I have a 2010 Silverado with some amplifier noise. It is only there when the engine is running. It is a high pitched whine, but it is not changing with the engine speed. It just kind of moves in and out. You can hear it at low volumes. It is not really loud, but it is noticeable. I am using a Kenwood head unit, Kenwood 4 channel amp, and a JBL amp for the subwoofer. I have good grounds for the amps. I am pretty sure the noise is on the low level inputs from the head unit to the four channel amp. I played my iPod back into both the front and rear amplifier inputs with the engine running, and no noise on any channel. The power cable for the amp is on the passenger side of the truck, and the signal lines are running on the driver side. Any ideas on this?
Check your ground wire on the amp if that doesn’t fix it the amp is bad ... cheap amps tend to have that problem over time ... which amp is it ?
He wrote kenwood head unit and kenwood and JBL amp. Turn the gains down. have you tried that? NO speaker wires near power wires.
try switching from low pass to high pass could be the switch , could be a bad RCA also , you using good RCAs ?
The speaker wires are not really close to the RCA's from the head unit. The RCA's are Crutchfield, so should be ok. The head unit is grounded through the factory radio harness. Gains were set using a voltmeter and 0dB reference signal, and are not overdriven. I adjusted them down and it did not seem to change the buzz/hiss noise at low volumes. Based on these comments, I will: 1-check the ground at the head unit 2-Consider shielded expensive RCA's - don't really want to tear into the interior again 3-Turn up the volume so I can't hear the buzz/hiss Are inline noise filters (RCA) worth the trouble?
No filters don’t usually help ...to pin it down between the headunit and amp unhook the input to each amp one at a time ... it’s most likely one of the amps ... how old are the amps ?
Yeah really your only option is to replace the amp ... stick with a better brand like JL Audio , Alpine ... if you don’t want to spend to much check out the Alpine Power Pack 4 channel , it’s a small amp and will fit behind the headunit and gives you great output ... if you want some with more balls the JL XD 400/4 is the ticket ... Kicker and Rockford make decent amps to ... stick with a Class D amp though
There was a lot of noise yesterday, buzzing, popping, and louder (but the same hissing). It changed pitch with engine rpm. I was thinking something really fell apart. I alway leave my apple lightning cable plugged into the unit. So, I unplugged the lightning cable and....silence. No more noise. Not on the radio, not when my phone is plugged into the cable (never really noticed noise doing that), and all is good. Moral of the story, try unplugging your lightning/usb cable.
HA! nice find. I don not have a cell phone so I have not came across that issue..and I do not have a radio new enough to plug one into anyway.