After market amp and speaker help.

[DeedsVR4]

Good evening everyone, I am hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction and help me solve my problem with my new amp and speaker set up. In short I put a 4 channel amp and new speakers in my non B&O BS, I installed all the equipment my self(have done since my first car at 17 and never had these problems) and ran a 4 AWG feed and ground line. I ran wires to the trunk and installed a set Kicker LOC2's to my amp and then back to the speakers. The sound quality is amazing but.... It picks up brake lamp noise, background noise, and alternator whine and it unbearable. If i run speaker level inputs that background noise goes away and so does the fidelity of the system, literally drops quality by 30ish percent. I used an LC2I and that helped a bit but its still a muddy mess.

I started with a ground in the spare tire well and then moved to a dedicated 4awg back to the battery negative, and have tried ground loop isolators and other LOC's and just cant seem to win. I've also tried moving around the ground and power wires and speaker input and output wires. I even ground the amp and just cant get rid of the whine. Any idea what I could do next? Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated !!!

Sponsored

 

[Jafo]

Good evening everyone, I am hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction and help me solve my problem with my new amp and speaker set up. In short I put a 4 channel amp and new speakers in my non B&O BS, I installed all the equipment my self(have done since my first car at 17 and never had these problems) and ran a 4 AWG feed and ground line. I ran wires to the trunk and installed a set Kicker LOC2's to my amp and then back to the speakers. The sound quality is amazing but.... It picks up brake lamp noise, background noise, and alternator whine and it unbearable. If i run speaker level inputs that background noise goes away and so does the fidelity of the system, literally drops quality by 30ish percent. I used an LC2I and that helped a bit but its still a muddy mess.

I started with a ground in the spare tire well and then moved to a dedicated 4awg back to the battery negative, and have tried ground loop isolators and other LOC's and just cant seem to win. I've also tried moving around the ground and power wires and speaker input and output wires. I even ground the amp and just cant get rid of the whine. Any idea what I could do next? Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated !!!

Wow man that sucks! It sounds like an ingress problem, the crappy thing is you have done most of the trouble shooting for an ingress problem and it has not gone away.

The only thing I can think of is if it is picking up Alternator whine, then maybe look at your splice point?!? Maybe try splicing in further into the BS. (I.E. Instead of splicing your speaker cables in the dash, try from the Door before hitting the speaker.) then run tot he amp and back to the speaker?!? To be honest you may have already done this, I was just throwing out an idea.

I'm sorry you are having these issues, nothing makes me angrier then when things don't work the way they are supposed to. lol! I will watch this thread to see when you get it cleared up and what the fix was. Good luck man! Don't give up, you got this!

 

[RiotfunK]

You have another amp you can try. Also can you get away with 8g instead of the 4g. With all the electronics in this thing there’s lots of things to cause interference. Where did you mount the amp and is there anyway to ground at the seatbelt bolt in the back.

 

[Meanderthal]

It would seem that maybe it is time to start looking into the components you have. Maybe something is wrong there and causing the issues you are having?

 

[DeedsVR4]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll start looking into the suggestions.
For JAFO The speaker input is intercepted in the doors themselves and ran back and forth from there. I really didn't want to tear the dash apart, but maybe I'll have to do just that to try.

RioTfunk it was originally all 8awg and I bumped it up to 4 trying to trouble shoot. It's been grounded now in the spare tire well, the seat bolts and a home run back to the battery. All at the same time and separately. Now I have a ground terminal they are hooked up to with a chassis ground and a home run. It's all the same unfortunately and there is no change between ground points.

I think you may all be right and I may need to look into the components separately now. Gonna try a kicker keyloc first to see if that helps anything and then I'm gonna start swapping components.
Thanks everyone

 

[thekingprawn]

I have no wisdom to offer, only sympathy as I spent the better part of two patrols chasing an intermittent ground in the fire control system on USS Alaska a long time ago.

 

[Deleted member 6599]

Make sure your speaker wiring is nowhere near the power wire. That’ll give you interference. I used the wires at the radio. It’s easy to run them behind the radio , then behind glovebox and down the right side of vehicle. It’s not too hard to take the dash apart, just time consuming.

 

[Mark S.]

Some good information about troubleshooting:

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-hxUL9K7pROa/learn/learningcenter/car/noise_suppressors_installation_guide.html

https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/a84/1272491/

https://www.dieselduck.info/machine/03 electricity/radio_interference.htm

 

[DeedsVR4]

Parts on the way everybody. Ill update middle of next week. Thank you everyone for taking time and chiming in

 

[n2deep8604]

Parts on the way everybody. Ill update middle of next week. Thank you everyone for taking time and chiming in

Been following as I plan to install a stereo in mine as well. Any luck with ridding the noise you were hearing? P.S. I ran into a similar issue on my old f150, and was able to tame it down a lot with a JL Audio Cleansweep, and turn that down some to make it just barely noticeable. Radio was still stellar, and the whine noise was near gone when music was playing, though still noticeable when music was off, and I never could get it fully gone and hated that fact.

 

[DeedsVR4]

Been following as I plan to install a stereo in mine as well. Any luck with ridding the noise you were hearing? P.S. I ran into a similar issue on my old f150, and was able to tame it down a lot with a JL Audio Cleansweep, and turn that down some to make it just barely noticeable. Radio was still stellar, and the whine noise was near gone when music was playing, though still noticeable when music was off, and I never could get it fully gone and hated that fact.

Where to begin, I had similar issues with my 2018 focus st, but nothing like this. I ended up using an lc2i into a clarion equalizer and that got rid of alot of the biggest background noise. It made the music kinda flat though and even with the equalizer it was still lacking. I ended getting a kicker keyloc ( I think similar to the unit you spoke of) and that really cleaned up the signal and made so I could dial in the input and out out better, but if I set anything to high the background noise comes back. It's taken alot of tinkering but I've found a happy balance with only hearing interference noise when there is no sound playing, and only really hear it when stopped. My next attempt is to run the keyloc right off the the radio wires in the dash and run everything down the center of the car to avoid possible issues. Also gonna put and extra ground on the radio unit to hopefully clear out more sound... But that's a couple weeks away.

But so far I am much happier with the new system over stock and am happy I decided to take on this project .also just got around to installing a 10in sub and boy does it sound great

 

[n2deep8604]

Where to begin, I had similar issues with my 2018 focus st, but nothing like this. I ended up using an lc2i into a clarion equalizer and that got rid of alot of the biggest background noise. It made the music kinda flat though and even with the equalizer it was still lacking. I ended getting a kicker keyloc ( I think similar to the unit you spoke of) and that really cleaned up the signal and made so I could dial in the input and out out better, but if I set anything to high the background noise comes back. It's taken alot of tinkering but I've found a happy balance with only hearing interference noise when there is no sound playing, and only really hear it when stopped. My next attempt is to run the keyloc right off the the radio wires in the dash and run everything down the center of the car to avoid possible issues. Also gonna put and extra ground on the radio unit to hopefully clear out more sound... But that's a couple weeks away.

But so far I am much happier with the new system over stock and am happy I decided to take on this project .also just got around to installing a 10in sub and boy does it sound great

Glad to hear!! In my old F-150 I ran everything from the head unit, so can speak if this makes any difference. But seems you were like me at that time and found the balance I could live with and enjoy the amazing sounds of the system I had installed.

Sponsored