I need some help, I have an '01 Acura CL-S and I just wired an amp to the system. I cut the wiring harness at the rear Bose amplifier and soldered all the correct wires to the correct amp wires. I then ran 4 gauge power wire and grounded the amplifier.
I soldered a pair of RCA plugs to each of the pair of audio outs from the head unit. I soldered the positive to the center wire of the RCA and the negative to the ground of the RCA.
The problem is that I have a slight alternator whine when the system is on. I believe it's coming from the head unit/RCA plugs because the whine is only there when the head unit has sound coming out. When the volume is all the way down there is no whine/sound. But whenever I turn the knob to one notch I get whine. Any help I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

 

Try to get a ground loop isolator. You can get it from Radio Shack for like $15.

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I don't think the ground loop isolator would help. The whine is only there when there is signal from the head unit. If the volume is turned all the way down there is no whine. If it was a ground loop problem wouldn't there be the whine whenever the amplifier was powered up?

 

i dont understand that. you soldered rcas to speaker wires? your not supposed to do that

 

You need to buy one of those small boxes that tap into the speaker leads and it has RCA inputs on it. Sorry, I forgot what its called.

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That's right 96TL - it's called a Line Output converter. I You can use a 2-channel converter connected to the rear speaker leads from the head unit to get full range audio. Plug your RCAs into the converter and to your amps.

 

thanks for the help TLDADDY

 

I didn't solder the RCAs to the speaker outputs, I soldered them to the outputs from the head unit. The head unit's output is strong enough that I need to turn my gains on my amps almost all the way down. I tried to use line converters but they lowered the output too much. If I tried to tap in after the factory amp I could have used the converters. Any help would be appreciated.