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why do you have your mids hooked up to a mono amp? also, are you using the factory radio or aftermarket? you should list everything you have in your system and what it connects to, it would help you get a better answer. my first thought is that the internal fuse inside your kicker amp that is blown and that would cause your noise problem, but then you say it goes away when you use the ipod and that points more toward the radio being the problem. also do you have the infinity/premium system in your car? if so, the factory amp might not be bypasses correctly.

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If the fuse in the amp is blown, it will not make any noise with the I-Pod. I am thinking that the fuse is blown too. If it is blown, it will probably make more noise when he touches the heat sink of the amp.

i am an idiot wrote:

If the fuse in the amp is blown, it will not make any noise with the I-Pod. I am thinking that the fuse is blown too. If it is blown, it will probably make more noise when he touches the heat sink of the amp.

just curious, why would it not make noise with the ipod if the fuse is blown in the amp? lower output voltage of the ipod as opposed to normal radio of CD?

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The noise will not happen if the source is not connected to the charging system of the vehicle. It is essentially a ground loop, with the I-Pod there is no ground reference to the vehicle.

I am guessing he did not have the I-Pod connected to any kidn of charging device.

thank you for your help so far. i thought it was the radio so i replaced it. since money is low i replaced it with the original car dodge radio and hooked up rca converters. the noise is still there. i have the converter grounded to what ever the ground wire is supposed to be for the car. blk/grn. maybe this is the wrong ground?

idiot-what do you mean by the charging system? if the fuse in the amp is blown this will happen? or do you think it is comming from the charging system of the car without having anything to do with the amp?

after i replaced the radio i was getting the noise from both my sub (eclispe amp) and my mids/highs amp (kicker). i also tried my zapco amp and there is now noise from that also. now when i have the car on, but i do not have the engine running there is no noise at all. only when i turn the engine on is there noise. also when i turn the car on, the amps will make a kind of loud thud. i know sometimes this is normal but it is a little to loud and i do not trust this noise at all. i ran new rca's directly from the radio to the back of the car to avoid it crossing power wires. i made a new remote wire. before i had it ran from the back of the radio from the power wire and i ran it though a thoggle switch, this worked fine before i had this problem and there was no noise at turn on, instead it was very quiet. last night i ran the remote from a fuse box in back. all i did was stick the wire in the fuse hole and stuck the fuse back in. the wire was succure and did not moved at all when i tried pulling it or moving it. here is the page of where i got the idea from.

https://www.mydodgemagnum.com/index.php?/adding_low_end.htm

so i am thinking it might be comming from the ground somehow???? man i dont know anymore. the ground wire is going stright to the battery. to the amp. however, again before i had this problem, i had it ran this way and i havent done anything to this connection since i first ran it. so now i am confused all over again.

Did you touch the heatsink...Did noise get worse...? Was the ipod hooked up to a charger in ther car...? You said you just used a fuse for Remote...Did you use the dead side of fuse slot...? Meaning when you check for voltage...pull the fuse out and check to see which pin/slot in fuse box does not have power and use that slot for remote...That way if the fuse does blow...It will dis-connect power from the add-on source also...It appears they THINK it is a fuse inside amp...! Might want to explore more into that...Instead of re-wiring 5,000 times

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M.E.C.P & First-Class
Go slow and drink lots of water...Procrastinators' Unite...Tomorrow!

try this, unhook the ground wire for the rca converter that you had hooked to the BLACK/ green wire and hook that wire to the bare metal of the car not to another wire.

what WAS the head unit that you were using? you never told us anything about it. brand and model number, please.

if you say that the noise got worse when you switched back to the factory radio then that points to the problem not being the radio even more than before. put your old head unit back in and see if it gets better, and when you re-install it dont use the factory ground to ground the radio, screw your ground to bare metal with a ring terminal. extend the wire if you have to. get rid of that hi/lo converter.

now, the problem with your amp that we mentioned probably happened when you installed it. that little internal fuse that is probably blown is for the RCA connections and it gets blown when you lose ground to the amp while the 12v+ and the rca's are still connected. the voltage from the 12v wire still wants to find a ground so it tries to go through the RCA's ground and blows the little fuse and the amp starts making noise. thats why they tell you to take the main battery fuse out before you install it or work on it.

the problem is that when this happens and you just leave it alone it can start to mess with your other equipment, mainly the HU. so this might be why you are starting to get new noises.

