Engine whine

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Please HELP!! I have an 88 Honda CRX. I have two US Acoustic Amplifiers. One powers my sub, the other powers four speakers. I just had a new alternator installed, and since then I hear a LOUD whine as I drive. When I power down my deck a loud popping sound comes from the speakers. As I drive, the whine will SOMETIMES fade out, but is VERY quick to return. The problem slowly occurred. At first, I would only hear the whine at night when I had my lights on. Now I hear it ALL the time. I had the alternator checked recently, and the shop said it was fine. I have went over many different ground locations, checked for proper grounding from the battery to my car’s chassis, ran the RCA wires on opposite sides of the car and made sure all connections were secure. Still nothing… The whine was not present before the new alternator, but that doesn’t say too much since my previous alternator was bad. I have tried just about everything I could find on the web except ‘ground loop isolators’ and other devices that may hide the problem. ANY advice is welcome.
 
Yeah mate so far your on the right track, yes the ground loop isolater with mask the problem to an extent. One other thing, ive said this numerous times to people is and its something i have had trouble with is making sure ALL your earths are good earths.
By that i mean make sure where you have attatched them that u have sanded ALL paint away. Sorry if u have heard this b4 but hey 90% of the time ive found that with car audio its always the small things that can create big problems.

Good Luck.

Later
Marc
 
getting close

I tore apart my stereo the other day and laid out the wires as simple as possible. What I found was that the engine noise went away when I placed the RCA wires completely away from the power and ground cables. This was no surprise, but to hide the wires completely I needed them to come together under my back seat. Initially I had the power cable on the passenger side and the RCA’s on the drivers side. I left the power cable on the passenger side and ran the RCA’s through the middle of my car to the rear with the amps are located. They are completely isolated from the power/ground wires, which are located under the back seat and the RCA’s lie on top of the seat. The noise has cleared up a lot, but unfortunately I have these wires draped across my car. In addition to that, I hear a humming sound (engine on or off) coming from my front speakers when I turn the HU’s volume to 0. If I increase the volume to 1, the sound almost completely disappears. The problem is that I hear the hum when I first start up my system, and when the CD player goes from one track to the next. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
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