crackling speakers

I just finished an install of 4 new speakers and amp, speakers were alpine components in front and pioneer 6x9's in back. After i installed the fronts, everything sounded great. After i installed the rears, i tested again, this time all 4 speakers had a terrible crackle, even at low volume, it gets worse as the volume increases of course. Setting the gain low doesnt help. Since this install is from a factory amplifier, using a pac-4 lineout converter, i tried a different converter, a cheap one. Same result. I hooked up my amp from my car, an Alpine pdx, and it sounded great... For about 10 min, then the crackle reappeared. It's a little better then the other amp, but still present at modest volume. The power and ground are beyond recomended specs, done right, power through the firewall. Disconnecting any input or output does not resolve the problem. What's going on here? My only guess, is the factory amp is crap, the reason for the install was this same problem with the front left tweeter, which came back even after replacing the speaker. Help please. Thanks in advance.

2005 toyota camry

Is your factory system amplified? Are you using the factory wiring?
It sounds like you may be getting interference from the factory amp. Either eliminate the amp or run new wire from your 4 channel to the new speakers.

Not sure what you mean by "crackling," but disconnect the rear speakers one at a time and see which one is causing the issue, then double check that there are no frayed or loose speaker wires and that the speaker is not blown.  Check resistance to ground on the speaker wires.  If all looks good then you have an amplifier or HU issue.

-------------
Support the12volt.com

Crackling does resemble blown speakers, all are brand new. Ive disconnected all speakers and reconnected them one at a time by themselves and they all have the same issue. Speaker wires at all connections except at the amp are soldered. I do have it connected to the outputs of the factory amp. I was a little wary about eliminating the factory amp, im not sure how the vehicle would react, maybe not allow the hu to turn on at all, just dont know enough about factory amps. If anyone has advise on that, i would prefer to remove the factory amp. I know the amp is good, came directly out of my car, never had problems with it, tomorrow im going to hook up the first amp to my car to see what it sounds like on a known good system. Thanks for the replies.

i had this porblem before. thought my stock speakers were blown but turns out that my wiring to my deck was bad. check ur connection to ur speakers wires check for cut wires n stuff like that. mine was spliced and connection was bad. they way u can tell if u got bad wire going to ur speaker is take out ur stereo deck and try powering ur speaker from back of the deck directly with some extra speaker wires.

there is a bad connection on ur speaker line to ur stereo deck. if on channel from u deck had bad connection like positive and negative touching it can cause all 4 speakers to crackle also..

If you are driving the factory amp with the speaker outputs from your HU that is the problem.  You need to either bypass the factory amp or drive it with line level signals from the HU.  If you ARE using line-level signal to drive the amp, then perhaps you have an impedance issue.  In any case, my best advice is to start by bypassing the factory amp.

-------------
Support the12volt.com

I just re-read your original post.  What is your HU?  And are you trying to use the factory amp through an LOC to drive an outboard amp?

-------------
Support the12volt.com

Hu is the camry xle factory navigation unit, i am using the outputs of the factory amp as the input to the loc. I asked around if this was an option, and all replies indicated that it would work. I wasnt happy with that decision, but still wasnt sure about how the car may react if i completely eliminate the factory amp. Im going to use an ipod to supply the sound to the aftermarket amp, and see if the problem goes away, if it does, then i know the problem is on the factory side.

What year Camry?  (complete info always helps.)

-------------
Support the12volt.com

2005 camry xle with jbl system and navigation.

I believe a Metra 71-1761 will work so you can keep the factory head, steering wheel controls, etc but wire your new amp in place of the factory amp and replace the speakers.  Actually it is not that simple.  To do the job correctly is a fairly complex installation and will require rewiring speakers, etc.  If you're not up to this I suggest taking to car to a competent local car stereo shop.

-------------
Support the12volt.com

What do you mean by rewireing the speakers? They have all been replaced and i ran 2sets of speaker wires to each speaker, 1 set from the connector that runs to the factory amp, and 1 set to the speakers, so the wiring may already be in place. Im up to the challenge (maybe with a little guidance). I take it that its not as simple as using the outputs from the hu to the factory amp as my inputs to the loc? Thanks for the help.

I just took a look at the wiring diagram for this car, and i notice that from the head unit to the amp, there are only 4 signal wires, all positive, 1 for each speaker. What does that mean for this task?

Hi.  The signal from the HU to the amp are line level signals.  The four wires you see are the positives, the negative is all common and usually carried by the shield.  You would need to adapt these to RCA connectors to plug them into your new amp.

-------------
Support the12volt.com

Sounds easy enough.

Looking at the wiring diagam, the signal wires from the hu, are, and this is hard to explain, but they are circled around in a cylinder shape with dashed lines. This is connected to one wire on the hu labeled SLD. I assume this is the shield, would i connect this to the shield of all of the rca cables? Using this, i wouldnt need the loc, and should be good to go right? If my assumptions are correct, it seems pretty straight forward. I look forward to getting another whack at this car during the weekend, but ill never touch another camry if i can help it :)

SLD is the shield, and yes, it'll be common to all four of your RCA inputs.

Bypass the factory amp completely, and if:

a: the noise is still present while running the aftermarket amp with an off-board signal source, then the issue is in the speakers or wiring.

or b: the noise is present with the OEM head driving the amp, and a: (above) does not apply, then your noise issue is in the OEM head unit.

-------------
It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

its not the camry, its the fact that its a jbl system. its the same way in a sequoia but once you realize what is really going on then its not that bad.

-------------

My frustration with the camry is less about the stereo and more about the body. When taking apart the system i was kind of impressed. Didnt expect crossovers in the doors. But I had to remove the entire back seat, and rear deck to remove the speakers. Also had a hell of a time running new speaker wires into the doors, no room in the existing loom, and no room to drill. They also hid the screws in the door panels very well. Oh well, hard parts over. Never got a chance to work on it this wknd, but next for sure, i think the receiver will come out pretty easy.

ok so she finally had me try to fix this. it must not have bothered her as much as it bothered me. i bypassed the factory amp using the signal wires, and the shield from the factory deck. it worked great at first, but the longer it was on, the worse it sounded. it sounded like it was underwater. when i shut the car off, it went back to sounding good. with an offboard source, it was perfect. it seems like the deck is overheating. if i turn the gains up on the amp, with the deck on a lower volume setting, it sounds good, but the dreaded ground loop noise is present. so right now, its either deal with the whine or have crappy sound. any ideas?

New head unit.

-------------
Support the12volt.com

thats what i thought, but was in denial. any suggestions on a double din gps receiver that fits?