alt whine

Have a front set of components hooked up to a two channel amp. Getting loud alternator whine through them. When i disconnect the rca's the whine stops. What could be the problem, or how can i narrow it down.

Also i tried a ground look isolator but the speakers sounded awful when it was hooked up. They seemed to echo and cut in and out. Not sure if that is relevant. All equipment was professionally installed so i'm assuming to power wire and rca's are on opposite sides of each other

djrankin004 wrote: Also i tried a ground look isolator but the speakers sounded awful when it was hooked up. They seemed to echo and cut in and out. Not sure if that is relevant.

Probably a cheap GLI. Also ANY installation of a GLI is a bandaid, so let's see if we can get you taken care of without it. Pioneer radio? I bet you this is the fix... And if it IS the fix, then your system was NOT very "professionally installed"...

djrankin004 wrote: All equipment was professionally installed so i'm assuming to power wire and rca's are on opposite sides of each other

If the noise went away with the installation of the GLI, then you should have already been able to figure out that was not the issue. It does not matter anyway, I've run every wire (signal, remote, power and speaker) down one side of the car in MANY installations, (the current one included, with the exception of the speaker wires...) and I've never seen it cause alternator noise.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."

It is an alpine radio. I've been told it is most likely the amp. The volume of the whine goes up and down with the gain of the amplifier and the rpm's of the car. Power Acoustik 2 Channel amp btw

Try the fix suggested, anyway.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."

make sure your head unit is grounded separate. Don't use the factories radio ground. be sure to have the amp on a rack so its not grounding out through the body of it. Use a top quality rca cable.Dustin Rockney

Rockstar Autosports

Disconnect  the RCA cable and the speaker wires from the amp.  Using an ohm meter, check the resistance between the shield of the RCA jack of the amp to one of the non bridged speaker terminals of the amp.  Let me know what you come up with.

sorry about the delay. using a multi meter i could not get it to come up with any resistance between either rca shields and the speaker terminals of the amp. I tried multiple combinations with the car on and off(you didnt specify so i wasnt sure if it mattered). Is the multi meter i used broken? It read resistance from my speaker wires and my subwoofer terminals

Touch the meter leads together to see if your meter is broken.Do you know which of the speaker wires are NOT used to bridge the amp?If so, remove all fuses from the amp.  Place a single 5 amp fuse in one of the fuse holders.  With the RCA cable and speaker wires disconnected, make sure the amp powers up.  If it does, connect the speakers and RCA cables.  Turn the volume all the way down on your radio.  Connect one end of a small wire with one of the non bridgeed speaker wires.  With the amp turned on, and engine running.  Briefly touch the other end of that wire to the shield of the RCA jack This should make a pop, that might blow the fuse, or if the fuse survives the pop, the noise should go away.  If the 5 amp fuse does not survive, place a single 10 amp fuse in the same spot the 5 was in.  Let me know what you find out.