Amp Causing Noise Throughout system??
 

I have an issue with my Clarion DPX11500 amplifier causing alot of distortion throughout the whole system...

I know its this amplifer because when i disconnect the RCAs that go to it, the noise (when the HU is muted) dissapears... but when its plugged in i get every noise you can imagine... I can hear the Alt whine, minor little pops when the signal lights are on, when i turn on the headlights...

Its very sensitive to all the things that use power on the truck. It never used to be like that, and it just recently started, which caused me to start troubleshooting the issue. At first i thought it was a faulty HU... but after more inspection was able to determine it was the Amp.. Nothing was changed on the amp to cause this issue. I have 1/0 gauge running to a cap 1/0 out to the amp and a 2 gauge ground (ran out of 1/0)...

Anyone have any suggestions?

get bigger ground first... The ground matches the power, end of story... all of this sound like ground looping... what may have happened if you ran like this with out trouble but now its all of a sudden doing it is that because you are flowing in more power then you can send out, due to the ground being smaller then the power.... something may have gone funky in the amp it self... meaning byebye amp... take out the cap then hook it up again... and double check the grounds and GET 1/0 GROUND CABLE! give that a shot and let us know...

Well I took out the cap... Used the wiring i had running to that to the ground on the amp...

same as before... however..

I hooked my ipod directly up to the 4 channel amp through rcas... and then hooked up my monoblock clarion to that... and it sounds perfect with no distortion or background noise. Its only when i hook the clarion up to the HU does it have alot of white noise...

Could a HU cause this?

the reason i thought ground is because of the alt whine and the sound of the sig lights through it, did you use the same rca cable when hooking up the ipod or did you bypass it? if you tried with the same cable then there is something wrong with the outputs on the deck or the way the deck is hooked up, check the grounding for the deck :)

headunits have destroyed amps in the past... this wouldnt be the first time sound was buggered by messed up pre outs

I used a different RCA (just a short jumper between the amps) i did try this same hookup with the deck with the same results so it cant be the RCA cable.

The deck was my first suspect and I tried the following; Running a dedicated ground to it and grounded it at the same spot as one of my amps, and I tried to ground out the chassis of the Hu as well...

Im really hoping its not the amp, There not cheap to play around with. I guess the only way to find out is to try and get my hands on another deck...

well if the amp is fine from the ipod then the problem is with the HU... and to be safe i wouldnt be feeding an amp from it until you can find out for sure....

ok... for the time being ill just hook the ipod directly up to the amp... What kind of HU would you suggest? I want one on the cheaper side (being a university student doesn't leave much $$ to play with), and it either has to have a Aux input... or the whole ipod control deal they have now...

well for ease of use and easy to find on sale take a look at alpine. almost all there decks have ipod integration now and usually they can be found on sle at some big box store like best buy, future crap, or visions etc....

Sounds good... I was leaning towards alpine... as so far there the only manufacture that I have not had issues with... (kenwood was a bust, and well my pioneer didnt last more than a couple months)... My Type R's are still going strong...

Thanks for you help