Need Radio Help

[Dohertycm]

your right one is the amp and one is the antenna...Thanks
Got it all in and now it seems like the radio is overdriving the amp and distorting
the sound...sound good at a low volume, but when I turn it up it, it distorts.

I guess i will have to see about removing the amp from the picture and see how that sounds.

Any other thoughts?

[Wonko The Sane]

Did you use a box like the one I linked to?

Amplifiers require a low-level input, basically, they want a signal that has not been amplified.

Your stereo is outputting signal meant to connect directly to speakers, which has to be amplified, or you'd never have enough power to move the speaker.

This means that if you're not running some sort of high-level to low-level adapter, you are really, really overdriving the amplifier. It's taking amplified signal, and then trying to amplify it again. Taking the amp out of equation is a crude way of fixing the problem, since signal from a straight amplifier is always going to be more powerful than that coming off a deck (a dedicated amp circuit vs. a amp chip in the deck).

Stop by Circuit City or somewhere since you need the stereo for tomorrow, they'll have a high-to-low adapter for you, if you explain your problem.

Lemme know how you make out.

Cheers!

[Dohertycm]

I did what you said and hooked it up but it still did it....

Here is the weird part. I disconnected the speakers main wire and left the ground wires hooked up, The sound was still coming out of the speakers....AND i was not getting a distorted sound out of the speakers...

So just to play around I disconnected those and hooked up the speakers to the positive side only...And they played as well.....really good!
The equalizer worked, the amplifier worked and the digital sound box worked....!

All with no ground wires hooked up....I dont get it...

When ever i hooked up the speaker ground from the head unit up, it distorted if the positive was hooked up...weirdest thing..

I got it all hooked up using the chassis ground and not the speaker ground on the head unit....

Now the only problem is dealing with the alternator noise in the speakers....did notice that until i was driving to work today.

Chris

[Wonko The Sane]

I had to play with my grounding too, but I can't remember where I grounded it... I think I added a ground going from the speaker wires to the antenna, in order to get rid of the whine, but as I said, my memory is hazy

Unfortunately, the whine is caused by improper grounding It's a vicious cycle.

[Dohertycm]

Well I figured out that when you group the ground wires all together like what is done on the stock radio you get a lot of feedback...That was another thing I found.. so I put each speaker + and - wire separate...

next thing is I found that the sirius connect box was causing the whine, so I removed that and took it back, i dont know if it was bad or not, but I am geting one that plugs into the front AUX port so I dont get the whining..

WHAT A ******************** to hook up a radio....Thanks for the ideas, boards like this are great...!

Good job. Thats why I spent 80 bucks to get mine installed. Plus I get lifetime warranty so if wires ever come loose I get it fixed for free.

[Wonko The Sane]

Jon - Yeah... If you've never installed a stereo before, the Box is one of the harder ones I didn't have too much trouble, but I've done a lot of stereo installs, so the troubleshooting process wasn't too bad for me. It can be a multi-day problem as it was here, if you're not completely familiar with installs like it, though

Dohertycm - Great! I'm glad to hear that you got it all sorted out