sound system issues (bad ground maybe?)

[etlsport]

thanks for all the advice! seems like the easiest place to start will be with the amp ground under the drivers seat... themore i think about it the more im thinking it shouldnt be the head unit wiring causing the whine, i have the ground wire for it passing through a noise filter, but i didnt think about it grounding itself to the truck via the mounting screws, the exterior casing of the HU is copper, so that would make sense if that helped in the grounding.

biju, how did you get your head unit wired directly to the battery and still work with the ignition?

will update when i get in there and figure it out

[morgan-tec]

A good rule to follow is never use a stock ground. Also ground as many items to one place as possible. This reduces the # of ground contacts you have on the body which will reduce noise. I have my HU, four video monitors, a video amp, and my rear view camera all grounded to the same spot behind the dash. I have zero noise. Also check the amp ground that it is solidly contacting bare metal. What quality RCAs did you get? Just a suggestion that if you went with the inexpensive ones then you will have noise. The better they are the more they cost, mine were more than all the rest or the cabling in the truck and they were worth every penny.

[etlsport]

ok, i went in, regrounded the amp which didnt help anything , but thats OK it needed to be done anyway, was going to reground the head unit and monitor but then decided i want to swap their position, id rather have the monitor up high and the dvd player down low to improve the angle on the monitor (it will only go straight vertical if its mounted in the cd changer slot becuase of the slope of the dash) so ill reground them during the move... picked up some 10' twisted pair RCAs made to reduce noise, theyve got a 3rd wire on them, which im assuming is ground, do i need to do anything special to ground that properly? do i ground both ends? this is the first time ive really done a 'high end' installation so cheapie RCAs usually do just fine

thanks guys!

oh yeah, and i also checked where my speaker wires are running, only the fronts are near anything that would give me trouble (drivers door runs for about 2 ft with the power wire and pass. door infront of the TOD computer), looks like the main problem is RCAs

[etlsport]

DONE

put the dash back together, cd player in the lower slot, monitor in the upper

no more whine either! new RCAs helped some, new ground helped some (thanks biju) then i added an inline noise filter in the power to the HU and that seemed to get rid of the rest, during heavy acceleration its just barely audible, not at all when theres music playing

[MZ-N10]

i think the 3rd wire is for ur amp power signal, but if it works for u gj

[etlsport]

yeah, after doing some more research i found out they were for remote turn on, so i just taped them off, the upgraded wires definately made a difference though