audio whine with aftermarket headunit

[Force88]

ok bought some earth leads and one of those noise suppressors you fit to to the back of the alternator finally gonna have a crack at this today. before I put it on just wanna make sure that this is how the suppressor is supposed to be fitted? 

[Force88]

rightio boys im at the end of my tether here. gave up on this for a few months but driving to cairns and back and listening to the constant whine for 8 hours pushed me over the edge. ive replaced the battery earth and the engine strap earth and cleaned sanded the alternator earth. ive moved to a new spot and replaced both amp earth cables and bought a new amp for my speakers(old one died anyway) tried an alternator suppressor, routed the RCA cables down the left side of the car and the amp power and remote cable down the right side of the car, and made the headunit power and earth go directly to the battery instead of tapping into the icc wiring loom. yet the noise persists. right now the car is just about ripped apart, all I have plugged into the stereo is the remote wire, power and earth. the stereo can be powered on and theres no whine but as soon as you select a source the whine starts. the only thing I havent replaced is the alternator power cable because I cant find one anywhere to buy.

 

my speaker cables are tapped in via the kickpanels and the speaker wires run along with the RCA cables down the left side. if I take the alternator cable out of the fuse box and start the car the noise is completely gone. just about ready to pour petrol over the car and call it a day, so if anyone has any other solutions for how to fix this id love to hear one

[Puffwagon]

7 minutes ago, Force88 said:

the stereo can be powered on and theres no whine but as soon as you select a source the whine starts.

 

I'm not a audio guru by any means but this sentence sticks out to me.

 

Have you tried another stereo that is preferably new or less than 10 years old?

[k31th]

Well, the amplifiers are basically doing nothing when there's no audio signal going to them. So it could still be related to the earthing...

 

By the fact of you taking the alternator wire out of the fuse box and starting the car and that actually fixing your problem, I'd suggest taking the car to an auto-elec to ensure the alternator itself isn't causing some sort of issue.

 

Obviously the car's electrical system has a larger load on it with the alternator connected, but it shouldn't be causing this sort of issue all on it's own.

[Stockies]

I've had heaps of issues with mine since upgrading the stereo. I'm still using the ICC and a AudioControl LCQ -1 Line out convertor though.

 

I tried everything, Big 3 upgrade, filter on the factory ICC power wire, best RCA cables I could find, Move wiring away from everything (RCA's are on the passenger side, power is on the drivers).

 

I pulled the whole car apart and added an extra earth wire to every earth I could find in the vehicle with 6mm cable, then joined them all together to make one new earth loom and finished by adding an external earth to the line out unit. I even found a earth really high up on the drivers side that the ICC uses for its earthing (was a pain to get to - buy a 7mm ratchet spanner to undo it)

 

This dropped the whine noise to nearly nothing, and was the best thing I did to solve it. It seems the FG's are really lacking in earthing from the factory to save some bucks on cable per vehicle, this part of the reason for the whine.

 

Because I'm unwilling to install an aftermarket headunit (I want to retain reverse sensor beeps and factory look) this is the best I'm going to get I think.

Also, my speaker wires are tapped into the main ICC loom and then covered in tape/conduit to keep "noise" out. I used quaility cable as well, as originally I didn't - and replacing it with better stuff also helped. I'm saying this as I have heard vehicles that have their speakers tapped into in the kickpanels, and all of them have heaps more noise than mine ever did. Mine also has new speaker cable runs from the amp into the doors, as I didn't want to use the factory stuff.

 

So, in short - run new speaker cables from your headunit direct to your speakers, don't use the factory stuff if you have an aftermarket unit. You will lose the reverse beeps and factory bluetooth however.