THE FIX?
unhook the wires from all of your installed amps and take the main fuses out FIRST
reinstall your old radio like it was before except try using a new ground straight to bare metal and scrape off any paint if there is any.
once your radio is completely wired up and turns on you can hook the amp power and ground back up and ground your amp(s) to bare sheet metal with no paint in the way and screw it tight. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF WHATEVER YOU SCREW THE GROUND TO. YOU DONT WANT A SCREW IN YOUR GAS TANK.

last, plug your rca's back into the amp and re connect your speaker wires if you unhooked those too. turn it on to see if you still get noise and let us know

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The charging system info was answering SoundNSecurity's question. It was about your I-Pod. When you were using the I-Pod. was it connected to the car, or just to the amp via the Headphone Jack?

i only had the headphones for the ipod connected to the amp. the ipod was not connected to a charger in the car.

when i touch the heat sink of the amp the noise did not change.

the radio is a pioneer DEH P760MP

honestly im not sure what yall mean by the fuse inside of the amp. this is happening with three diffrent amps. thats why i am not sure about the internal fuse. and why did it not happen when i used the ipod? im thinking maybe the ground on the radio is bad? if it is will i get noise though the factory speakers as well? im going to try messing with the ground wire and ill let you know what i find

thanks all so far

In one of your earlier posts, you said the RCA cables are grounded to the radio. Did you check this with a meter, or is there an actual wire connected to the RCA cable and is grounded to the radio?

a while back i had the same problem and i think it was you who actauly recomended to ground the rca's. i have a wire soldered to the tip of each rca and ran though a fuse and screwed to the radio. i replaced the fuses and that did not work.

i couldnt find a ground by the radio so i ran a ground from the batery. still noise.

im going to disconnect everything again and do each thing one at a time and take it from there.

you may have created a ground loop if you have all 6 of the cables grounded. Does your radio have all 6 jacks mounted to the back of the deck, or are there 4 on the radio and another set on a few inches of cable? If all 6 mounted on deck, remove all but 1 fuse. If 4 and 2, leave one fuse on the 4 and one on the 2.

i only had the "front" rca's grounded. the sub rca's are not grounded. i never had any problems with my subs prior to this. the radio has a sub, front and rear rca plugs but i am currently using the front and sub outputs. i just tried the rear outputs on the radio and there is still noise.

the radio has 2 mounted, the frnt and subs and a 3rd for the rear on a few inches of cable. since i only have 1 set of rca's grounded i should take one fuse out? and leave one in? for example the RED / right rca is fused while the WHITE/ left rca does not have a fuse?

ok, this is weird now. i pluged my ipod to the amp though the headphone jack of the ipod with rca's. there is no music. but when i am holding the ipod and touch metal on the car the music can be heard on the speakers. could this be a result of the problem? im thinking this is all related somehow and there is something wrong with the ground in the car somehow. maybe an electrical problem that was un discovered?

Where, PRECISELY are the RCA's run in the car, do they run near any ECUs or pumps? The fuel pump is my first guess.

I say this because in the OP, he states the noise doesn't change pitch with engine RPMs. It can't be alternator noise, it would change pitch. It has to be something else in the car - a motor, or possibly a module somewhere...

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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."

haemphyst- i have my rca's running on the passanger side hump, the middle thing that sticks up. right down the middle of the car to the amps. i dont think they are crossing any wires that carry current. i have the remote comming from the back and the power and ground from the battery in the back also. the only wires running from the front now are the rca's. to eliminate this as a problem i have some rca's that i am using for this problem and i do not have it ran, just going from the radio over the seats to the amp, hard to describe but im sure you know what i mean.

i just noticed that if i touch the outside of the radio with the tip of the rca it makes the whinning noise noise. if i plug the rca in, there is whinning noise. when i unplug the rca there is no noise.

i read somewhere that these dodges have a problem with creating noises. could this be the case here? im not sure because i did have this current set up running in the car for a few good months without any problems. can we rule out the amps? if the ipod didnt have any noises then its comming from the source (the radio).

im sorry for being so anoying but alternator whine is just so annoying and i just can not pin point the source.

sorry for so many post but im trying diffrent things and sharing them with you, im hoping something i do someone might have tried and can relate with me.

so now i have a wire hooked up to the negative of the battery that i am using as a ground. it is an old remote wire i used, 16guage?. i took that wire and touch the outside of the radio radomley at differnt places, would this in a way "ground" the radio? while touching the wire on the radio i took the rcas and pluged them in, there is still noise, i touched the outside of the radio witht he rcas as i described in the last post, still noise. also i touched this "ground" wire to the tip of the rca, as if i grounded the rca like idiot described to me in the past and when the two make contact i am hearing a little poping sound comming from the speakers. i remember when i used to work at a shop this was one way to test speakers was to take a battery and tap the speaker terminal with it to know what wires are what. so i am now thinking some wire or wires somewhere in the car might be crossed?

another ipod "discovery". you know on a ipod one side is chrom and the other is plastic? if the ipod is pluged in the amp the music is very low, hardly noticable. if i am holding it on the chrom side and i touch the heat sink of the amp the music gets very loud. if i am holding the plastic side of the ipod the music does not change.

The ground traces on the inside of the amp is fried. When you touch the amp and the iPod, your body becomes the "shield" of the RCA, completing the circuit back to the amp.

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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."

My buddy has the 05 RAM 1500 HEMI, we installed brand new Memphis M-class equipment. We had that noise even after eliminating ever single possible reason it exists. I broke down and added a noise filter. I hate to go there but it proved to be the only way.

