super strange noise problem

Hello all. I have a serious problem that is causing me a tremendous amount of stress. I will be very detailed so you will all thoroughly understand my situation. I have a 2006 Acura Rsx type s. About six months ago I went all aftermarket. I installed a Alpine cda-9885 along with polk mmc6500 componenets up front with mmc650 coaxials in the back. A polk c400.4 is driving the front components in a active setup with the rears being powered by the headunit. I have a kicker 12" L7 in a 3.0 cu ft enclosure tuned to 35hz. It is powered by a polk c500.1 giving it 555 watts at 2 ohms. I have 0 gauge running to a 40 farad tsunami cap with a full distro block on the cap. from their runs 4 gauge power and ground to the amps. I ran 12 gauge power and ground from an open terminal on the distro black to the headunit in order to avoid all possible ground loops. All the connections at the headunit and elsewhere are very securely soldered. I also have a sirius starbase being powered by these wires. The factory harness was only used for ACC as I didn't want to use those wires for ground or power. Now I used this setup for 2 and a half months without a single problem and not a trace of alternator noise. I then decided that I wanted a dvd player and bluetooth so I went ahead and sold the alpine to a friend and purchased a jvc kd-avx33. I carefully unhooked everything and simply hooked in the jvc to the already run wires. Again everything worked perfectly and their was not an ounce of alternator noise. I have now used this stereo for about 4 months. Circumstances have been such that I have been driving to a lot of new places and it is sometimes hard for me to locate my destinations as night so a nav system was needed. The jvc wasn't nav ready and I wanted a nav system integrated into a capable HU so I figured it was time to start shopping around. I noticed a jensen vm9512. It was nav ready, had built in bluetooth, a built in ipod adapter and had 4 volt pre outs and so many more features for a bargain price. It was going for 449 brand new on ebay. The nav adapter was 229 on ebay. This was too good to pass up. A comparable sytem from alpine or even kenwood with blutooth, the ipod and the nav adpaters would set me back hundreds of dollars more. Of course in the back of my mind was the nightmare of some crap happening with this jensen brand but I hoped for the best. I was never the type of guy to discount something merely because it wasn't one of the fancy, respected brands. So I went ahead and ordered the jensen vm9512 along with the nav101 all purchased from "3alarmdeals" on ebay. The items arrived on Friday and I was anxious to get them in the car. Sunday morning I whipped out my tools and carefully removed the JVC. I put the jensen nav antenna on my roof and the nav brain was tucked underneath and to the left of the steering column. I resoldered all the power and ground connections. I double checked everything and made sure everything was the way it should be. I again made sure the sirius starbase was operational which it was. The situation in the back of the headunit was exactly the same as with the last 2 headunits I had which both worked flawlessly. In any event, the big moment arrived and on turned the system. The car was idling and I went straight to the nav system. It quickly found the gps satellites and the map showed by vehicle in exactly the spot it was. I was thrilled. I turned on the radio, I listened to my ipod and sirius and everything was perfect. Keep in mind that all this is going on with the vehicle at idle. Feeling all happy, I go inside to shower and eat and I was off to the gym. I program the nav system to direct me to the gym just to see what type of direction it gives me. As my rpm's climp to 3000, I notice the dreaded alternator whine. It basically only comes on at 2900 rpm's but it comes on hard. I felt my stomach churn. This couldn't be happening as I am pretty experienced at this, their was absolutely no ground loops and the system was clearly installed right as this nonsense didn't happen with the last 2 headunits. The noise is very annoying while in navigation mode as their is no sound other than the woman telling you when to make turns. While listening to music it is barely noticeable because the songs tend to mask the noise. If I am listening to howard stern, I can clearly hear the whine when I rev the car. So I took out the headunit and tried to move the rca's and to see if that had any effect. It didn't. I double checked the ground both up front and at the distro black in the back and everything was fine. Again you must bear in mind that nothing at all changed other than the HU so right away that is the prime suspect. Now my rca's are run up to the radio zip tied with speaker wires and stuff(as they have always been) so its not really possible for me to remove them from the area of the radio to try and test all options. Now I removed the the rca's from the radio and to my astonishment, the noise was still their when I reved the vehicle but more faint. I know this sounds weird but I doubt it is the amps or anything but the Hu which is at fault. Here is a another thing I didn't mention. The alternator noise is totally unaffected by the volume setting on the radio. Even with the radio on mute, the noise sounds exactly the same when reved over 3000 rpm's. From my experience with noise, if the volume is off on the radio, you wont hear it. I think that the Hu itself is emitting noise out of its case and it is entering through the rca's. I have now spent about 700 only to be totally destroyed. I don't know what to do as this is so much money to waste. I feel like such a shmuck for buying this jensen. I always knew that the high quality brands were more noise resistant as something similar happened to my friend when he tried to use a dual xdvd8183 with his jl audio system. Now this is leaving me totally distraught as I sort of knew that this kind of crap happens with these second class electronics. I hope someone who is familiar with this can give me some advice. If someone can help me with this I will be forever indebted to them. Thank you so much

