lol - exactly. As soon as I read about the CD switching noise I figured it must be a Pioneer deck.

 

Honestly, the CD switching noise I know is a HU problem and I can live with it until it's fixed. It's the whine I really care about getting rid of!

What's the typical fix for the HU problem?

 

Get the head unit repaired or replaced.

 

You've blown an internal fuse in your deck. The fuse is there to protect the RCA output's ground from becoming the only ground for your amps, should they come loose or otherwise lose contact.(note the correct spelling of the word loose!) or disconnected while power is still hooked up.
If you want a quick fix, then bare the outer shield on your RCA cables, and wrap a ground lead from there to the back of the deck.

Amp grounds should always be the first thing connected, and the last thing disconnected when working on your wires.

 

I'm pretty sure the grounds in the deck are fine. I had a Pioneer repair depot look at the unit and they said the internal grounds are just fine. If it comes down to grounding the RCA's back to the HU chassis so be it.

 

Pulled the RCA's off the amps and no more noise. Same with running a discman through the system. I'm going to get the RCA's grounded and see if that helps.

 

have we tried different RCA's yet? get a $3 set and see it that does the trick

 

I need to try that again with the new crossover setup, see what happens.

 

a good way to see if its your RCA's only is to hook up your discman/mp3 play to the rca's AT THE DECK. That will show you if your rcas are picking up noise further down the line on its way to the amp or of its your deck. No noise when hooked up to the mp3 player then its your deck. +1 for grounding your RCAs to the deck.

 

you have found where the noise isn't now go backwards till you find where it starts. be thorough since it is possible you have 2 or more faults.

I mean you could be picking up alt whine at many points, a bad ground and a bad solder joint have the same symptom ... mind numbing alt whine