HOLY CRAP!! Alternator whine is getting the best of me, and it's really annoying...
07-19-2005, 05:04 PM
#1
HOLY CRAP!! Alternator whine is getting the best of me, and it's really annoying...
This is really annoying me now...
I just re-grounded both amps to the spare tire well, grinded all the paint off, and bolted the wires down, and still that god-awful alternator whine.
I am about to give up with it... I just busted my *** in the 100 degree heat doing this, and still no luck.
The thing is, I don't know if its a myth or not, because some people swear by it, and others constantly say it isn't, but does power wire to speaker wires/RCA wires do anything to make the alternator whine? I seperated the wires best I can, but with the amount of wires there are, it's inevitable for them to meet, also considering the car is a complete ground as it is, isn't it unavoidable?
Should I turn down my gains? Does this alternator whine mean I have my gains on my speakers set to high? Also, I have an aftermarket cd changer grounded to a piece of metal that is near the headunit, am I creating a ground loop?
PLEASE HELP, I AM COMPLETELY OUT OF IDEAS AND MIGHT CONSIDER GOING THE ROUTE OF THOSE SOUND CANCELLING THINGYS........................
I just re-grounded both amps to the spare tire well, grinded all the paint off, and bolted the wires down, and still that god-awful alternator whine.
I am about to give up with it... I just busted my *** in the 100 degree heat doing this, and still no luck.
The thing is, I don't know if its a myth or not, because some people swear by it, and others constantly say it isn't, but does power wire to speaker wires/RCA wires do anything to make the alternator whine? I seperated the wires best I can, but with the amount of wires there are, it's inevitable for them to meet, also considering the car is a complete ground as it is, isn't it unavoidable?
Should I turn down my gains? Does this alternator whine mean I have my gains on my speakers set to high? Also, I have an aftermarket cd changer grounded to a piece of metal that is near the headunit, am I creating a ground loop?
PLEASE HELP, I AM COMPLETELY OUT OF IDEAS AND MIGHT CONSIDER GOING THE ROUTE OF THOSE SOUND CANCELLING THINGYS........................
07-19-2005, 05:26 PM
#2
your gains could be possibly set too high. check that before you do anything else. as far as the wires try to keep the interconnects (RCAs) as far away from the power wire as possible. I always run mine down opposite sides of the car. Also make sure there is no slack in the RCAs and that they are not looping back over themselves.
i would not go the route of soudn cancelling as those are just bandaid fixes. you need to just fix it properly to begin with.
hope this helps,
drew
i would not go the route of soudn cancelling as those are just bandaid fixes. you need to just fix it properly to begin with.
hope this helps,
drew
07-19-2005, 06:17 PM
#4
If you mean the components, as in the headunit, amplifiers, and cd changer - well. the head unit is stock, so it's grounded however it is out of the nissan factory, the amplifiers I just grounded today to the spare tire well, and the cd changer is grounded to a piece of bare metal found around the headunit area.
07-19-2005, 06:21 PM
#5
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07-19-2005, 08:05 PM
#6
chances are your headunit ground is bad. which will affect all things. Also check to make sure your rcas arnt pinched anywhere. How long are your ground wires ? longer than 6 inches ? How long is your power wire ? The power wire should be as short as possible when coming into the car.
07-19-2005, 08:51 PM
#7
I tend to get a bit irritable
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No, the RCAs being anywhere near the power wire causing issue IS JUST A MYTH and will Not be the cause of it. People can say it till they die, but it is what it is, a Myth.
As far as your RCAs are concerned, they should be of decent quality and not run extra tight. leave a bit of slack.
Most likely your problem lies within your grounding of either the HU or your alt/battery. Or simply your alt is dying...
As far as your RCAs are concerned, they should be of decent quality and not run extra tight. leave a bit of slack.
Most likely your problem lies within your grounding of either the HU or your alt/battery. Or simply your alt is dying...
07-19-2005, 10:02 PM
#8
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 53
What kind of RCA cables do you have? On most of the installs we do we use twisted gold plated cables and we have never had any complaints. BUt, our guys are trained really well, so it could be in the way they run the wires.
Also, you could try getting some flex tubing to put the wires in so that they are not affected by the outside noise.
Or, it could even be the speakers. We call it "road noise", you can get some silencer (dynomat) to kill that.
Also, you could try getting some flex tubing to put the wires in so that they are not affected by the outside noise.
Or, it could even be the speakers. We call it "road noise", you can get some silencer (dynomat) to kill that.
07-19-2005, 10:04 PM
#9
I tend to get a bit irritable
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I would personally rather leave the "gold plated" stuff off. Just more fancy marketing crap that serves no meaningful purpose. Give me bare metal over any kind of plating anytime.
07-19-2005, 10:28 PM
#11
If they are after market amps I would make a muting plug for the amp on the highs, do a google search if you don't know how, chances are the amp or something in the audio signal chain is messed up, i.e a crossover. This happened to me and I found out it was my eq. I did alll the kill alternator noise steps but nothing worked till I yanked the eq.
07-19-2005, 10:33 PM
#12
I tend to get a bit irritable
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Central Jersey
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Originally Posted by AggressiveFront
I would prefer to have the silver connections. It is the best everyday conductor and has less power loss to heat.
metal = bare
Ill still stick to bare metal or hell even copper.
