Hi !

Well well, car audio seems to be even more voodoo magic then, lets say, SCSI :)

I have read many people complaining alternator whine, but my problem is a bit different:

I just switch on the empeg, while car is switched off, and then there is noise ( clearly noticable when paused, but even noticable when hearing at low volume ).
The noise sounds like ... well noise from a pc ( the same kind of noise that you get in cheap soundcards, litle squeaks and buzzes that change with the application that you run, so clearly comimg from the cpu/bus/peripherals/whatever there is in the computer ).

The noise stays at the same level, no matter how much i turn the volume up or down ...

When i connect the empeg & amps like i am told to do it:
Same Mass Point, at a suitable location with *big* gold plated thingy to the car chassis, amps & empeg chassis NOT connected to general car ground, grounded the line-out cinch connectors to the amp chassis with the supplied cables.

---> THEN i got horrible loud noise from the empeg & alternator whine ....
( crazy isn't it ?! )
My current setup, that seems to produce the lease noise and *no* alternator whine is somehow strange:

Rear Amp grounded to one mass point in the trunk, empeg and front amp grounded to a mass point in the front.
cinch line-out is only connected to the amp mass at the front amp, at the rear amp i did *not* use the supplied cable ( because it makes the empeg noise worse & picks up alternator whine ).
( Using a common ground amplifies the empeg noise a bit, not much )


So that sounds strange to you, i know, it sounds strange to me too, but it is a hard work "trial & error" result, after the "real" thing did not work at all.

Maybe you can help me, to get rid of the rest of the empeg noise, or to tell me what i understood completely wrong.
Maybe there should be a complete .txt file -> where to put amp +, empeg +, amp -, empeg -, and what to do with the line-out cinch cables, even if i first tried it the "correct & recommended" way ( which i don't know ) then it can be helpful to others.


Nils

P.S. Setup:
VW Golf II ( worth less money then my car audio :)

Front:
RTO 100 Watt 2 channel -> cheap little AMP for approx $100 to pump my two 87 mm front speakers from Pioneer.

Rear:
Magnat 4 channel Amp with active low pass filter on 2 channels ( 50/80 Hz )
--> surprisingly efficient, relatively inexpensive ( ~$600 ) *huge* Amp wich drives a two-way speaker ( Axton, using two tweeters and two 25 cm basses ) setup with the 2 normal channels and two 35 cm Subwoofers from Pyle, and doing this all without getting really warm :)


(List 1668, S/N 00123, 4 gig green)