Radio Grounding Question

I am currently experiencing s slight alternator whine, which I believe is caused by a bad ground wire.  I recently put a new head unit in my car and had no problems before, so I am guessing my problem is the radio ground rather than the amp ground, although I will check those.  My question is, currently my ground is connected from the aftermarket harness into the factory harness.  Is that not proper? Should I ground it to the chassis?

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I be tossin and flossin, my style is awesome. Causin' more family feuds than Richard Dawson.

Try grounding to the chassis, did you just install a new Pioneer cd player by chance? What amplifiers are you using (if any).

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

No, my head unit is a Kenwood KDC-X869.  My amps are a JL Audio e2150 and a Rockford Fosgate 800.2 bought new in August of 2000. 

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I be tossin and flossin, my style is awesome. Causin' more family feuds than Richard Dawson.

What cd player did you have before? Can you reinstall the old cd player to see if the noise is present with it now even though it was not there before. To me it sounds like a bad ground internally in the cd player.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

Well, I'll quickly explain the entire situation.  I originally had an older Clarion, model number unknown. I never had a problem.  I purchased and installed an Alpine CDA-9815 about three months ago. No problems with that.  My alpine got stolen.  I reinstalled the old Clarion, and that is when I began noticing the whine.  I dismissed the thought that there was really a problem, becaus when my Alpine was stolen, they took my dash kit.  So, when I installed the clarion I didn't really do a very "professional" job because I knew it was only going to be temporary.  I thought maybe my quick, shoddy installation was why I was experiencing the whine.  Then, I bought new dash kit and the new Kenwood, installed it properly, and the damn noise is still there.  Could the thieves have screwed something up with my factory wiring causing the problem?  So, to answer your question in a very roundabout way, the whine is still there with the old radio.

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I be tossin and flossin, my style is awesome. Causin' more family feuds than Richard Dawson.

When your radio was stolen, did they cut the wiring, do the rip and strip, or unplug the harness. Were the RCA cables damaged, check the ends of the cables. Run temporary new rca cables (over the seats) from your new cd player to the amplifiers, is the noise still present. Keep at it, you'll find the problem.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

They unplugged the harness.  The RCA cables look fine, but I probably should give them a closer inspection.  Honestly, I'm posting on this forum without having done anything to try to locate or fix the problem.  I was hoping that somebody could be like "Oh yeah, you're problem is........" but I know there are a lot of possible problems that could be causing this and I really need to get off my lazy butt and start troubleshooting.  Oh, one more thing, has anybody ever heard of a ground loop isolator, and could that fix my problem?

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I be tossin and flossin, my style is awesome. Causin' more family feuds than Richard Dawson.

www.scosche.com , they make a ground loop  isolator, model # ES034. Sometimes they work great, other times not. Give it a try if you don't want to take a header into the problem.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.