Common speaker noises and grounding issues answered

[tomypg]

Okay, thought I would make a thread showing most of the common problems with grounding and engine noise in speakers/subs. I will quote some of the most common types of problems that people have had on the forum and seem to pop up the most. If anyone has anything to add, please feel free to PM me and I will add it on, with credit to you. Getting kinda sick of the same Questions over and over again, I don't mind answering it, but I want something fresh to answer, not the same old.

If you have just installed an amp, look at how you have run your RCA's and speaker wire. They may interfere with the cars electronic wires from the electromagnetic forces that may occur, all those these are small, an amp will amplify the RCA input and make it horrible.

First one -

“I just installed (Insert Speaker) When I turn my car on and notice that the speakers are picking up the engine's noise. When I rev it gets louder and whines to the car as I rev also, and when I use my lights or indicators it gets worse”

Answer - there could be a few things going on here:

1. When you installed your speakers and pushed then into the mounts, the terminals on the speaker may be touching the frame of the car, mostly everything in your car is ground to the chassis, hence the noise changes with the car

2. Your amps ground is bad, i.e seat belt grounding or you didn’t sand back the paint/rust on your vehicle or you did not ground to a structural part of the car.

3. Your RCA’s are mega crappy, either they are not any good at the connections (i.e use of the cheaper home RCA’s, seems they don’t fit very good), test with another set first though, I have this problem a lot with my stereo, when I turn my RCA’s a certain way they work, otherwise the worst engine noise ever.

4. Your Head Units ground is very bad, cause bad signal feed, check with a continuity tester or multi meter, this is usually the last thing you would need to check.

“I just swapped over my amp to a new one, and now I get very bad engine noise whenever I am driving, I haven’t changed any of the speakers or wiring just swapped it over, what is wrong?”

Answer – Again points from above still apply,

1. Your amps ground is bad, i.e seat belt grounding or you didn’t sand back the paint/rust on your vehicle or you did not ground to a structural part of the car.

2. Your RCA’s are mega crappy, either they are not any good at the connections (i.e use of the cheaper home RCA’s, seems they don’t fit very good), test with another set first though, I have this problem a lot with my stereo, when I turn my RCA’s a certain way they work, otherwise the worst engine noise ever.

“Can I just ground my amp/battery to the frame or should I run some 1/0 from my front battery to the back?”

Answer – You can always just ground to the frame, make sure the paint is sanded of and it is not just a beauty panel, you need to ground to a structural piece or a piece well connected to one, otherwise the ground to the battery up front will have too much resistance. This is where I ALLWAYS RECOMMEND THE BIG III, whenever you are grounding to the cars body/chassis, always do the big III, Or at least upgrade the battery to chassis ground with the same gauge you grounded the back with… Most of the time you can run one 4 channel of the standard body to battery ground. There is no point grounding to the body when all you have is 8 AWG from the front battery to the car.

Now, running wire front to back will ensure much better flow and less resistance, so for high powered set ups, I say always run wire for the ground, with a ratio of 1:1 to power..

“My amp gets really hot when playing music for a while, even at half volume”

Answer – I won’t go into Ohm loading and such cause this is for grounds, but check that first. Make sure the ground is a good one, i.e sanding back and bolting tightly in a good place. Also check your power wire and make sure it can carry enough current to supply the amp, feel if it is warm or not, and also check the speaker wire.

Just remember to ground your stuff properly and then you can rule most of these problems out!

If I find any more common questions etc, or if you guys do, please PM about it and I will add it.

Edited July 8, 2010 by tomypg

[newls1]

Dont take this the wrong way PLEASE , but your answers are somewhat correct, but really there are other reasons and fixes for the ever popular "Engine noise" I myself have been fighting this issue for 6 months and really have only helped it a little, but it is still there. I have all my grounds (8 total) going to either the frame of my truck, or to my front batt, and still have this engine hiss that is killing me. I have made sure all my grounds are on the same side of the trucks frame, etc.... New HU, new RCA's, new this, new that, and still cant get rid of this engine noise... THere has to be other answers for this issue. But really nice of you to try to help people here, that is always a plus

[sqsux]

May want to include running power wire and RCA's on the same side of the car, that caused me engine noise for a while.

