Static noise in all 4 speakers

[Rockyaudio]

For a while now I've had a very annoying static noise. It comes from 4 speakers, the rear, and my two front tweeters. I assume the crossover sees this static noise as a high and skips my front woofers because of it. If I'm not mistaken, this all started happening when I screwed around with seeing if it is plausible to connect speaker RCA's to the head unit speaker wires

Now we all learn somewhere. I didn't know that having a wiring harness adapter from crutchfield that had RCA jacks on it meant my car had a built in amplifier. So when I did this there would be a loud popping noise and the head unit would flash "protect".

Eventually I have a dumb setup of using Y-adapters to plug F&R speakers into the HU pre-amp "front". Then my sub gets the two pre-amp "rear"

Now the crazy thing is that my stock stereo makes this static noise dissapear. So it's definately not blown speakers or anything..

I tried leading my aftermarket amp to a new fool proof ground straight into the frame only a foot away but that had no affect.

I'm not really sure what to do.. It's frustrating that my wiring harness leads into RCA jacks instead of speaker wire. I tested a speaker I had laying around to the taped off speaker wires that are coming from the HU to see if it would have static and it did not. So I suppose I could run new wires to the HU from every speaker but that is just a pain in the ***. Got any suggestions on what else I can do?

 

[Perry Babin]

Can you post photos of the connections you've made to the head unit?

Does the vehicle have OEM amplifiers?

 

[Rockyaudio]

It is an OEM amplifier model #: 86280-20460

I can't take apart the dash for a day or two but here's the best diagram I can draw of it.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

 

[Perry Babin]

If you purchased the adapter from Crutchfield, you should contact them. They typically have very good tech support for all of their products. They may have had this problem before and can tell you how to resolve it.

 

[Rockyaudio]

I contacted them a few times. While having great support this problem puzzled them just as much as me. I get the feeling that something went wrong with the head unit. Considering the factory headunit has no static noise compared to my JVC I must have done something to it when I was testing if I could tie the RCA's to speaker wires.


I do have a second JVC head unit that is exactly the same, just means taking it out of the other car. I suppose that would be the best thing I could do to find out if it is really a Head unit problem.

 

[Perry Babin]

How do you define 'static'? Is it a random noise (hissing, popping, crackling) or is it a whine that varies with the engine speed?

 

[Rockyaudio]

It's a crackling popping noise. There is a whine that can be heard as well though but not nearly as prevalent. At 0 volume there is no noise. At 1 volume the crackling static shows up. As I increase the volume there is no change in the volume of this static noise. The radio increases with the volume just fine though.

A not very noticeable thing about it, but I think the rate at which it "crackles" or pops which is already very fast, increases or decreases a bit depending on the RPM. it could just be my imagination though

 

[Perry Babin]

Is there any significant DC on the RCA y-cables (all unplugged from the head unit)?

Have the system on as it would be when it's producing the static.

 

[Rockyaudio]

DC?

If you mean removing the Y adapters and having the 4 speaker RCA's plugged in normally there isn't a difference. Maybe there is actually.. I tried that a long time ago I should really give it a shot again. I'll post back if it changes anything.

 

[Perry Babin]

DC voltage measured with a multimeter.