I have removed all the Bose speakers and deck and I have a sub amp and a amp for my rears and fronts. I have a good ground and ran the rca's and power on opposite sides. I have been trying to fight alternator whine since. It seems to be more noticeable when I have the lights and heat on. I think I have checked the basics. Any other things I am missing? Thanks.

 

Me too! Like Krue92 my noise seems to only be audible when the headlights/rear defroster are on.

I changed my amp grounds- still noise
I switched the sub (rear) rca's with the mids (front) rcas- still noise (I thought maybe one of the two rca cables was defective but nope.)
I made muting plugs and plugged them in - no noise, so the amp is ok and the noise isn't being induced through my amps' power wire or anything, right?

Since our problem is made much worse when accessories are turned on in the car that means that grounds aren't the problem right? How to fix this????

I know that there are soooo many threads about alternator whine but man I am desperate for help and Im sure Krue92 is too. Im about to take out the 4 channel amp and hook my mids back up to the h/u!!!!!!! Please help!!!

 

Would the PAC ground loop isolator be appropriate in this situation?

Here is a link to it:

http://www.pac-audio.com/products/sni1.htm

It says it has a "near perfect" response so maybe the signal isn't altered that much? I know that people say it is just a band aid but I can accept that. I can't have whine when I use my defroster and headlights. Would this work?

If not, what do you suggest to stop this? It sounds like the noise is being emitted into the h/u via the electonics behind the dash. Or is that not what is happening?

 

See if this helps:

http://www.audiocontrol.com/techpapers/tech1002.pdf

 

alternator whine is usually from the altenator trying to produce more power right?

 

Could be a faulty internal regulator or even old grounds causing the issue. To see if the noise is being injected via the headunit, you can power it up with an external 12v supply and run the system with the car idling.

 

Well, I guess there is no easy answer for this. I did order one of those pac isolators on ebay today. I'll try hooking it up near the amp and see if it works or not. If I can notice a SQ issue with it, I'll take it out too.
I guess if the ground loop isolator doesn't work or if SQ is affected I'll tear the h/u out and try to power it with an external power supply, which is going to be a pain for sure. That document up above seemed to imply that I need to run my h/u ground to the amp ground too. Wouldn't a ground that long hurt more than help?
Maybe I should just never turn my headlights and defroster on anymore

 

Running the HU from an external source while the car is running is a good way to determine if the interferrance is being injected at the HU. If the system is clean in this configuration, you can try and isolate the problem by moving the HU power/grounds. Try disconnecting the antenna as well as I have seen issues where those have added noise before.

Good luck.

 

If it is clean while running it off external power then I would need some sort of filter that fits on my power wire right? Or would you run it straight to the battery?

 

You can go back as far as the audio area of maxima.org will go and you will find tons of ppl who have had this problem I tryed all they told me to try, but in the end I had to go spend a little extra and get a good set of RCA's I had walmart rca cables for the longest but when I steped up to higher quality gear I had to step up my wires and cables all my wirn went away ,hope this helps

 

I have some twisted cables. They are made by RF but they look higher quality anyway.

 

Does anybody know why alternator whine would be more loud sometimes than others? Today it was raining and the alternator whine was twice or three times as bad as it normally is. Im not sure if the rain had anything to do with it or not but this is driving me crazy.
Sometimes just unplugging the RCA's from the amp and plugging them back in later will get rid of the whine. I have also gotten rid of it by just moving the wires around. It always comes back though.