Engine noise in my tower speakers

[DrNate 426]

Okay, so I've had my tower speakers hooked up for awhile and have been happy with them. That is, until I got the boat out on the water! There is singing and whining coming out of them with the engine running and when I turn any pumps or electrical stuff on. I turned up the gain on that channel so I could hear them when I surf, and the whining/singing to waaaay worse too.

 

 

All of my speakers are running off of one amp (Kicker 700.5), so I don't get it.

 

In English, is there any easy fix for this?

[truekaotik 458]

Nate, is everything ( head unit, amp) grounded and powered off the same battery?

Is it ONLY the tower speakers? You need to Check and be positive its not doing it on the inboats... Turn the volume all the way down and you should hear it if so.

Edited May 15, 2012 by truekaotik

[DrNate 426]

Sorry, true, I did mean to mention that it is ONLY my tower speakers (I will double check this to be sure though). And I'm also pretty sure everything is grounded and powered off the same battery

[DavidEM 1]

Yes, but is the source unit also getting its power and ground from the same point? And this point should be closest to the amplifiers if there is considerable distance between the amplifiers and the battery. Sometimes you have to lift the HU supply/ground from the factory harness and go straight to the primaries on the amplfier.

Like mentioned above, turn the tower speakers completely off and put your ear directly to the tweeter of an in-boat coaxial to see if the noise is present with the volume all the way down. I am not convinced it's in the tower only.

Verify that the noise does or does not increase with volume.

If it is in the tower only then switch the tower and in-boat RCAs. Make sure all RCAs are snug and all the way seated.

The amplifier input gains seldomly need to be more than 40 percent up to produce full power. So try pulling the input RCAs out completely on the amplifier and try the tower speakers for noise with the amplifier gains at 40 percent...but no input connection.

Let us know the outcome. Based on that feedback another round of trails should absolutely isolate and confirm the noise culprit.

 

David

[truekaotik 458]

Nate if yOu don't understand what David meant, call me. He is getting to the same point as I am.. It may be a bad RCA issue but normally it travels thru everything not just a channel... I can walk you thru it when your at the boat bro if it seems intense...

[harlobra 24]

I've had the same problem since I bought the boat but have "fixed" it with an in-line noise silencer. I would like to fix the problem correctly though.

 

I've read a bunch of other threads on this and from what I can gather:

 

1: The amps need to be grounded and powered by the same battery

2: The HU should be powered from the same battery - unless there is a long distance from the battery to the HU

3. The ground wire on the amps needs to be thicker or lower gauged than the power wire

4: The RCAs should not be run alongside or zip tied with the amp power lead

 

Am I missing anything?

[harlobra 24]

Here's a link to the quick fix:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Monster-MPC-ISM-201-XLN/dp/B0009RWKKM

[DavidEM 1]

All that noise silencer did was introduce a small transformer coupling on each of the RCA ground shields so that DC voltage that carries an AC ripple (noise component) can no longer flow (in an attempt to balance potential) between products in the audio signal path. It's a bandaid and can in many cases adversely affect sound quality.

1) Yes, same battery. If everything positive (alternator/starter feed, ALL stereo equipment and the helm buss) is wired to the common output post of the dual battery switch then it is impossible to have a conflict.

2) The most important reference point is between audio components in the signal path. Distance becomes a concern when the batteries are a great distance away from the amplifiers. In that case, you want to reference the HU and all source electronics with the amplifier primaries versus the battery.

3) Power and ground wires should be symmetrical...but use heavy gauge commensurate with the current draw times distance. There is no advantage to an asymmetrical arrangement. A weak link is a weak link regardless of which pole.

4) It's rare for a quality RCA cable to have magnetically induced noise. But you are begging for trouble with long coincidental side by side spans with power wiring. Short overlaps and minimal crossing should not cause you problems.

 

David

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

I've had the same problem since I bought the boat but have "fixed" it with an in-line noise silencer. I would like to fix the problem correctly though.

 

I've read a bunch of other threads on this and from what I can gather:

 

1: The amps need to be grounded and powered by the same battery

2: The HU should be powered from the same battery - unless there is a long distance from the battery to the HU

3. The ground wire on the amps needs to be thicker or lower gauged than the power wire

4: The RCAs should not be run alongside or zip tied with the amp power lead

 

Am I missing anything?

 

Harlobra,

 

The ENTIRE audio system needs to share a common battery source. This means: amp(s), head-unit, any periprials such as equalizers, zone cntrollers, line drivers, CD changers. Also, any MP3 player interfaces that charge the device.

 

The head-unit has to share the same battery source as the rest of the system, regardless of how long of a wire run it is to go directly to the battery. If its further to go directly to the battery, then go to the amp's B+ and GND terminals. This serves the same purpose.

 

The amp's GND wire does not need to be larger then the B+. They need to both be of the appropriate size to carry the load. Larger is ok, but its an urban legend that the ground needs to be larger. In current flow, both carry the load and the length of both needs to be taken into account when figuring the cable gauge.

 

There are times where the RCA cables and power cables to run parallel, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. But this rarely causes noise if the other practices are fallowed. I have yet to find a boat system that I had to install an in-line noise filter. 9 of 10 that come in the door are fixed by a simple rewire.

[truekaotik 458]

You can only repeat the same thing so many times so.....

 

X3

[PayCheck 20]

I am having extreme problems in my bow speakers. The towers and rear speakers are fine, but I rewired the RCA cable to a different route away from any power cable. I put a plastic casing around it also. Very little help. My tower speakers came installed, and they run right with the power cable no problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[harlobra 24]

NO MORE NOISE.

 

I re-wired the HU power and ground to match the amps and it's fixed. No more band-aid

 

Thanks for the help!

[PayCheck 20]

lucky, do you mean you grounded and powered them to the same battery? i only have one battery for now, i can hear the ballast pump and everything that is connected to the battery. quite annoyed

[DrNate 426]

I haven't had time to fix mine yet, the tower speakers are still whining badly. very annoying.

[harlobra 24]

The grounds go directly to the battery but there is a post on the side of the boat that is wired to the battery switch that the positive leads are connected to.

 

(null)

[PayCheck 20]

here is my amp you were lookin for true, it looks messy because i rewired everything from different locations. it doesnt actually look like that. but the rca splits on the left, thats what the black wwires are

Edited May 31, 2012 by PayCheck

[DrNate 426]

So I had a stereo guy look at it for me today and he said the reason this is occurring is because the speaker wires come down out of the tower and are run across the power cable going to the amplifier. All of the other spekears are coming into the amp from the other side. His solution would be just to run the tower speaker wires around the observer's compartment and into the amp without them crossing the power cable. Could it really be that simple?!?!?

[Wylie_Tunes 146]

So I had a stereo guy look at it for me today and he said the reason this is occurring is because the speaker wires come down out of the tower and are run across the power cable going to the amplifier. All of the other spekears are coming into the amp from the other side. His solution would be just to run the tower speaker wires around the observer's compartment and into the amp without them crossing the power cable. Could it really be that simple?!?!?

 

In my experience, its very very rare for noise to be introduced into the speaker wires through EMI. Rerouting speaker wires would be way down on my list of ideas to try, but it sounds like you are exhaustion possible solutions.

[DrNate 426]

I guess I was hopeful becauese it made sense. These are the only speakers giving me engine noise, and they are the only speaker wires running across the power cord of the amp. Seems like I just could just put a filter or something between the speaker wire and the power wire. They are both insulated, though, Seems that rubber or plastic wouldn't do it

[PayCheck 20]

i have learned that running power wires and the rcas doedsnt not work out well. try it and see how it works, if it works ill be sure to try it with my wires