I hate cars

I wouldn't get your hopes up too much. I've never done it and I'm running 3 amps with two of them being an ab design. Even when I had the sub amp maxed for all it was worth when the 12W6s were in the sealed box I had no issues. I hope it does make a difference for you but don't expect too much. If it makes a difference for you I might try it too but my power requirements are pretty low now.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

I don't fully expect this to rid my noise but the power you get from upgrading these "big 3" is very nice. Factory wiring is very skimpy in this area so the power on your electrical is much easier. Just like running 24ga. speaker wire for subs. I had it done in my truck back in the day b/c I was running 2 Digital Design 3510e's with a PA a3000db on each. Holy hell that was loud btw. The crazy thing was the punch in the back you got since it was regular cab (3.2cuft ported to 33hz). It was a back massage basically

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Will do. Didn't think about using that until we get it figure out. Ordering some 16ga now. Can't wait to run active

geekybiker

Ooooo let me know how that turns out. If a balanced input amp gets rid of the clicking....

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Hahah we're both wondering if they other will find it. Good stuff. I'm ordering my stuff today so hopefully by Friday it'll be here. Monoprice is crazy fast with shipping

jda123

From a bit of research, it appears that many higher quality amps take a balanced differential input. JL Slash and HD, Zapco, Audison, Zed, RF and a bunch of others. It appears that nearly every company also makes lines that do not, so do your research and ask the manufacturers if you need to. This feature seems to coincide with quality in some that I have seen.

The stock ground is around 10ga with the car off (guessing, not measured) - resistance is high. Once the alternator starts to spin, the grounding straps from block to frame are decent, but the cheap metal (so-so conductivity) degrades and rusts every day and our cars are around 5 years old, or more. Even if you don't notice a need immediately, I would at least do the ground parts of the big 3 with some 4 gauge wire. The starup pop can very likely be from a lack of ground, especially if it is present without input cable plugged in.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Someone claimed the PDX amps accepted a 'balanced' signal also though. And we know that didn't work out too well. Haven't looked into the PDX to really see if that's true or not though. Probably check it when I get home tonight

geekybiker

I heard the same thing. I looked up the specs online and didn't see anything about balanced of differential inputs on the PDX.

sddale

Why don't you try to swap out the amp that's currently in there with the Audison to see if the noise goes away?

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

That's what I'm doing. I wouldn't be surprised if it did as a few people already run these amps that accept balanced signals with no problems. Still...I can't afford Audison, Zapco, Zed, etc so I need to find another way. Im sure the RF-BLD would work, so would the miniDSP...just need to try them.

jda123

JL Slash series will accept balanced diff and are at reasonable prices used. They are really good amps. See if you can find a used 300/4 or 450/4. Sometimes I see them all scratched up locally for $100-150.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

This is mainly for JDA...

I hooked up the Audison (lrx4.5 for those interested) and while I didn't get the loud clicking/ticking noise upon start up, I still got quite a bit of noise and what sounded like very faint clicking from the tweeter...still. Again, not near as loud but it's still there. I could hear it from about 1-2'(max) away.

I would like you to take a look at the Audison to help me hook it up correctly and make sure I've got this correct and getting the most out of it for the time being. There's soo many damn controls on this thing!!! lol. I had unhooked my tweeters as I was doing a little work with them (fitment, etc) so I just hooked up the passenger side one this morning when I hooked up the audison. Still using passive x-over (Massive RK6's). I wasn't getting hardly any midbass. I could hear my mid playing...but it was VERY WEAK. I turned the gain to 1/2 and it barely did anything. So I figured I should un-do the amp as I probably didn't have something correct and didn't want to mess up and amp that isnt mine. So...with that being said...can you help me with the settings and I'll try again when I get home or right after work for the drive home.


Here is how I had it hooked up:
In this picture, the right side is hard to see so the 6 "up or down" knobs you see on the right side went like this (from top->bottom & left->right): up,up,up....down,up,down.