i would say its your head unit. you can try and unplug the decks power. if you drive and hear no whine, its your deck for sure.

I think so too. The problem is I bought it on ebay and I don't think that the HU is deffective, I think any jensen vm9512 would perform the same as the one I have. I don't want to loose all this money. Has anyone used this headunit?

Holy crap I need someone to help me. If anyone is in the New York City area, I will pay them to help me out. This is bothering me to no end.

Tedmond I will unplug the deck's power and I will let you know. Give me a couple of hours and i will get back to you. If someone is in the New York City area, I will pay you to help me.

Tedmond, It just occured to me that if I unhook the headunits power, I will have no way of turning on the amps. The amps turn on wire is very securely attached to the headunit output and unhooking it is going to be super time consuming. Even if I unhook it and find their to be no noise, it will just be confirming the obvious. Does anyone know what I could possibly do with this headunit to try and get my money back or to sell it. Unfortunately I kind of chucked out all the cardboard in the box so i cant really sell it as new. I don't know what the hell to do.

Yes, sounds to me like your problem is a crap head unit.  Jensen is cheaper than Alpine mainly because it is complete garbage. You got what you paid for it seems.   And just think, if you had not purchased from EBay but had supported one of your local independent car stereo shops, you COULD take it back.   Happy new year!

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try this bro, dissconnect your head units power power harness, and in your trunk or whereever you left your amps, take a piece of wire, jump it from your 12volts to the remote turn on lead, that way, the amps can be turned on without having a deck. drive it around and see if any engine wines come up. if not then it all goes down to your deck. maybe purchasing a ground loop isolator for your deck might do the trick, but purchase it from a store so if it doesnt work for you, return it. happy new year

Dyohn, you are totally right. You certainly do get what you pay for and everyone reading this should learn from my mistake and when someone comes on trying to convince you that paying more money for a reputable brand is a waste, forward them to my post. As far as buying it legitamately, in hindsight that would of been smart only because I had the worst of luck in this case. Had I purchased a alpine on ebay, everything would of been fine. The price difference on the headunit alone is 250 dollars. Crutchfield for instance is selling the jensen for 699 while i bought it for 449. The nav adapter is 300 on crutchfield and I got it for 229. I have purchased so many things on ebay and i have never had this problem. I have saved so many thousands of dollars over the years purchasing this way. I do have to say though that in this case, it probably would of been wise to purchase this at a local shop. They prob would of charged me an arm and a leg though.

Tedmond, when I head out to the car in a little bit I will try out your trick. It's kind of rainy here in NYC now so I am in a lazy mood. It might need to wait till tom. Right now I am just totally depressed simply because I spend a lot of dough on this equipment. I will try and see if I can sell it. If not, I guess I will just need to drive around like a retard with this noise until I decide to cough up more dough. I do think I may support the local shops from now on.

The problem might vary well be the head unit but if you are going to be scientific about it (always be) you really need to factor in some other possibilities.

