Hello, I just install and amplifier to my 03 Dodge Ram 1500. I installed it under the drivers seat. But for some reason i cant get a good ground! Im hearing a hummimg/ popping sound coming only from my subs. Also when i turn the truck off i hear a little THUMP!!
Does anybody have any knowledge on this problem???And where would be a good place to ground???

 

Are your RCA cables next to the power cable? That will cause some noise.

I remember hearing once that the best ground for a car amp was back to the battery, but I could be wrong.

 

Yeah, i read that too. So i made sure i ran the RCA cable on the opposite side. I'll look into running the ground back to the battery. Thanks Bro!!!

 

Ive got an amp in my 2002 regular cab ram and i belive ive got my ground hooked up to the seat belt. Ill check and repost and let u know where i have my ground

 

I was thinking about this. In a new vehicle with lots of computers and controls for pretty much everything, all of which are grounded to the chassis, makes the chassis a bad ground for your amp. Pure speculation though. Going to the battery would be a good experiment and if you had enough extra cable you could hack it in just to check.

 

Use the mount for the seat for your ground and keep the cable less than 18 inches. Also make sure you use at least a 10 ga. cable for the power to the battery(USE A FUSE BY THE BATTERY) and a 10 ga. for the ground also. If you are using the factory radio and then you still get whine its probly coming through the high level converter that turns the signal into a lower voltage(RCA output). Most quality converters have a ground loop isolator built in and it will either need to be grounded also or a ground wire coming from the amps grounding point will have to be run to it. If you are using an aftermarket radio already having RCA outputs make sure it is properly grounded also. Most signal problems start with the head unit first. Always use good quality RCA cables too, and do make sure you dont run them next to the power cable or next to the bundle of OEM wires running along each side of your door sills. You may have to pull up the carpet and run them under the middle area of the seat. Whatever just keep them away from all the other wires. Cheap amps also have unregulated power supplies and contain little to no noise filtering components making them a good source of hum, on/off pops and other issues, so if you bought a cheap amp there is little hope for you.

Just a piece of mind from an installer of 22 years...

 

[sm=exactly.gif] What viperforsale said. Do NOT run the ground back to the battery. The cable will be too long to provide a good ground, especially for sensitive (audio) equipment! Depending on what amp you have (power), you might want to run a thicker power cable. I know on my amps I run at least 8 ga. Same thing he said about cheap amps--you will get noise no matter what you do. You will also get power pops, where the speakers will thump when you turn them on or off, just because the amplifier doesn't regulate the power well enough to the output. Also you will probably get a gnasty sound when you turn the amp off and back on again quickly (like switch the headunit on and off and on again within less than 10 seconds). This is caused by the capacitors in the amp not discharging totally after you turn the amp off. It takes some time to discharge them. The sound you hear when you turn them back on is once again the amp not regulating power to the output when it gets turned on. You hear the voltage spike on the non-discharged capacitors.

I haven't been an installer for 22 years but I have installed a few systems in my vehicles and my friends/family. After a while you realize why the more expensive name brand amps are worth it.

 

Yeh the thickness of the power cable directly relates to the amount of wattage the amp puts out, I cant remember the exact formula but basically what you got is 0-150 watts = 10ga, 151-250 watts = 8ga, 251-350 watts = 6 ga, 351-500watts = 4ga, 500-1000 watts = 2ga and anything greater and you should have capacitors, multiple batteries and should be running 0 ga or greater(looks like welding cable). General rule of thumb also depends on the length of the cable run, if it goes over 20 feet you should move up to the next size regardless of the wattage(ground wire size should always equal whatever the battery cable is). Another factor depends on how many amps you plan on running off the same feed... if you run more than one amp you should go up 1 size for each additional amp then use a power block to split it out to the smaller sizes.

(this only applies to amps that really put out the specified wattage not to some amps that give out ratings of 1000 watts WSL(when stuck by lightning))

The Cadence amp that I use has a large enough terminal to use a 4 gauge input wire and it has a capacitor terminal built into it so its ideal for the 2 Beast 10's that I have behind my seats. I use my Sony radio's power(52 x 4) to power the stock speakers with an MB Quart tweeter(with quart x-overs) in each of the factory spots on the dash. The Sony has an adjustable sub output and has a high-pass feature for the front and rear speaker outputs. I keep the bass level on the radio all the way down so that the radio power only puts out frequencies about 150 Hz or so and I keep the gain on the amp turned up about 3/4 and the frequency on it is adjusted to do a 12 db boost @50 Hz. Plenty of compliments even from my installer buddies who always overbuild customers systems with all kinds of crap that most people dont need or never will use, only makes the installer and the saleperson more money. REMEMBER: keep it simple and it will be more reliable and you'll have way less problems(salepeople I know really hate me because I am always sending stuff back to them that they sell to the customer that I tell them they dont need!).

