Speakers pop on turn on, background hiss.

I alreay have a system in my truck, and I bought a new amp for my new car. The amp is an Eclipse XA2000 to power front speakers. I wanted to test it with my current setup. I connected it under the hood, running power/ground cables directly to battery, speaker wires/RCAs from the cabin through the windows and under the hood. All is good, but my speakers POP like no other when I turn on my Alpine 9853!! It could scare a dead man...it's that loud. I checked everything 300 times and couldn't find what's wrong. So I came back home and searched some info about it. I found that this could be because my amp is turned on before my hu...'cause my remote turn on wire is just a straight connection to the battery. Also, if I turn off the hu and turn it on back quickly, there is no pop. Do you think I'm on the right track? I really don't know what else it could be.

Another problem...I have a background hiss noise coming from the front speakers the amp is powering. This noise is there even when the hu is off (might be 'cause the amp is still on). My current cheap Pioneer amp (last years 5200 model) has no background hiss at all, and has just a slight tiny pop on turn on...which I noticed only today after comparing it to the loud pop from Eclipse. Is it just how this Eclipse works or my install is bad? RCA cables are Phoenix Gold...good ones, $29 for 13' 2ch. I don't think they're the cause. I have some cheap Lightning Audio 16' (I think) 2ch, that I bought for $15, and there is no noise when I hook up my Pioneer, and they even run together with my power cable.

Anyways, I'll try tomorrow a different way of powering the turn on terminal, but until then please post some suggestions or ideas so I could try it in case that's not the problem. And for the hiss I have no idea where to look at...any pointers are much appreciated.

The install is bad, and the gains are (probably) incorrectly set. That amp should be DEAD quiet, both turning on and off, and in regards to "hiss".

Wire the remote terminal correctly, and that will take care of the pop. Then come back and let us know how you set the gains.

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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."

Yeah, that's the first thing I'll try today when I come home from work...properly wire the remote terminal. My gains were set between 50-75%. Do you really think this is too much? The Pioneer is set at 75% and is 100% silent.

The gain is not a volume control.  You set the gain on the amp to meet the output voltage on the HU.  It doesn'y matter what the Pioneer is set at, set the Eclipse independently. 

If the Pioneer can handle say, 1-5 volts, and the Eclipse say, 1-7 volts, then to match the voltage on the HU correctly to 4 volts, then the Eclipse's gain is going to be lower.  These numbers are only an example to prove a point, not the actual capabilities of each amp, but I think you can see what I am saying.

Do a search for setting gains, there is a TON of posts on how to do it, either with a DMM or by ear.

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There are 3 kinds of people in the world, those who can count and those who can't

Alrighty, all problems are gone! :-) Indeed, the loud pop came from the constant 12v. Now I have ZERO pop. Hissing was also due to high gain setting. At about 50% gain, hiss appeared and intensified as gain went past that point.

And that Eclipse amp is really one amazing amp! SQ is awesome!! The sound is very crisp, as if I am right there near the performing band. With my Pioneer amp it was more like listening to music through a long pipe stuck in your ear. Although, Pioneer is a good amp too, especially for an entry level that it is.