On this one, I had the speaker wire going into both "A" channels. Far outside channel on left side and far outside channel on right side. Not sure if this is right also...but that's what I'm here for lol.



For the RCA's, I put one on the far left hole and one in the far right hole. Definitely not right now that I look at it..lol. Woops






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


ALSO! I'm getting a turn on "pop" (from subs) that's slight but I can definitely tell its doing it. Why does this happen? It didn't use to do that ever. Only happened when I started taking stuff apart last week and trying stuff out. For now, I just took out the RCA's so it would stop until I figure out why it's doing that. Going to put it back to post-amp also and see if the sound is better/worse. Do a little comparing

jda123

For now, put both of the RCAs into the "A INPUTS". Wire both of the crossovers to the A side output (this looks right). Set the range to 1X and put the knob to 80hz (the dot between the 60 and 100).

Don't use the B channels yet.

As it sits in the pictures, you have the high pass at about 700 (10x at 70) and only had one of the two channels as input if you put the RCAs on each side.

Let us know how this new config works.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

lol...HP @ 700hz for mids. My bad. I'll fix it after work as this is an easy fix and I'll report back! Thanks

JDA..or anyone for that matter, when you turn your car on. Do you hear any type of static/noise/etc from the tweeters? If you could put your ear about 6"-1' away and test it. With music off obviously

sddale

Is the sound you're talking about just for a moment when you turn your car on? If so, I had that problem and found that taking the remote turn on from the OEM amp solved it.

I guess that sometimes having the amp on before the head unit turns on can cause weird noises. I originally took the remote turn on from the #32 fuse because I read that the OEM remote might not be enough to turn the amp on.

jda123

Nope.

My system is dead quiet except when I have my iSimple going which has some white noise in the range of 2-3% even without the iPod hooked up.

I have had startup issues from lack of a good ground and the big 3 solved it for me. However, this was from a LARGE amp that had lots of caps scavenging to juice up all at once. No idea if this will help you.

Is the amp on when this happens? Do you have it fused to #32, connected to the stock amp remote, or what?

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Are you talking about crackling/ticking/hiss from tweeters upon start-up or the pop from subs??

The guy before me had an amp kit in the car when I bought it and it never sounded like this until I installed the RK6's and amp. I'll definitely look into this though as you just never know! So your originally had the wire going into the #32 fuse in the fuse box located in drivers side kick panel...and you got this noise that is seen in my video above. BUT you moved the remote wire to the remote wire on the factory amp (I show the remote as Red w/ Yellow wire..yes?) and the noise went away??

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

See post above. I'm unsure where he has it going to. If I remember correctly, it's not wired into the amp's remote wire. Where is yours wired into??

jda123

Unfortunately, the Audison does not have a band pass filter (should be mandatory option for all 4 channel amps IMO). For a later experiment, start now to find out what the natural roll off is for your Massive 6.5. Contact massive if you need to.

jda123

This is becuase the stock amp waits to turn on until the radio is on. sddale is right IMO, you might need to rewire this to the remote for the stock amp - I have no idea what color it is.

geekybiker

I have mine hooked to the stock remote wire. The amp powers up with ACC and stays on the entire time, HU on or not.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Will do

If he did it and sound went away...and everyone else has theirs wired into stock amp with no sound. Then I've got high hopes for this!! Even if it doesn't work, thank you ssdale for giving me some meaning to not want to throw this stuff out of the car while driving down the highway.

Remote about halfway down (Red w/ Yellow)

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Well crap. I'm still going to try...but that's not good news.

sddale

The noise that I had was heard most from the rear speakers and it was a static/crackling sound that would only happen the very first time the car was turned on. I read somewhere that it has to do with the head unit starting up if the amp is on first.

Yes, the amp turns on with the ACC and stays on the entire time HU on or not. I think that our head units (at least the ones with Nav) turn on right away and the amp needs to be on even if the radio part is off. I would think that all the head units are always on along with the amps because the HFL (I could be wrong though). Either way, it has something to do with the head unit turning on first and doesn't happen to all amps. It just happened to fix the start up issue with mine.

