Thanks for the input. I saw a post about the compartment under the front seats. i am thinking about seeing if can relocate the amps there and then, like you said, run the audio up through the middle. That would actually allow me to have the back hatch totally free for storager and hopefully get the amps away from all of the electrical noise. I just don't know when I will be able to get to it.

 

Resolving electrical noise, gnd loops, or whine is a complete PITA. While I wish I could tell you about a magic bullet to fix your woes, I do know a basic troubleshooting tip that may help that has not been mentioned yet.

Do you know where the source for the noise is? Get a portable mp3 player or portable cd player and a headphone to RCA patch cable. Connect headphone jack of the portable player directly to the amp and turn the volume way down to start. Adjust volume as needed to replicate the same volume level when noise is present. Make sure the portable is using battery power (no cigarette adapters allowed), then go for a drive or whatever to reproduce the electrical noise. If you have noise, fix the amps. If no noise, plug the portable patch cord into the cables that connect into the H/U (female/female addapters required). Repeat test and check the wiring. If still no noise, then your H/U is the culprit and fix accordingly.

Hope this helps rather than blindly assuming where the source of the electrical noise is.

Cheers!

 

Had this too. I was meticulous with my install. I wouldn't believe that my wire runs and ground points were the fault. I tried everything... chokes, filters, various other grounding techniques.

Bottom line... my wire runs and ground points weren't ideal.

Don't use any of the factory ground points. Keep grounds very short. Run your RCAs down passenger side, but also try to keep them away from the factory brown grounding wire bundles.

Once I did this, no more whine. Too simple... I'd have bet the farm it couldn't have been this simple because I had convinced myself that I was very careful during the initial install.

 

I tore the whole car apart, moved all the audio cable from the driver's side to the passenger side and there is no more whine, even with the amps sitting right over the battery Thanks for all the advice. it just took me awhile to get to it because it has been over 100 here for a long time and the heat finally broke.

 

I had the whine as well did pretty much the same as you along with the isolators ..Thought i had it. until i turn the ac on then it was there again. I ended up moving it up on my rear seat deletion kit to get rid of the whine completely

 

Excellent thread guys. I have a whine too and am going out to the car now to take a look at some of the suggestions posted here.

 

FWIW....

I changed the ground from the neutral terminal directly on the battery to the neutral bolt right next to the battery - no change.

I placed a PAC filter at the AMP - no change.

I moved the PAC filter to behind the head unit -- and this has apparently worked. I need to run the car a bit more to see if it's just lessened or gone.

My whine was so bad that when I stepped on the brakes with the engine running I got a buzzing on top of the whine.

Any ideas what might have caused that?

 

Reviving this thread as I finally put the amps back into the car. The install as it stands now is with an amp under each seat and the ground attached to one of the bolts in the chair rails. I get minor whine with acceleration but bad whine when I step on the brake.

The ground wires are only about a foot long and the RCAs and speaker wires are run down the passenger side of the car.

Is the ground for the amps a non-ideal location, or do I need to ground both amps to the same location and possible use a different ground for the HU other than the one in the wiring harness?