audio pro's..chime in

[just-a-neon]

first off im old school so i have no idea whats out there right now; im all jl and alpine. okay whats the best thing going as far as rca's are concerned, im running the basic jl connectors but they pick up alot of noise. also getting rid of my alpine in dash for a single din unit being mounted in the glove box. i have an audiocontrol line driver and im looking for a cheaper unit with average parameters, doesnt need to be fancy but needs to have aux inputs. thanks in advance....

[nineball]

the first thing to check would be your grounds and after that make sure that your rca lines are no where near your power/ground lines. just about every maker of rca cables has good versions and cheap versions but usually jl makes a quality product.

as far as the new hu, well that is really a personal taste call. line the rca cables every brand has good and cheap head units. i have had great success with both jvc and kenwood units. currently one car has a jvc kd-sh1000 and the other has a kenwood x993 and both work flawlessly.

[just-a-neon]

im a fan of kenwood also, appearance isnt going to matter as you wont see it, i just didnt know if there was something else to look for in a hu...the best unit ive had to date is the premier 8mp...my ground and power are on opposite sides of car, grounding point is sanded and actually bolted to chasis, upgraded ground from battery also..

[Jdurzua]

Hell I would stick with alpine they make excellent radios. Kenwood makes really good stuff as well. If you go JVC I would stay in the arsenal line. Eclipse is also a really good head unit but pricey.

[nineball]

another thing to do is to check all the rca cables on their own. the easiest way to do this is to go to walmart or radio shack something similar and buy a cheap long set of rca cables. take out the radio and replace one of the jl rcas with the new one and run it to the amp. i just run it outside the car or through the rear seats if they fold, no need to worry about mounting it properly. this is just used to test to see if the other rca is actually what is causing the problem.

as far as the new hu, usually the most important thing to look for are the features you want. i wanted direct iphone support and bt in my last one so i went with the 993. my other car is ran active so that was the deciding factor in getting the jvc.

[Jim Z]

your audio cables rarely actually "pick up" noise, it's usually a ground loop that causes noise problems.

[dwnrodeo]

After you have checked your RCA cables to see if they are the problem, try grounding the outer sleeve (negative) of the RCA's to the headunit chassis. If that still doesn't work, try to ground all devices in your system to a single point. Most noise comes from a potential voltage difference between devices in your system (i.e. your headunit and your amplifier). Grounding your HU and other processors to the vehicle chassis at the front of the car while your amps are connected to another point on the chassis at the rear of the car MAY create a potential difference. The vehicle's chassis MAY have electrical resistance so the components MAY be fed slightly different voltages and therefore induce noise. With all the composite plastics and other non-conductive materials used in cars these days, this phenomenom is more likely.

[Rhunter]

Have you properly matched the gains?

In my old audio competition car I had the Alpine H-700. it was without a doubt the best processor I've EVER owned!!!

The only problem is the sucker created noise! ya could'nt hear it under normal driving conditions but it could be heard during critical car off sound quality judging.

The best fix I could come up with was proper gain adjustment. It did wonders for the noise problem. Only I and a couple of VERY good judges could notice it.

You could try that first because it's a free fix. if it does not work, at least you know your gains are properly set.