I did my entire Audio install myself
0AWG from battery to distribution block
4AWG from distribution block to amp
4AWG from ground to chassis (grounded at fuel sensor ground)
Everything is installed, but now I have problems:Everything is far too quiet, even if you select the amplifier to maximum gain, you can only hear audio at volumes over 75%~100%.I am getting engine noise in the speakers:I ran the RCA wires down the middle (under the carpet over the hump) and the power wire on the driver side of the car.The Speaker wires pass over the power wire right before the amp.I grounded the amp with the fuel sensor/gauge ground One woofer doesn't seem to fire but I will double check that woofer's connections.Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this? Here are some pics that might help understand:
I think you have identified a likely cause of the noise. Run a ground strap/wire from the chassis of the head unit to a solid chassis ground and make sure your amp ground is clean and solid as well.
If a better ground for the head unit does not take care of it, try some low or zero noise rcas. I have a tine bit of noise too, but I know its because one set of rcas has split in the plastic. There about 7 years old and been in almost as many cars lol. Good luck.
Pioneer DEHP80MP HU Alpine PDX 4.150 highs (comps.& 6x9s) 2x Alpine MRD-M605 lows 1 per sub Infinity Kappa Perfect 6.1 front highs Infinity Ref. 9622i rear highs 2x Alpine SWR-1242D subs (running 2ohms ea.)
also. about the low music even with gain all the way up. you need to let us know a lil more about your system. make and model of the amp and woofers. and most of us will look up the specs.
alpine 9886
infinity 475a
infinity 60.9cs (front)
infinity 69.2 (rear)
swi-jack
What are the RCA cables hooked to from the headunit ? Rear out ? Sub out ? It sounds like there is a setting in the headunit you are overlooking. What headunit are you using ?
Alpine 9886 is the HU.
I am using mediocre cables, the front is twisted pair and the rear is just regular no frills cable
I looked through every option in the onscreen menus for the deck and I could not find anything perdinant
There were external switches on the back of the deck to disable internal amplifier when using an external amplifier to help reduce noise, I might try changing the settings there and see what happens.
So we've pinpointed possibilities of the noise issues, what about the extremely low signal issue?
Are you using the sub RCA output to the amp ?
Have you set the low pass settings, center frequency and level, crossover setting to 4.2 channel, sub output, etc. ?
Definitely turn the Alpine amp off or set it to ext amp.
Lots of configuration settings on that headunit.
Not using the sub RCA output to this amp, might use it for a future amp.. right now just 4 channel
I have turned off HPF, Defeat, Subwoofer, at the deck!
So I am definitely having issues with the HU only.
I tried other RCA cables and same issues abound
If the ground does not solve the issue, what can I do?
You could use ground loop isolators on the RCA's. But try grounding the HU first.
I can't find where to ground the deck, original grounds won't budge and I don't want to drill down the center console of the car (its more than likely something is below).
So I am going to take it to a local shop and see what they can do
It just needs to be grounded to clean sheetmetal. The headunit should be hooked to the sub amp with the sub out RCA jack or jacks and RCA patch cables. This could be the problem.
I don't have a subwoofer. I only have Front and Rear speakers and a 4 Channel amp, so I only need two sets of RCA patch cables going from the headunit to the amplifier.