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This is what I do for FUN!

so all three amps are ruined? if this is the case what do i do?

snhtown wrote:

ok, this is weird now. i pluged my ipod to the amp though the headphone jack of the ipod with rca's. there is no music. but when i am holding the ipod and touch metal on the car the music can be heard on the speakers. could this be a result of the problem? im thinking this is all related somehow and there is something wrong with the ground in the car somehow. maybe an electrical problem that was un discovered?

you used a headphone jack to RCA adapter straight to the amp with nothing in between?

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haemphyst wrote:

The ground traces on the inside of the amp is fried. When you touch the amp and the iPod, your body becomes the "shield" of the RCA, completing the circuit back to the amp.

nevermind my last post because this was what i was getting at.

the problem probably isnt that hard to repair if you bring it to someone who can work on amps. its probably just a matter of soldering in a wire jumper to both ends of the burnt traces inside your amp.

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soundnsecurity wrote:

haemphyst wrote:

The ground traces on the inside of the amp is fried. When you touch the amp and the iPod, your body becomes the "shield" of the RCA, completing the circuit back to the amp.

nevermind my last post because this was what i was getting at.

the problem probably isnt that hard to repair if you bring it to someone who can work on amps. its probably just a matter of soldering in a wire jumper to both ends of the burnt traces inside your amp.

in a way it makes sense. thank you all for your help and your positive input so far. im going to take the amps and get them looked at. does anyone think it might be anything else?

now the question is what caused this to happen? someone said it is because a ground was not pluged in while the remote and positive was, and the negative has no where to go. so the negative goes to this part of the amp (the ground traces) . is there a way to confirm this just to be sure?

forgive my lack of technical knowledge but you learn something new everyday. i am more worried there is something wrong with the car so after i get the amps fixed, this does not happen again. does anyone have any experiance fixing this problem? i would like to learn something from this experiance and i have a few freinds who are handy with their soldering iron and electronics.

So in the "Few good months" of sound...It just all of the sudden did this...Or you were working on something and then strange stuff happened...? You said your radio was wired w/ 16g to battery? Also , You are going from I-Pod to Amp...? Or Ipod-Stereo-Amp...? At first you said the Zapco amp did not have noise...Was car off when you tried...Go ahead and bench test your amp...Get a battery (12v)...Wire 12v and remote together to positive terminal and then ground to negative terminal...Same w/ radio...Go ahead and take it out of car and wire up...Red,Yellow to 12v...Black to ground...Put in RCA's from radio to amp...Play a cd and see if you get strange sound...Probably use old factory speakersor anything you have laying around....Try 2nd amp...Same radio...Noise...? Check w/ I-Pod also...See if volume is still low untill you touch I-Pod Etc...

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M.E.C.P & First-Class
Go slow and drink lots of water...Procrastinators' Unite...Tomorrow!

acatuly i cant exactly pinpoint when it started doing this. it was fine up until i got the kicker amp and put it in. all was well and then all of suden it started. if i could remember when it happened it might better explain why this hapened. can you get engine noise if your ground is not good? today i ran a ground and a positive off of my other car and the noise was still there with the pioneer radio. if i plug my ipod instead of the radio the noise is gone but if i touch the amp with the ipod as before there is no change in the music this time. i used the ipod stright to the amp, not though the stereo. i also pluged the ipod though the rca's that run from the radio back to the amp and the noise is gone.

also im not sure if i said before but i notice that when i turn the volume from 0 to 1 on the radio the speakers off the amp make a little popping sound

All of the symptoms you are listing are the same exact symptoms of not having ground on the shield of the RCA cables. If you put the fuses when you soldered the wires to the RCAs, you need to check the fuses. Also use your meter and perform the test on the top of the page that showed you how to repair it.

is there any chance the grounding and the radio might be messed up? im going to buy some fuses tomorow or the day after and see what happens....

Also you said you grounded every RCA, how is your radio configured, is there 4 mounted to back of radio and 2 on a short cable? Or are all 6 mounted to back of radio? If all 6 mounted, you should only ground 1 of them. If 4 and 2, you should ground one of the 4 and one of the 2. Grounding all 6 could be causing a ground loop.

the radio has frnt and sub mounted on the back and the rears on small wires sticking out. i only have the rcas for the front grounded.

instead of screwing into a ground on the radio can i just directly solder to the metel of the radio?

It is not that easy to solder to the case of the radio. If you remove the top cover of the deck and locate the Tuner assembly, it is very easy to solder to the tuner.

tonight i had a little extra time so i hooked up a differnt amp from the 3 i am using. it is a ppi amp. now, i am thinking the problem is a combination of the ground traces on the 3 amps and the grounding for the rca's. when i hooked the ppi amp up and ran the car i still hear some noise but no where as loud as before, if i remove the grounding for the rca's the noise gets very loud but not as loud as before. hopefully in the next few days when i have more time to mess around ill let you know what i experiance. im still thinking there might be something wrong with the radio or something because when i turn the volume from 0 to 1 i will hear like a click lick noise on the speakers, do you think this is because of the grouding on the rca's or the ground traces?