires for the amp run down that side of the car (I had Ultimate Electronics install the HU/Amp).

Any suggestions on where to start troubleshooting?
 
Pale Horse said:
Agreed. Also, make sure the (sometimes idiots) guys at Ultimate didn't run the power wire for the amp with the drivers side speaker wire. It will pick up the interference and cause that same type of condition if there is a short on any of the wires.
Click to expand...


They may have ran it with the power wire I have running down the drivers side for the battery in the trunk. Would that have something to do with it?
 
That could definitely have something to do with it. I'd pull everything out and re-run the power wires seperate from the speaker wire. This also would include your amp remote wire. You def. have a short somewhere in that drivers side wire-run. I guess it could also be at the harness aswell. Double check your pins in the harness as well as any t-taps or splice connectors that would be inline on the drivers side.
 
run your power wire down one side of the car and your rca wires down the other side. if you have just basic speaker wire and power wire.

also where the hell is it grounded too ? that has a lot to do with sound problems you want a chassie ground use a nut & bolt through the trunk with about one good inch of solid metal to metal contact .not just a screw into the sheet metal for the ground.
 
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best fix

best fix

well you could rerun everything on sperate sides or, you could run a power and ground from the battery to the amp. if you zip tie at least a 4 gauge power and ground together and run it through the car it creates a perfectly neutral magnetic field. which makes an excelent spot to run sound wires. a totaly nuetral magnetic field will create no noise in your system. the bigger the power and ground the better. auto manufactures rate a chasis ground at a 4 gauge capacity. if you go that big or bigger with your leads it will make for the lowest destortion sound due to interfearance achieveable in a car. just look at JL audios really high end power conect kits they have 2gauge full length power and ground leads. I competed meca sound quality with the same setup useing two 4/0 power leads in the modified plus class. i did very well. rewire with duel leads and run all your speaker wire and rca's right with it and the noise will go away.
 
Update

Update

I took the panel off the rear pass door and everything seems in place. Now, however, the speakers "pop" whenever I turn the steering wheel to the right!?!?! Sometimes I have to jerk the wheel back to the left to get it to go away. I really do not know what to do or think now! Any more suggestions? I miss my bumps!

Edit: Sorry I didn't see the other responces until after I posted. I have my yellow top ultima in the trunk. However I did that swap after I had the amp installed.. Like I said I am pretty new to the car audio world so working with the wiring is all new to me.

Should I wire the amp to the battery now that it's in the trunk?

I have 0 guage wires for the battery, but I am thinking about replacing them with something a bit smaller. I think this weekend I will try and rewire the system like some of you had mentioned and see if that fixes the problems. Oh, and the ground for the battery is ran underneith the back seat, i'll have to take a look at that as well.

I'll try and get more details to how everything is setup and get back to you all with more specifics.
 
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