if you tried every combination... then i'd have to agree with MacGyver.

contrary to popular belief ground loop problems don't always have to relate to RPM. there are a number of other electrical items that run w/o influence of your engine RPM. (think fuel pump, cooling fans, etc.)

i'd double check all your grounds, and consider grounding the headunit directly to the chasis vs just going w/ the harness. i don't guarantee this will fix your problem, but it can't hurt. find a nice solid grounding point w/ a bolt that is unpainted. then if that doesn't help, i'd make an effort to ground your headunit to the same location as your amp grounding points.

i googled up a ground loop isolation troubleshooter online that seems to have a good bit of info for solving the problem...

good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PJK3
[B]

contrary to popular belief ground loop problems don't always have to relate to RPM.

 

From the layman's point of view, power goes out on one wire, is used by some black box, and finally returned on a second wire. A ground loop is created when a portion of the return current is returned not through the designated return wire, but through some other path (such as the metal enclosure). Not to get overly technical, but you want your forward and return paths to be fairly equal in terms of length, resistance, location, etc. In the case of a ground loop, one of these conditions no longer holds true.

As a prime example, an RCA cable can be considered a complete circuit pathway with a forward path being the center conductor and the return path being the outer sheath. What happens if some of that return current flows through the sheath of another RCA cable? You get a ground loop. The return path resistance is higher than originally planned, which can wreak all kinds of havoc with audio circuits.

Sometimes this can be attributed to poor circuit design, but more often than not it can be directly attributed to a poor grounding point(s) somewhere along the signal and/or power path. Make sure the RCA cables are of sufficient quality (I didn't say high quality as that's a waste of money). Make sure the signal cables are as separated from the power cables as humanly possible. Make sure the grounding points are few and well grounded. Make sure all wires are as short as feasible and terminated correctly.

 

Well I've decided to give this one more shot. I've ripped out the amp, the spare tire and deck. I plan to secure the amp to the metal floor where the tire use to be and grind the upper tie support bracket to bare metal and attach the radio and amp grounds there. I've never had this much trouble with a stereo install. I sure hope it works this time. Thanks for the help.

 

np. most people aren't aware of it b/c it doesn't show up very often. usually the big ones that get you are all RPM related. out of the plethora of installs i've done (probably over 100, but not much over 100) i've only had noise a handful of times. and only 1 of those times was the noise not RPM related. usually the noise was simply due to trusting the factory harness ground. i still go for the factory ground whenever i install, simply b/c it's easy when it works. but it's one of the first things i change if i get noise.

have you tried different grounds for the headunit? or have you tried grounding the amps and the headunit to the same point? as far as finding a good grounding point in the trunk, i pulled one of the bolts for the lower cross brace (i'm not 100% sure that name is correct... bear with me.) and slipped both my grounds on there, using a gold plated ring terminal. you don't have to scratch any paint b/c the bolt is unpainted, and it threads into an unpainted hole. just make sure your grounds have good contact on the bolt.

continued best of luck... i hope it isn't the headunit...

 

first off I hate Sony's I install car audio all day long, and Sony's are always the worst. one time I had 3 bad decks in a row. however, on Sony's defense this years Sony decks are looking better. we will see.....

the only real way to see if it is the deck that is bad is to take it out of the s2k and put it on a test bench with an amp speakers and everything if it is still buzzing then its the deck,if not it is something else in the system.

good luck

 

Well another two hours wasted. I'm so pissed! Ran all my wires to a well prepared ground site, inspected the wires, started the car, and the same frickin whine. I even ran two pair of RCA's out side the car to see if that helped. Same thing. Still the issue remains, unplug one set of RCA's and the whine goes away. Leave them both plugged in and it there all day long, the constant whine. I'm still trying to get ahold of the member to discuss this matter but he has not read my pm's The door won't flip so I can't load cd's and the whine is about to drive me nuts. I've believe I've been had! Anyone leaning towards a bad deck yet?

 

I have to wonder why you would keep a CD player that you can't put CDs in...

 

Well, I wanted to hook it up to make sure everything else worked. If so, I was planning on asking the seller to pay for face repair or refund my money. It looks like there are more problems than just the face and be cost prohibitive to repair. I hope I can work something out with the seller. I've had many transactions with other board members and this is the first transaction that has raised concern.

 

wow... this definately does suck. it sounds like you've done everything right, and then redone it right again...

i would also be asking for money back.