07-19-2005, 10:34 PM
#13
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 53
The ones I want ate nickel with silver plating on the connector, but a silver wire. If it were all solid silver it would break too easlily for my taste.
Ufortunately, they will cost more than my system will, so I will probably get teh nickel ones from work.
http://www.audio-consulting.ch/silve...tion_cable.htm
Ufortunately, they will cost more than my system will, so I will probably get teh nickel ones from work.
http://www.audio-consulting.ch/silve...tion_cable.htm
07-20-2005, 08:48 AM
#14
Don't waste your money on a noise filter...at least not on the rca type. They make you lose midbass and can actually pick up excess noise themselves. I bought one once, trust me. You won't like how your music sounds with the filter on there. I am willing to bet that you need to reground your h/u. The factory ground is not sufficient. You need to run a wire to some sort of bare metal and use at least a self tapping screw. The best place I found was the driver side kickpanel... I still haven't fixed mine yet cause I don't have time and my whine can only be heard with the volume all the way down and the engine revved up past 3-4K.
Edit: Try this and post back to let us know if it solved your problem. I have a feeling that most of the alternator whine in the 4th gens at least can be solved by not using the factory ground with the h/u.
Edit: Try this and post back to let us know if it solved your problem. I have a feeling that most of the alternator whine in the 4th gens at least can be solved by not using the factory ground with the h/u.
07-20-2005, 12:41 PM
#15
Yea, I have a feeling it's with my headunit, because so far with the headunit turned off, i have nothing coming out of the radio, but I have yet to try out the muting plug thing. Also, should I be concerned about my aftermarkey cd changer's ground creating a ground loop? And what if I just run really long wiring from the headunits ground to the negative on the car's battery, would that be beneficial? Or too long in legnth?
EDIT - This is on my 5th gen with stock non-bose head unit, two amplifiers, one polk 12" sub, and 4 infinity kappa speakers.
EDIT - This is on my 5th gen with stock non-bose head unit, two amplifiers, one polk 12" sub, and 4 infinity kappa speakers.
07-20-2005, 02:03 PM
#16
Oh....I didn't know that you were using the stock h/u. So Im guessing that you had to use line output converters or whatever they are called....or you used speaker level inputs on your amps to feed signal since you have no RCA outputs? I thought you had an aftermarket h/u. My suggestion may not be a solution for you then. It wouldn't hurt anything to reground that h/u but I wouldn't string it out all the way to the battery. I would find the closest spot you can find with bare metal then sand that bish down before you make your connection. With your situation though, I doubt it will eliminate your whine....
You could try to ground all of your amps and your cd changer and any other equipment that you have in the trunk in the same spot or within 1" of each other. I heard that helps sometimes. Some people suggest running your h/u ground all the way back to your trunk and grounding it with your amps, but I think that is impractical and unlikely to solve the problem. Good luck.....alty whine is very frustrating to get rid of sometimes. You just want to rip everything out and run over it....at least I have before
You could try to ground all of your amps and your cd changer and any other equipment that you have in the trunk in the same spot or within 1" of each other. I heard that helps sometimes. Some people suggest running your h/u ground all the way back to your trunk and grounding it with your amps, but I think that is impractical and unlikely to solve the problem. Good luck.....alty whine is very frustrating to get rid of sometimes. You just want to rip everything out and run over it....at least I have before
07-20-2005, 07:21 PM
#17
Member
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 98
ahhhh,
a self installed pioneer DEX-P9 head unit and DEQ-P9 DSP. and just one little fiber-optic cable linking the two. sorry, just had to proudly brag about this stuff in my '95 maxima for the first time and for some reason i cant start a new thread after joining this great website.
a self installed pioneer DEX-P9 head unit and DEQ-P9 DSP. and just one little fiber-optic cable linking the two. sorry, just had to proudly brag about this stuff in my '95 maxima for the first time and for some reason i cant start a new thread after joining this great website.
07-21-2005, 12:45 AM
#21
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 98
Originally Posted by AscendantMax
you're restricted from posting a new thread until you reach 15 posts i believe. this rule is in place to help cut back on spammers. anyhow...welcome to the org 
07-23-2005, 09:05 PM
#22
Hey, I just checked all my wiring again today, and found that the whine only occurs to the rear speakers. When I unplig my high-low converter for the rear channels, 0 alternator whine, plug them back in, whine comes back. What could this mean? i held the converter in the air while doing this too. Also it's inevitable for my speaker wires to meet my power wires, because the speaker output wires from the amp has the power connectors right next to them, if the myth is for real, then it would matter, but doesn't help me. What should I do, I turned down the gains on my amp to nothing at all.
07-26-2005, 03:25 AM
#23
Originally Posted by snair2
Hey, I just checked all my wiring again today, and found that the whine only occurs to the rear speakers. When I unplig my high-low converter for the rear channels, 0 alternator whine, plug them back in, whine comes back. What could this mean? i held the converter in the air while doing this too. Also it's inevitable for my speaker wires to meet my power wires, because the speaker output wires from the amp has the power connectors right next to them, if the myth is for real, then it would matter, but doesn't help me. What should I do, I turned down the gains on my amp to nothing at all.
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