Ground loop isolators.

(liveoz) · (liveoz) **Join Date: May 2002** 07-31-2003, 7:51 PM

I have recently installed my tower speakers (defcon 3 w/ 600 watt 4 channel amp) and I am getting quite a bit of engine whine.

The amp is in the observers compartment as well as the second battery. The amp is hooked up to the battery via 4 guage power and ground and front and rear rca cables are running around the bow to the head unit on the drivers side. There is also a sum out to a powered sub on the driverside. There doesn't seem to be a reason to be getting so much whine. Anyways, thanks to some previous post, I will be grounding the head unit directly to the battery and I am looking into the ground loop isolators. I have two questions?

Do they work for this type of interference?
If they do work, do you need to put an isolator on both the front and rear rca cables?

Grant, or anybody else with install experience, care to offer a few suggestions? any help would be appreciated.

(peter_c) · (peter_c) **Join Date: Sep 2001** 07-31-2003, 9:12 PM

I would start by unplugging the RCA's and see if the noise is still present. This will isolate whether it is the amp, headunit, or possibly the cables. Always make sure to isolate the stereo wiring as much as possible. Grounding a shielded RCA wire never hurts.

(typhoon) · (typhoon) **Join Date: Jul 2001** 08-01-2003, 6:24 AM

the periferal ground loop isoaltor works great.

(sandbag) · (sandbag) **Join Date: May 2002** 08-01-2003, 7:13 AM

Agreed.
The Periferal (brand) seems to work
the best in my boat. I had
another brand and it only decreased
the noise. The Periferal eliminated the noise.

(liveoz) · (liveoz) **Join Date: May 2002** 08-01-2003, 3:19 PM

How do you install the Perifial isolator with 4 channel amps. Do they have models that come 2 sets of inputs or do you put a seperate isolator on each line.

adkelley 08-04-2003, 10:46 AM

I would first get the RCAs as far away from the power cables as possible

(liveoz) · (liveoz) **Join Date: May 2002** 08-04-2003, 7:42 PM

Thanks Andrew, I will look into alternative routing. What is considered far away 6", 2', more? I can fairly easily separate by 12" to 18" but it will take a little effort to seperate them more than this.

adkelley 08-05-2003, 11:30 AM

The more the better. In a car a good installer will always run the power down one side and the RCAs down the other where possible. When I bought my x star it had horrible alternator whine. I seperated the cables(I would estimate they are never closer then 18") and it completely solved the issue without any other changed.