[skittlesRgood]

Dont take this the wrong way PLEASE , but your answers are somewhat correct, but really there are other reasons and fixes for the ever popular "Engine noise" I myself have been fighting this issue for 6 months and really have only helped it a little, but it is still there. I have all my grounds (8 total) going to either the frame of my truck, or to my front batt, and still have this engine hiss that is killing me. I have made sure all my grounds are on the same side of the trucks frame, etc.... New HU, new RCA's, new this, new that, and still cant get rid of this engine noise... THere has to be other answers for this issue. But really nice of you to try to help people here, that is always a plus

when i switched from a mechman alt to a DC power alt i got less noise lol. you never know what its going to be, even spark plugs can make a difference. ive also noticed any time RCAs are coiled up they make noise.

and OP, the 1st set of RCAs i used were cheapy $5 RCAs and i had very little noise. "upgraded" to knukoncepts and i got more noise. battled it a little then recently "upgraded" to stinger and got more noise lol. each upgrade had better/more shielding than the last. explain that lol.

[newls1]

when i switched from a mechman alt to a DC power alt i got less noise lol. you never know what its going to be, even spark plugs can make a difference. ive also noticed any time RCAs are coiled up they make noise.

and OP, the 1st set of RCAs i used were cheapy $5 RCAs and i had very little noise. "upgraded" to knukoncepts and i got more noise. battled it a little then recently "upgraded" to stinger and got more noise lol. each upgrade had better/more shielding than the last. explain that lol.

EXACTLY..... I went threw the same chit

[rubbernutz1]

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EXACTLY..... I went threw the same chit

me 2 lmao

[BboyTaktix]

nice thread. Will be checking everything this weekend, and also running my RCA's down the center of my car along with the speaker wires, since I want more RCA length anyways. I'm gonna isolate the speaker and RCA wires from the factory wiring as well, see if that helps, and as usual, check all my grounds again (I'll be changing most of the wiring this weekend anyways to finish my custom trunk layout finally, thank GOD!)

Really hope I can get rid of the sound!!!

[tomypg]

There are allways going to be the few ones that I havent or cant answer, but this is mainly for the most common questions, I just want to help people instead of them having to wait for an answer, they can just see what the most commen types of fix are.

[tomypg]

Dont take this the wrong way PLEASE , but your answers are somewhat correct, but really there are other reasons and fixes for the ever popular "Engine noise" I myself have been fighting this issue for 6 months and really have only helped it a little, but it is still there. I have all my grounds (8 total) going to either the frame of my truck, or to my front batt, and still have this engine hiss that is killing me. I have made sure all my grounds are on the same side of the trucks frame, etc.... New HU, new RCA's, new this, new that, and still cant get rid of this engine noise... THere has to be other answers for this issue. But really nice of you to try to help people here, that is always a plus

Not making you sound dumb, but I had the same problem and it was my front right speaker and the left tweeter connections where touching the frame when I stuck it in. Just check that, if you already have then don't worry

EDIT: Tell me some of these other ones and I will add it, or you can add it if you can edit my post, be good to get most of them in one place and sticky it or something.

Edited July 8, 2010 by tomypg

[tomypg]

when i switched from a mechman alt to a DC power alt i got less noise lol. you never know what its going to be, even spark plugs can make a difference. ive also noticed any time RCAs are coiled up they make noise.

and OP, the 1st set of RCAs i used were cheapy $5 RCAs and i had very little noise. "upgraded" to knukoncepts and i got more noise. battled it a little then recently "upgraded" to stinger and got more noise lol. each upgrade had better/more shielding than the last. explain that lol.

Changing from mechman to DC you probably got a much more regulated DC power supply, causing less noise. Possibly look at the grounding on your HeadUnit. And check how the RCA's are grounded to the Head Unit. Check it with a multi meter/continuity tester and check the actual ground of te headunit, you may need to ground the case for some more shielding.