 

Yeah, I have a system in my 1994 Chevy Camaro Z-28. I have a Pioneer Premier DEH-P720 headunit that is 45Wx4 powering Infinity Kappa 6 1/2"'s. Then a (cheap, but works half way decent) Power Acoustik 250Wx2 amp powering some Pioneer 4-way 6"x9" speakers in individual boxes. I have 12 ga. Monster Cable running from the headunit to the Infinity speakers, which I know is overkill, but I had the extra wire laying around. I had to rewire it anyways to get away from the internal GM amp hidden in the firewall (BOSE sound system from the factory). Then I have 2 Cerwin Vega Vega Series 12" subs (single coil, 4 ohm) running off a JBL amp, which I got from someone and never really figured out the specs on it since it is not marked and pretty old--it's probably around 8-10 years old, I have had it for 6 years. But it is big and hits the subs hard. The subs have two power terminals and two ground terminals to fit 8 ga. wire in each. I have 8 ga. power and ground to the JBL amp (x2) and the Power Acoustik from distribution blocks. Then there is 12 ga. Monster Cable from the amps to the 6"x9"'s and the 12" subs. I have my receiver hooked up to the subs via separate rca's, and the control on there is all the way down most of the time. The amp is probably at about 1/2 or 3/4 gain. It really pumps. The Power Acoustik was a surprise, I bought it really cheap as a sub amp when I had some weaker subs in another car. Well, that amp really blows for subs, but is pretty clean from about 200 Hz on up. The crossover on the Power Acoustik is terrible too, so I use the crossover on the headunit and passthru on the amp. It does have the pop syndrome when you turn it off and back on really quick, but as long as you wait about 10 seconds after your turn it off to turn it back on, it doesn't fuss too much.

The whole system is about 5 years old, and I can tell the headunit and speakers are starting to wear out. I get some noise out of the speakers now and the headunit doesn't get very good reception anymore. I probably need to think about getting a new headunit.

 

nice thing about most of the newer headunits like mine is that they are finally coming with higher volt pre-amp outs, the Sony I have has 4 volt outs and alot of the other brands are following suit with similar or greater outputs. This provides a cleaner signal to the amp and helps with keeping your gain adjustments down which in turn provides less distortion.

I remember back in the day when pioneer 6x9's were all the rage and it seemed like almost every stereo install I used to do had a set of them and the customers would bring in their radios which probly put out about 8 watts RMS a channel and they would want me to slap a pair of the 120 Watt Pioneers in there and then after they were in and I collected my money they would come back and say something like "Hey it isnt as loud as it was before I brought it in?" Thats when you have to go into explaining to them that their factory speakers which handled about 5 watts a piece took a whole less energy to push than a set of power hungry 120 Watt speakers so the weak-*** output of their radio was now far behind what the Pioneers could handle. Or they would come back in a week or so and say "My Pioneers blew out, I thought they were able to handle 120 Watts?" Then I would have to go into the explaination of how 1 watt of pure distortion could kill a 120 Watt speaker quicker than 120 watts of clean music.

Those were the days that Pyramid amps also were the rage because you could by the cheap piles of junk at the local pawn shops, they were labeled that they were 1000 watts but cost like $100(right). Remember those amps, they were like 2 feet long and heavy as all get out, people used to judge an amp by its size and how heavy it was as to its output capabilities... ahhh the fools. I used to get these guys that would come in with these boat anchors and I would get them to let me take the bottom cover off to show them what was really inside and what you would have inside this 2 foot long amp would be a circuit board about a third the size of the amp and the rest was just empty space and heatsink. Now Pyramid owns a butt-load of amp/speaker companies and some of the stuff is OK but thats about as far as I would go with it. In fact they gobbled up one of my old favorite companies Lanzar. Even JBL isnt JBL anymore, in fact I am not going to into it but you would be very suprised at how alot of the manufacturers labels on equipment are no longer produced by them, but instead by somebody like Audiovox or similar.

And for all you guys swearing by JL Audio speakers or Kicker Solo's(the square ones) or any other of the big name super high dollar woofers... I bet I can go down to K-mart and buy a pair of 12" DVC cheapo $20 woofers and build a box for them and they will last longer and sound just as good, if not better than what most of you end up with. And you say how can that be? Well because it doesnt matter what brand of woofer you have, what matters is the box. If you build the box with the right airspace for the woofers specs and construct it well, it will resonate at the right frequency and let the woofer do its job correctly. I cant tell you how many times I have seen high buck woofs like JL's that some shop has sold someone crammed into a box that doesnt have the right airspace or is the wrong design for them and they sound like hammered dog doo. And to go along with it you have to have an amp that has a little headroom(and I aint talking inside your pants or for that hat on your noggin!) but not too much. You dont need a 500 watt amp for 2 - 100 watt woofers, thats too much. You will probly blow them out in no time with that much, but if you had a 250 - 300 watt amp you could set the gain to a moderate level that allows clipping at close to the radios max output and then your good to go. That way when you start to here the distortion in the other high range speakers you will not have to worry so much about the woofers blowing out. Especially when using bandpass boxes because you cant hear the woofer distort till it is just plain worn out.

OK I am done rambling for now, I am sure this is just far too much information for any one person to use anyway...