[dt32569]

Talk about a bad week for stereos....I had previously had a shop here add a JL amp, stealthboxed and a PPI phase adjuster to the car. I then added and Audio control EQL and JL components up front. Sounded good...no probs...then I got a Kenwood Head Unit with Sirius...had then add that...then the problems started. Engine whine.....floor noise....turn on/off thump. You name it. Took it back AGAIN and they added a relay to eliminate the thump and told me the floor noise was something Id have to live with and they couldnt isolate the engine whine.
Last night one of the channels started acting up so I opened the trunk to look and you would not believe the MESS of wires on the left side where my components were. I almost shat myself..plus a ground wire had come loose etc..when I tried to tidy them up.....(the car was running as I was tweaking my phase shifter for image) POP SPARK POP!! One of the remote turn on wires was NOT properly connected and fuses started blowing. I was soo pissed off I yanked everything out and decided t fix it MYSELF!!!!
So far I have eliminated the turn on off thump...buthave MORE engine noise...I am going to keep working on it - HOPEFULLY its not the RCA but a ground. My girlfriend is about to call the shop herself as she knows how pissed I was and AM. But I calmly decided that if I want it done right....do it myself.
So....now I tackled re-wiring...getting rid of the alt whine, then trying to get my FM to get a STATION! (The installer never hooked up the Ant power wire to my knowledge - it looked like he used my Kenwood ANT PWR wire to act as the remote turn on wire. I attached the remote turn on wire to the EXT PWR wire on my Kenwood..now to figure out how to power the BMW ant???
****ty week for my car stereo.

 

[guest1016]

these cars don't generally have good reception anyway you know? does it have the proper ant adap. installed? It should be a metra 40VW10. there are other ones also made by metra that fit but won't work right, such as the VW20 I think it is. it has a resistor built into & will give you fits ( i verified this w/ a metra tech)

 

[dt32569]

Antenna

cls - glad you replied- I was searching for your earlier post on the antenna!
Hmm...it is a Antenna Works (Sound right?) VW type adapter. Now, aren't they supposed to also hook up the ANT PWR wire from the head unit to the remote turn on wire in the stock harness? Which wire would this be? The light blue one?

 

[Buddah323i]

The floor noise you are experiencing is because the gains on the EQL and the amp are not set up correctly. By adding the new headunit you increased you output voltage going into these. The alternator whine was probably already there also (but not very audible) but is being amplified because your gains are not set up correctly.

 

[Buddah323i]

One more note -- Check all grounds and make sure they are connected to unpainted surfaces and solid this will help eliminate the alternator whine. Also Audio Control products are known to induce noise into systems that are not properly set up.

 

[dt32569]

ok...

Thanks for the info. I have tweaked the gains (input and output) on the EQL and it didnt help. Turning the EQ off does LOWER the noise but it is still audible. I was thinking I need to first retweak the input sens on the amp then tweak the EQL?
As far as grounds....the shop just screwed into the little screw holes on the left sides of the trunk where the plastic tray used to be (under that) - but that looks like coated or galvanized metal to me...I was gonna run them all to the battery neg ground, but then read that you need short grounds. Any good idea for WHERE in the trunk I can get a good ground? I noticed they used the stock ground on one component. I was going to remove the grounds for everything except the amp (on the left side of the trunk and the ground runs to the chassis ground next to the battery) and reground them near each component.

 

[Buddah323i]

When setting your gains you need to start at the beginning. To do it right you need an osciloscope and the proper test cd. To get it close without the scope you need to turn all of your gains all the way down then turn your head unit up to 3/4 volume. Next turn the gains on the Eq up slowly until the speakers start to distort. When you start to hear distortion turn it back down until the distortion goes away then do the same thing for each channel of your amplifiers. I find it easier to set the gains on the amplifiers by unplugging the rca's and only doing 1 channel at a time so you can only hear the speakers that you are setting the gains for. By the way which JL amp are you using? On the grounds it is true that they should be as short as possible but I think it is more important for them to be grounded solidly. Mine are all run to my battery because I didn't want to put any holes in my trunk. If your equipment is in the trunk I would do the same. You could get a distribution block and run a piece of wire the same size if not larger than you amplifiers power wire (hopefully 4 gauge) to a distribution block near your equipment and then connect all you grounds to the distribution block.

 

[drgalleg]

Ouch! Dude, I'm sorry to hear about your situation - you and I have a fairly similar setup w/ respect to equipment. You were pretty happy when you first got it, I hate to see the install is falling to pieces.

Check if the AudioControl EQL has an input/output meter. My EQTs do, which helped tremendously in setting up the stuff.

Also, check to see if you're running the Excelon unit w/ amp mute on or off. Since you're amplifiing w/ external amps, just turn off the internal amp in the headunit. Do this by switching the source to "all off" and then getting into the menu screen. Scroll through the options until you see Amp mute. This increases the voltage output level to the full 4.5V, which should allow you to turn DOWN the amp gain on the JL amp.

Good luck with it all.

 

[AIYA]

Seriously.. after changing my ICe setup a couples of times... I wanna rip out the whole thing and buy brand new stuff... I bugged the shieett out of me thinking that there is something there not being perfect.