alt whine from audiocontrol eql

Quickly brighten and then dim your dash lights. Does this alter the steady pitched noise?

Occasionally a product can have a defective component that can cause noise. That is a defective product. However, beyond that...products (including AC and Kicker) do not cause or create noise. However every time you insert another item into the system you create another path that can let noise in. Also, a poorly designed piece can create more than one path and make it that much worse. The kicker could have a bad internal component but it could also have a component looking for a better ground. This could cause a noise separate from your alternator whine. So first check your grounds again. I don't know what car you have but if a new one, watch out for "quiet metal". That makes body panels quieter, but it also makes them lousy grounding points. Go to a frame and make sure the battery has an upgraded ground to the frame. Then take 2 jumpers and run one from the EQ ground to the shield on one RCA's as I said earlier, then do the same thing for the Kicker crossover. See what happens. John JBorges

i am an idiot wrote: Quickly brighten and then dim your dash lights. Does this alter the steady pitched noise?

i dont have a dimmer. and its not hooked up on my radio either if thats what you were getting at. im sorry guys im forgetting posting 101, i have a 2011 nissan frontier four door. as far as i have noticed, none of the electronics in my truck has any influence on the noise, the lights and turn signals dont change it and the ac doesnt change it.

I am concerned with the PWM power supply for your dash lights of the vehicle.  Not the lights in your radio.

ok well like i said, i dont have a dimmer switch for my dash lights. is there any other way i can get you the info you want? i just had my wisdom teeth taken out today so you will have to give me a while to perform any kind of tests but they will be done.

I have never seen a vehicle that did not have a dash light circuit that could not be dimmed. If your lights are not on, this is not your problem. The power supply for some dash lights emits a high frequency noise. If you dim and brighten the lamps you can hear the pitch change. If your lights are off and you still have the noise, it can not be your lights.

yea i thought it was strange too but sure enough i have no dimmer.

ah ha, this morning i ran a new 4 gauge ground from battery straight to the frame and it instantly fixed most of the noise all together. right now i can still hear noise if i have the volume all the way down and it actually a little bit quieter than when i had the noise filter in line so for now im happy. i still need to figure out how to achieve total silence so maybe i might re do my ground for the EQL and KX3 and run them straight to the frame too, possibly even the amp but im not sure about doing this because it would make the grounds way too long for my comfort and they are already kind of long to begin with and im making up for it by oversizing my wire considering my total system draws less than 60 amps. but for now, thanks to everyone who took the time to help me out and give me some ideas. gracias

lancytaylor wrote: i think you are too insentitive about the noise. in fact,a little noise is quite normal.

i guess, it is and it isnt normal, 99% of people out there wouldnt even notice the tiny bit of alternator whine, but this is my own personal system so why settle for anything less than as good as i can get. if it turns out that i cant get the noise out then im not going to lose any sleep over it but i am going to try everything i possibly can. 

alright, time for a status update. i installed a noise filter inline with the constant power supply of the EQL and the KX3. now i dont have any detectable noise, BUT i have a question about how i am using the active crossover in relation to how it's hooked up to the alpine amp.

my problem is that im pretty sure i am getting some kind of distortion somewhere between 1kHz and 3kHz which is the range at which my crossover is set (about 2.2KHz is the crossover point) it sounds like static or maybe crackling and honestly im still not entirely sure that it is not just something that is in the song itself but to me it just sounds like extra noise.

i THINK that it might be because of a difference in RCA voltage of the mid signal and the tweeter signal comming out of the crossover. example: i have the left mid and left tweeter running to channel 1 and channel 2 of the amp. i did it that way because i wanted each gain on the amp to control one whole side instead of one gain for the tweeters and one gain for the mids.

the difference in voltage exists because i have the mid output from the xover set higher than the tweeter level. so channel 1 and channel 2, which share a common gain, are not seeing the same voltage input. does anyone know if this would cause a problem with audible distortion considering this is a high speed class D amp ( PDX-F4)?