Even if you don’t think that you have changed anything in the ground path to all of the audio components that in no way rules out the possibility that something has indeed changed. Suspect all. Eliminate one item at a time. Don’t over look factory connections to the battery and body.
The head unit that you purchased has an advertised 4 volt output (its not). Have you recalibrated your gains?
Personally if I where you I might also suspect the head unit but you said that with the RCA’s unplugged you still experienced the noise but at a lower level. That tells me that you have other problems as well.
Suspect the head unit but realize that you have not yet proven it guilty.
I might suspect a pinched or failed RCA. After all you have been playing with them.
You say that you have a constant volume noise that is not effected by the head units volume. You also say that the noise is still present even though the RCA’s are disconnected. HMMM???
By the way disconnecting power to the head unit dose not prove that the head unit is the source of the problem. In any way. What’s so ever………….. Ever!
Check out the post I just responded to here: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp~TID~100601~PN~1
And see if that helps.
Let me know.

I have adjusted my gains but they may be slightly too high so I will go aout and change them in about 3 hours when I go out. The noise is significant so I don't think the gain is esponsible but I will take your suggestion and try it out. As far as something else happening like pinched rca's or something with the factory wiring, those two are highly unlikely in my situation for this simple reason. When the car was parked immediately before I was going to change headunits, I listened to music. Everything was working perfectly and the car was not driven anymore so their was no chance for anything to happen. As far as the rca's being damaged, they are knukoncepts krystal cables which are super thick and are triple shielded to keep noise out. These rca's are seriously thick and large and I aren't the culprit here. Speakermakers, I read the other post that you linked me to. Their is absolutely no ground loop in my case simply because every single component in my system is grounded at the same point which I describe above. Also it is super important to keep in mind that not a single thing changed other than my headunit. All the wires and rca's didn't move an inch. This system didn't have an ounce of alternator noise for months. Their was a very slight noise when I had the rca's unplugged from the hu with the hu on which was sending the turn on signal to the amps. I believe this noise was being eminated from the actual body of the HU for the simle reason that when I moved the rca's closer to the hu, the noise increased. I can't fully move the rca's from the headunit's location cause I have all the wires zip tied and it will be too much work simply to have a dead end. What I am going to do is play with the gains on my front components. I am running them active and I do indeed think that the gains to both my midrange and tweets are slightly too high. The volume is getting loud to early on the volume dial and I did have in mind yesterday to lower it significantly. I will let you all know what happens. I think I will try as best as possible to sell this POS jensen and I think I will go out and get myself a new headunit. I am sticking exclusively to Alpine, Kenwood and Eclipse from now on. Even Pioneer scares me because of their RCA preout issues. Again I will let you all know what happens and thank you.

Sounds like you have a firm grip on what the problem(s) might be so you are on the rite track and I am sure that you will soon find the culprit. I have to say though that given the info you supplied you have more than one problem. Keep in mind that ALL car audio systems have noise. Every one of them. The trick is to get the noise floor below the level that your ears can detect. I think that you have a collective problem with the head unit being the prominent contributor. I just always have a problem with blaming the equipment. Even with swap meet level equipment more often than not noise problems are a consequence of other factors.
Please let me know what happens.

Ok here is an update on the situation. I went ahead and discovered the gains to be indeed to high. The volume was getting too loud very early on the dial. I lowered the gain on my tweeters significantly and slightly lowered the gains on my midrange. My setup is active so that is how I am able to do this. Anyhow, while this Jensen unit clearly doesn't have the noise rejection of the more reputable brands I have used, I have now managed to get the alternator noise significantly lower. In fact, I am not even sure it their anymore, a regular person sitting in my car will surely hear no noise. I am so happy right now a I thought I just chuked a fe hundred dollars into the toilet and that I would be miserable every time I listened to it. Anyhow,even though I got this to work, I will just save up some more dough and go with a serious piece of equipmen, not one that is packed with features ar a low price to satisfy bargain shoppers. Thanks again to all for your help.

I can't believe that making some gain adjustments would remove such a serious case of noise. I learned something new. Thanks again.