i know a little bit about car audio, more than the average joe, but not a whole lot, thats my brothers thing.

but i had a pretty bad alternator whine when i first put my sony mobile es deck in. by switching to a panasonic 901u, a much better deck (crutchfield had a closeout, got it for 300 instead of 600) alot of the whine went away, but i could still hear it at low volumes, very annoying, expecially when the rear defroster was on.

what got rid of it 100% was grounding the deck out to my ground block were my amps are grounded this weekend

just a little FYI to those intalling there own systems, when running rca'* to the trunk, run a set of speaker wire back there. use 1 for ground, the second, you'll find a use for latter. serioulsy, its worth having a extra wire, like if you intalled a alarm latter, you can tie it into the trunk light so when it opens it triggers.

also, another tip Riviera, aurora, and 2000+ Bonneville owners must keep in mind.. do NOT whatever you do, run RCA'* on the passenger side of the car! Remember how the battery is located under the back seat? well, the positive lead from the alternator to the battery goes under the passenger side trim under the carpet. If you run RCA'* on this side (like I found out the hard way) you're going to get MAJOR alternator whine. I fixed it by running all rca'* on the driver'* side of the car.

i have been chasing this whine for 2 mths. i guess i know where it is at now. man what a pain. i can not stand noise when i have spent this much money for the equipment. it has had me floored it never whined in the jeep but now i know the reason behind it.

I once had an alt. whine. Turns out I had a loose RCA, plugged it back in and it went away.

yeah, it can be alot of things, cheap rca'*, rca'* by power wire, loose rca'*.....but somtimes you rule all that out and you still get it. definatly worth doing when installing amps

hey sdowney, 1 way to check, pull your deck out, disconnect the ground and run a temp wire out your window into the trunk

i dreaded running a extra wire back there when i found this out, but it only took 10 minutes tops.....first time you do it, it takes FOREVER for me, usually only do somthing like this one time, so you just kind of dread re-doing it, but its not bad

Groundblock?? Was that aftermarket? Didn't know we had a groundblock in the trunk.

ground block is just like a power distribution block excet that they have no fuses. it should not be to bad running the wires up the other side but getting around the pedal is always a pian that is why i ALWAYS use the passenger side. oh well if it will kill the whine i know where i will be this weekend!

So would it be the same as grounding it to the chassis??

yes but if you are running mutiple amps this gives you the ability to tie them all together and run one ground. also with mine, my amps will accept 4 gauge wire. i run a 4 gauge from both of my amps to the grounding block. then i run a 0/1 gauge wire from the block to the ground. there is no other way you can run 0/1 gauge ground without it. it may not help anything out but it dose clean up the install. you do not need it but i have always had nmore then one amp to ground so it has always made since to me.

okay.. so for the amp I can see doing that.. good idea..

But for the HU do you really need to run it to that block? Can't just use a self tapping screw and eyelet and ground it to the chassis (skin) underneath the dash to eliminate the Alt noise?