Hey everyone, first post and it's for a problem

I picked up a 1996 Accord LX, 5 speed over the weekend. It has a few dings and scratches, slight surface rust and the interior is rough but nothing I can't handle over time. It had about 196xxx km's when I bought it, but hey I got a decent price on it (plus it came with a set of winter tires on steelies).

The car is mechanically solid, with excellent record keeping for the last 11 years of maintenance and oil changes by the same owner (as well, after I bought it I took it on a 800km trip back home).

Enough with the preamble, the reason I'm posting here in the ICE section, is there is an audible line noise (possible bad ground?) when the stereo is turned on.

It is an aftermarket head unit by JVC, model KD-6720. It feeds an amplifier by Pyramid, model PB-770, the wiring is all Stinger RCA's and 12v power to the battery.

All the fuses appear intact and undamaged.

I'm adept enough to dismantle and see how things are assembled, and be able to put everything back together, however when it comes to car electronics I'm kind of a numbskull. I checked for the obvious things such as a loose power connection to the battery, a bad ground (which my eyes could not detect, though admittedly I wasn't sure where the ground would normally have been installed) I looked near chassis bolts in the engine bay as well as under the passenger seat where the amp is mounted.

The pictures posted here are of the stereo installation, I haven't altered, unplugged or fiddled with anything other than reseating the 12v power from the battery which was quite loose initially. First impressions are that someone had an idea of what they were doing when they installed the system, oh and fair warning... I haven't had time to strip out the interior and give it a good detailing, hence what appears to be a lot of animal fur among other miscellaneous bits of collected garbage.

I hope some of you folks on here can help me deduce what the problem is. If this can be easily remedied, I plan on supplementing the existing stereo set up with maybe a better head unit, speakers and add another amp for a sub in the trunk. Otherwise I was just going to fork out the dough for an all new system front to back and have it professionally installed (I don't have the patience to do a clean install).

Youtube video of audio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6X8KKr3Zw

Pictures of installation:

Amp


Amp Connections (Under passenger seat)


In dash wire bundle


Wiring Harness for Stereo + Ignition remote


I have pic's of the engine bay as well, along with the high res photos of the pics ive already posted. If necessary I can post them as well.

Thank's for taking a look everyone, and hopefully I'll have more positive things to post in the future

 

I love your post! Information with great pictures. Its like being there. Okay now for the problem.

1. Broken rca cables, Look at the amp. You can see were it is bent. Get new ones.

2. Never coil up rca's cables like that.

3. Never coil up rcs'a with power wire like that.

4. Toss that amp, pyramid amps are bad news and have not been good since the 80"s

5. Check all grounds, make sure they have a clean metal surface and are tight when bolted or screwed down.

6. That video is a great help. That is serious alternator whine. And your getting it with no music and strongly. Umplug the rca from the headunit and see if its still that strong. If so. Your amp is shot or it does not have a good ground. I betting on the amp being toast as it a cheapo.

 

Thanks for the response man, I'm going to be going through it over the weekend. What I'll probably do is just rip out all of those RCA's and the amp as you suggest and just roll stock for the stereo for now.

Once I have more time and inclination, I'll get a better system front to back installed (I may even take the time to do it myself so I know it's done right, plus cheaper!)

 

you need a ground loop isolator.

 

^^^ No, he needs to fix the problem with out adding a band aid. A ground loop isolator is not going to fix that.

 

I wish they would stop making those!!! They do not solve the problem.

Since when were pyramid ever good amps? Serious question, I've never seen a good one.

Boss is another cheap amp that occasionally has a good amp. But that is because they have someone else (big name manufacturer) build them for them. So they are usually copies of the big name guys.

There used to be a website that catalog pictures of the internals of all the amps made. It was easy to see copies. I've lost the link to the site.

My money is on that amp causing all his problems

 

^^^ pyramid was made by sherwood. Or there sister company back in 85.

 

Wasn't aware of that (about the amps etc), but regardless of what kind of system i end up installing, ill be doing my share of homework and research before buying. I want to know that what I'm spending my money on isnt just going to need to be upgraded down the road.

 

My first amp in the early 90's was a sherwood. I don't remeber those being any good either.
Back then Autotek was the $hit and that is what I ran until Soundstream came out with their class A amps.

 

Ya I hate to be the one to tell you but that amp is junk. I wouldn't even use that amp as a tire stop to keep my car from rolling backwards. A decent cheap amp these days IMO is Kicker amps. They are cheap and the build quality is low but they work fairly well. I have a 5 channel installed on my boat and I think I paid $150 off ebay.

Here is a 4 channel $169 http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...er_ZX3504.aspx

 

Well the system that is in the car, the amp included came with the car when I bought it. I was just seeing if I could salvage it until I had the inclination to purchase and install a new system

 

So today I tackled the problems that were rife in this system install. The dude who installed it was a complete bonehead.

The stock stereo harness was absolutely butchered, buddy chopped off the stock harness spliced the wires into the aftermarket harness rather than buying a harness adapter (so now im going to have to source out a factory stereo harness, hook everything back up the way its supposed to be, and get a proper harness adapter).

Like WRX pointed out he had all of the power cables, ground cables, speaker wires and rca's bundled together. The rca's plugged into the amp were at such an extreme angle that two of the ends were busted off.

I replaced the rca's and back traced some of the wiring that was butchered with the harness splicing. Also the ground from the amp was just screwed to the painted metal, so I took my dremel and created a nice bare metal surface for the ground wire to attach to.

Theres still an alternator whine when the engine is turned over, but I suspect thats because its a shitty amp + buddy decided it would be a good idea to use a 12 gauge 12v power from the battery and cram it into a receptacle meant for 14 guage at the most, but I cant hear it when I have the music cranked up to 30.

Quick question, no damage will come from that alternator whine being amplified through the system right?

Also I looked at the speakers, and they are Pioneer Type S, 6" round in the front and 6x9's in the rear, so they will do for now.

 

Also, I seperated the power/remote/ground from the audio, they are running on either side of the passenger side of the car, which I think helped a lot because when the engine wasnt on there was still really bad line noise, now theres none... only when the engine is turned over.

 

Update:

I went on over to crutchfield and purchased a pair of: PAC SNI-1 Ground Loop Noise Isolator

5 minutes to rip apart my center console and under dash console, 2 minutes to bust open the packaging on these units and plug them in, 3 minutes to double check connections and reassemble the consoles and no more alternator whine.

Best 30 bucks I've ever spent.

Now I can live with this system until I deem it's necessary to upgrade.

Thanks to all for your input, I can now lay this issue to rest!