Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Audio New Sony Amp causing static on radio stations!

I just put in a new sub amp, it's a sony xplod class D, 1000 watts, driving a single RF DVC 12. I love it, sounds great playing cd's.

The problem I'm having is when the bass hits while listening to a radio station, I get a bunch of static/signal loss. This happens at nearly any volume level, but get's worse as I turn up the volume. The amp is wired w/ 8ga btw.

any ideas?

For 1000 watts you should have some bigger cable. Also, running that much power you may be actually "starving" your stereo when the bass hits.

I don't think that the amp is power starving the car, none of the lights dim, even with the headlights and fogs on, and it doesn't happen in cd playback mode even @ full blast. I was more concerned about the amplifier introducing noise on the ground and maybe perhaps the headunit is using the vehicle ground as part of the antenna system. (it's a 00 pioneer hu btw, don't remember the model..)

you really should upgrade to 4gauge power wire you could run that to d-block if you wanted and then run 8 to the amp...as for the static where do you have this thing grounded?

the amp is grounded in the trunk, under a bolt somewhere (can't remember exactly, it's not sharing a ground screw with anything)

I have the same problem......never fixed it. Cd mode sounds great, but I get static on the radio.

I just put a screw in a random location for the amps ground (rear upper metal deck).

Part of the problem with radio is that it is a noisey medium. There is almost always going to be static. When you are using an amplifier it only amplifies that static.

the static doesn't just come out of my sub though, when the bass hits massive amounts of static come out of my regular speakers (run off the head unit)