I'm at the end of my wits here. I've installed a new amplifier and no matter what I try, there's a constant soft hissing noise coming from both front speakers. The noise is very soft and does not increase or decrease with volume control, engine rpm, or gain settings. It's just a constant, low level, hissing noise coming primarily from my tweeters.

Here is the setup:


Alpine 9855 head unit.
Infinity Kappa Perfect speakers.
Soundstream XTA480.4 amplifier.


The system seems to be wired properly with power running from the battery down the driver's side of the car into the trunk, and RCA, speaker, and remote turn on wires down the passenger side. Ground is from one of the rear strut bar bolts.

I've isolated the problem to the amp itself by disconnecting the RCAs from the head unit to the amp. So right now the amp only has power, ground, remote turn on, and front speaker connections. The noise is still there.

I've tried several different grounds in the trunk, the noise is still there.

I've tried connecting both power and ground with new cables directly from the battery into the amp, the noise is still there.

I have even replaced the amp with another amp of the same model, the noise is still there.

I'm starting to think that this model amp is just supposed to be this noisy. The hissing noise is not loud by any means and when the car is running you cannot hear it at all. But when the car is not running and you turn on the radio, as soon as the amp powers up you start to hear a very soft static from the speakers. I find this very annoying as I expect absolute silence from the speakers when nothing is playing. It's even more annoying because before I had the amp I was just using the head unit and there was no noise at all.

The only other thing I can think of is the fact that I ran the remote turn on wire along with the rca and speaker wires. Would this introduce this kind of noise?

Somebody please help me. This is driving me nuts!

 

I don't think so. I have some old Fosgate rca's with the remote wire integrated into them and no noise. It is a shielded cable though. What is the quality of your wires?

 

They are not budget Walmart wires, but not top of the line expensive either. I don't remember the model number, but both the speaker wires and the RCA wires are made by Monster Cable. Hope this helps.

 

More information:

I just hooked up a spare speaker directly to the amp, and sure enough, that speaker is producing the same static that my in-car speakers are experiencing. This leads me to believe that there's nothing wrong with my RCA and speaker cable runs.

Now I'm inclined to think that the noise is being caused by power/ground issues. But I've already tested that theory by connecting the amp directly to the battery with a separate set of power and ground cables outside of the vehicle. Didn't make the slightest difference, the noise was still there.

My battery is fully charged, however it's a cheapo Walmart car battery that I bought a few months ago for $40. Would a cheap battery introduce noise into an audio system, even if it's relatively new and fully charged?

 

Pull your radio out, leave all the wires connected and see if the noise is still there. Make sure you arrange the wires away from the deck. If that dosent work, it could be the amp itself which it sounds like it might be.