Hope that will eliminate one of your problems.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Did the changes to the amp...getting alt whine. Still getting noise too. None on startup though

jda123

Let me try some stuff when I get home. I have one that I know doesn't accept balanced.

I hate cars

You do have your speaker wire wrapped around the power wire...

I had whine and the clicking (ignition noise) when I first removed the factory amp and used the line driver to boost the signal. Then I bought another with balanced inputs and all is well. I can re-create the noise but I have to boost the signal insanely high to where 2-3 on the HU is as loud as you can listen.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

OK, I'll go out and move the speaker wire. It might have been like that when I turned it on and listened but I just had it off the box in that pic. I'll go try it again. Thanks..good eye!

So you had a line driver that didn't accept balanced and it made that noise but you got a line driver that accepted balanced and it worked?? I'm starting to think that the RF-BLD is the most logical option. I wonder if a local shop has one, being RF and over-the-counter brand, that I can try to see if it works and then purchase from them if it does.

I hate cars

That's exactly what happened. Night and day difference in noise. This is the one: http://www.amazon.com/Rockford-Fosga.../dp/B0054TMKAU

jda123

I put in a Fosgate T series 4 channel. I know for a fact that it will not take a balanced input - it made the noise. I grounded the RCAs to the frame and it made no difference. Ideally, you would ground them to the stock radio, but that should be at frame level.

I guess that you are down to a different amp, or a line driver.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

I'll likely do the miniDSP and RF-BLD. I wonder what Geekybiker is going with

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Well after looking, the RF-BLD accepts a balanced signal but it's only a 2-channel driver. So i'd need 2 of them (components & subs) which would run roughly $160-$170. For that price, I see a lot of people using the Audiocontrol Lc6i due to the 6-channels. Anyone have any experience with this unit or know if it accepts balanced??

Even better...does anyone have one of these they aren't using??


Scratch that...doesn't look like it accepts balanced/balanced differential signal. So 2 RF-BLD's or mini-DSP or processsor (too much at this moment)

jda123

You only need one. Lp will filter out the noise in the sub, you can go back to post-amp. For the comps, you only need one line to run active, just tell your amp to accept the 3&4 signals from 1&2.

The 2nd line could be for a second amp if you ever do your rears or center.

If you ever get a processor, then one is fine too.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

The RF-BLD is $100 locally. Seems to be around $75ish online so not a big deal there. Guess I'll just give in and buy it. Better than $500+ for a processor.


First shop I called the guy said "yeah we have one but I can't give you the price over the phone". I was like man I'm an hour away, I can't just drive there for you to sell it or it be 3x the cost of what I think it is. Anyways, called the same company but in another location (roughly same distance) and they guy said he had plenty of them and told me the price $230 for 2 of them after tax (so roughly $100 for one). Just called another stereo shop and I told the guy I needed to see if he carried fosgates Balanced line driver and he said "balanced...balanced line driver...what's that?".....so I hung up lol. Freakin kidding me!! How you going to try to sell something when you don't know anything about it. Ranting done



I was playing with the amp and subs yesterday and the subs seem to have picked up a ton of volume for some reason. Gain is near half again (this is pre-amp) and they hit hard and low. Still not sure if the post-amp had a bit more kick to it but this sounds different than post-amp. I'm not sure if it's a 'cleaner' sound or what but I'll be going post-amp and comparing soon. My 100' of 16ga. wire just came in so I'll be running the wires for active also. Ready to get that MB Q, line driver, CXS's, etc in there!!

geekybiker

Used 3sixty.2 $225ish is what you can expect. I'm getting one off diyma. They show up on ebay/craigslist too.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Just found a used (demo model at an Ultimate Electronics) RF 3sixty.2 for $200 shipped. Said it wasn't even used as it was just a display model

Will this work to remove the noise?? I know a few people have used these and I'm hoping I hear that they work fine with our balanced/differential signals. I know the Audiocontrol Matrix is another possibility but this is pretty cheap for a full processor.