engine whine... *please help*

[Ian]

Hi all

Im geting monster problems with my stereo...

When I turn it down all the way it rumbles and stuff.

And im getting engine whine on my high end comming out of my amp (im running my 6x9's off the amp)

My setup:

head unit running stock wires to splits in the front door. They are fine, no problems there

RCA's running down left side of car (BG Astina)
Power cable running down center
Earth running to the right side of the car then earthed to chassis
Remote wire running down left side
4 channel amp with wires going to sub and 6x9's

What may or may not be of importance is I have neon interiors under the front dash, and front seats, and one in the sub box.

It all used to work tops, and that was back when all the wires ran down the left side. Then I got these problems after one nights particually hard driving, and ever since, I havent been able to solve it.

It may also be intresting to note that the problems are between the head unit and the amp, and that if you run the amp off a MP3 player the problems go away. I tried the MP3 player both in the position of the head unit and sitting in the boot.

Help me? Im completly clueless as to what is causing it, I have tried everything and it wont piss off. I can deal with it now by telling the amp the 6x9's are subs and it runs low end through them only, however I miss my filler in the back as they were really quite powerful running off the amp.

[Fro-Daddy]

i get the same...

what brand is the equipment?
do you have twisted rca's?
how long is your ground wire?

i asked on CAA and you get a decent response there...

[Dogo]

witht the ground for you amp, make sure its as short as possible and has a direct connection to the chassis. Sand off the paint so you get bare metal.

if your power cable is running down the center could it be passing close to the RCAs as they come from the head unit ?

could the power and RCAs be close together at the amps end ?

also check your gains on the amp arnt up too high. many people make the big mistake of just turning them up full or almost full.

[Ian]

Yes they run fairly close at the head unit, however theres very little I can do about this short of drilling a new hole in the firewall.

With the earth, I drilled a hole in the chassis and put in a copper screw, then got one of them gold round thingis and ran the earth into that. Its fairly long however so I will shorten it tommrow.

Ive done everything conciveable to the amps settings with little or no effect. They were running up fairly high for a while tho, however now there down fairly low.

Nate runs his power cable down the center and doesent have an issue. The power cable used to run right next to the RCA and not cause any issues.

The RCA's are straight. Should I twist them?

My amp is a brand called fly. Id never heard of them before I got the amp, but I got it on the super cheap. Prehaps this is my problem? However the amp runs fine when the engine is not turned on...

Reckon its worth paying a profesional to fix? Im a bit sus when it comes to asking people to solve problems I know nothing about, he could sit there and drink ice tea and charge me for the time, then do something really easy and tell me it took him all day.

[Fro-Daddy]

did you install it yourself? if not, go back to installer and ask them to find out whats wrong...should be free realistically...

a twisted pair of rca's are different to just twisting the ones you currently have...i dont have these yet, im trying to solve mine without money :P (yes, im cheap haha)

ive been told, and have done this, that it is best to keep your ground wire to a max of 1m...at first i didnt sand off my paint, but that didnt make a diff on mine...

there is a link i found that you can test all your components to see what is causing the problem, ill see if i can dig that up for you...in the meantime, go to caraudioaustralia.com and in the forums, read the general section, there are a few posts similar to this in there...

[Ian]

thanks. Ill give that a buzz.

[SHANNON]

does the whine only happen when your driving !! if so it sounds like the dreaded alternater whine

[lil_astina]

i had the same problem went to audio shops and none of them could fix it turns out it was the head unit cause when i put a different one in the sound went away so i would be checking you h/u first