# Engine noise in speakers!



## skythra (Nov 1, 2004)

My old setup with sound revloved around:

1 350w amp to 10" sub
2 unamped 6x9's.
2 tweeters

Now i just added a 222w amp to my 6x9's for more midrange funk, and well, now i can suddenly hear all the engine noise! I get so much interfearance, in the mornings i leave the HU off, or the 6x9's unplugged because it hurts :C

So i believe the wiring of the car follows the same path that my speaker cables run on. I cant change this, because genious's designed the car to have wiring on BOTH sides of the car. I know it was after the headunit, because the volume change doesnt up the extra intefearance noise, and its before the amp, because the amp can heighten the noise.

So that leaves the RCA's i have that go from the back of the HU to the AMP at the back of the car.

A great thought came. "shielded cable". I bought some "double shielded, twisted RCA" cables and threw them in today (the short version of otherwise a painfully long story with many stores involved, possbly dragons too.).

It cut SOME noise, not a great deal. What next? Noise supressers? If them, do i have to put them on EVEYTHING that emits noise? Any other ideas? I cheaped out on the cables, i couldhave gone the full, tripple layered shielded cable" but that was another $35 on top of that, cheaper me buying the best cables and just attatching them myself. 

Anyhow, any great ideas or other info? Things to look at? etc?


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## Azgrower (Oct 1, 2004)

There are many reasons for engine noise in your speakers, but there are a few more polpular reasons-
*Bad amp ground: make sure to get a good ground on your amps. If you are grounding to any type of body-sheet metal, grind down to bare metal for good contact. What I did was I drilled a small hole just next to my seat mounting point, and bolted the ground there, but underneath the vehicle, I also added a 4 gauge wire to that same bolt and ran the ground to my frame. So I had made sure I got a secure ground.

*Bad RCA interconnects (cables): even brand new ones can be faulty. Get good RCAs from good company like Stinger, Monster Cable, etc...not just some "crapola" ones from Radio Shack. Its often best to pay a few dollars more and not have to worry about it.

*Your power wire is too close to the speaker wires: If you can try to separate them as far apart as possible. For the most part, interferrence comes in either before the amp or at the amp itself, rarely is the problem after the amp, like in this option. So you dont need to worry too much about getting "specialty shielded" speaker wire or anything like that. 

*Bad RCA female connections on amp: What I would do is swap the amps you have to see if the problem continues. 

Here is a link to some of the wiring I used for my Chevy Silverado truck, and the same wiring I will use on the Pathfinder system:


Stinger 4 gauge Power Wire 
Stinger 4 gauge Ground Wire 
Stinger 12 gauge speaker wire 
Stinger RCA Interconnects 

The RCAs I used were longer than what you may need. I would highly recommend this website for all your wiring. They are cheap in price and have a great customer service. They ship out within 2 days of ordering and always use USPS Priority Shipping service, so it gets to your house quickly.


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## dmroberson (Jun 24, 2004)

skythra said:


> My old setup with sound revloved around:
> 
> 1 350w amp to 10" sub
> 2 unamped 6x9's.
> ...


Check to make sure you're grounded well, wherever you have your ground wire, there should be bare metal to metal contact, you can take a file, or flat-head screwdriver to scratch off the paint around the screw hole you grounded at, that should fix your problem, if not, hit up Best Buy and buy a noise filter for your speakers.


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## sr20dem0n (Mar 19, 2003)

don't worry about the speaker wire being too close to the power wire, I have.....well I won't go into it, but it's not a problem. I'm guessing that it's your amp ground since the noise is coming through all the speakers (it is coming through all of them right?). If it was an rca input on the amp then it would just be that channel, if it was the rcas then that would have been fixed when you replaced them, so my vote is on a bad amp ground, either that or simply a faulty amp. What amp is it anyway?


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## Azgrower (Oct 1, 2004)

Good point about the problem being the RCA and only coming from whatever speakers are hooked up to that RCA.


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## Punkrocka436 (Jul 8, 2003)

RCA cables are RCA cables. There is little to no audible difference between 10 dollar radio shack cables, and 80 dollar monster cables. The best thing you can do is run power down one side of the car and RCA's down the other. I have my power running down the center, my speaker amp RCA's runnign down the drivers side, and the sub amp cables running down the passenger side. This works great considering my amps are under my front seats.

If you can, try to ground your amps at the same place, this helps to reduce a ground loop.


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## rhynorock (Aug 7, 2004)

Ive noticed that cars with a common ground tend to pick up a lot of noise, usually from your alternator being driven harder when the engine revvs. Im sure you ran completely different speaker/power/ground wires from your HU as opposed to using the harness supplied by the factory. But a proper ground would be an avenue Id look at a lot. On both the amp and the HU.


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## skythra (Nov 1, 2004)

> *Bad amp ground: make sure to get a good ground on your amps. If you are grounding to any type of body-sheet metal, grind down to bare metal for good contact. What I did was I drilled a small hole just next to my seat mounting point, and bolted the ground there, but underneath the vehicle, I also added a 4 gauge wire to that same bolt and ran the ground to my frame. So I had made sure I got a secure ground.


Yeah ill check that right away, the short of the long story of the RCA's were that they were the third pair ive tried (the first two werent shielded and transmitted the engine noise worse :C), and so i dont think its the RCA cables themselves, out of the fact that changing them 3 times. 

Also you can hear things like indicators and lights turning on.. but yeah, ill try and reearth it ( i had a problem with earthing the sub, and finally found a good point to, but yeah, ill play with that, next time its not raining!

Thanks heaps!


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## compprat (Jun 13, 2006)

GROUND! fix your ground....i had the same problem, i hooked my ground wire to where my spare tire latches onto, and when i would turn my sound up i would hear my exhaust being amplified through the sub


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