[GSM5er]

My car has an Alpine head unit with a six disk CD changer. When the car is running I can hear a high-pitch “whine” through my speakers that follows the RPMs of the engine. This “whine” is present during all modes, but seems to be worse when I’m using the radio. (The wine is not present when the engine is off – it sounds quite good in fact).


A friend suggested I wire a power source directly from the battery to the amp. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Is there a quick fix?

Thanks for your help!

GSM5er

 

[JeffR116]

My car has an Alpine head unit with a six disk CD changer. When the car is running I can hear a high-pitch “whine” through my speakers that follows the RPMs of the engine. This “whine” is present during all modes, but seems to be worse when I’m using the radio. (The wine is not present when the engine is off – it sounds quite good in fact).


A friend suggested I wire a power source directly from the battery to the amp. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Is there a quick fix?

Thanks for your help!

GSM5er

The Speaker whine that you hear comes from current actually looping through your ground connections. Fixes are usually "easy" but also dependent on your grounding locations.

Go through your whole setup and ensure that your grounds are properly connected. Ensure there is no paint, primer, lubricant, etc. preventing a good ground. Try moving the grounding points to a more stable location. Also, if necessary, use a much larger gauge wire for the ground of your Head Unit.

 

[Brock250]

Also whether your speakers are amplified through an aftermarket amp.... There are units that are available to go inbetween certain wiring to filter out the high pitched noise. Did this whine just start? Or was it only after you switched from stock to aftermarket for the head unit?

 

[GSM5er]

Also whether your speakers are amplified through an aftermarket amp.... There are units that are available to go inbetween certain wiring to filter out the high pitched noise. Did this whine just start? Or was it only after you switched from stock to aftermarket for the head unit?

I recently purchased the car - the Alpine unit was already installed. I’ll see if I can get this sorted out this weekend and let you know how it works out.

I often drive with the windows open and the stereo off so that I can listen to the sweet music of the exhaust note… :flag:

Thanks for the help!

 

[ajw45]

I have this exact same problem too! Ever since I installed my nakamichi cd400 I get the rpm based whine as well. It doesn't bother me much since I can barely hear the radio over the exhaust anyway but it drives my gf crazy. I tried grounding on the large ground under the steering column but no luck there, same noise. I tried a couple other random brown wires behind the dash some of which got rid of the noise but created other problems, like killing the radio everytime I used the brakes. So, I think it is a ground issue too, I just need to find a good ground. Any advice? If I can't get this resolved easily, I'm just going to wire straight to the battery, install a sub, new amp, etc...

 

[mfiverx2]

Same problem here, but mine is a stock factory system. Maybe one of the grounding points has some corrosion?

On other cars, with aftermarket units, I thought of this sound as "alternator whine". The fix was a filter inline with hot wire to the radio, but I don't see how this apply to OEM setup.

 

[grecomfs]

Lose the Green Day CD and you should be fine.
:cool2: