crackling through speakers

chewy1986

Tuner
Points
30
Location
birmingham
Car
freelander td4
hi to all, its been a while since i last posted,
ok so ive installed a small sound system in my bmw, using a juice ja790 amp to power 2 rear inphase 6.5in speakers,
the problem im having is when i play my music (all different genres) i get a crackling coming through the rear speakers which are brand new, also when i fully fade out the front speaker (which are running just off the headunit) i get buzzing through them (fronts) in rhythm of the bass,

things ive done so far:-
1-ive redone the ground (sanded paint work on chassis etc)
2-kept all wires away from each other except the remote and thick rca's
3- shortened my live
4-tested playing music through an external device(phone) plug direct to amp
5- checked for shorts along all wires
6- properly set up gains etc
7-bite nails and swear alot
so can anybody point me in the right direction to sorting this out

regards
 
The first thing that I would prove on all speakers is if you have the polarity of the speaker cable correct i.e. pos to pos and neg to neg. Make sure this is so as the speakers will still work but will be out of phase to the music i.e. speaker cone will move in the opposite direction on a note and therefore distort earlier.

You could also be pushing too much bass through the speakers and they might benefit from having a crossover fitted to keep the frequencies in check.

Also does the crackling happen on all sources i.e. CD, Radio, MP3, iPod or is it just on one? if it is happening on an iPod, I would also check the graphic equaliser settings to see what you have selected, also disable the bass boost if it is on!

I am sure somebody will be along in a while who can add to your list, but for now check the above.

Good luck :)
 
cheers T9,
just to clarify for further replies, speakers have passive crossovers, and polarities are correct, gains on the headunit are turned off or zero'd, high/low pass filter up slightley to kill off the very low freqs without killing bass totally, its does this no matter what source, just got me how its causing a buzz/crackling through the front which are powered from the headunit
 
OK next thing, I had a similar thing once on my dashboard speakers on my Saab. The speakers were replaced with Boston Acoustics 3" drivers with a 1" tune up tweeter. The speaker was slightly bigger than the OEM replacements, on playing the music the cone was actually hitting the speaker grill. Thought we had a rogue set straight out of the box before somebody sussed it out. A small teasing of the grill around the shape of the speaker cured the problem. I realise that this will drive you mad until the problem has been found. If you do find out what it is then please let us know ;)
 
For the fronts check the headunits earth and for the rears move the remote wire away from the rca's. Also have you tried another set of rca's?
 
sorry, i used a different rca from my iphone (jack to aux) so wasnt using the rca from the head unit and the problem was still there,
 
ok i just spent the last hour digging around pulling out wires checking for loose end/ poor connections.

i unplugged the rca from the back of the headunit and the crackling can still be heard through all of the speakers,
then i unplugged the block connector for the front speakers from the headunit and all the noise went away,
so i have narrowed it down to the origiinal speaker wires but no idea why im getting the sounds, hope this helps anybody trying to help me
 
from headunit using proper connectors down the side of the car along the rca's,
i took the car to car audio centre earlier who checked out my wiring and told me that my wiring was fine but i need a new headunit.
i cant see the headunit being the problem though or am i being nieve
 
right im back from hilday but back at work, whilst on holiday i got speaaking to some people about my issue, and was givern so many different answers it hasnt help lol, but top of the list were :-

1) grounds on headunit gone causing a loop-->ive eliminated that by plugging phone directly to the amp bypassing the HU completely

2) chassis ground for the amp--> i currently have it on the strut on bare metal but will try another location altogether

3) poor acoustic layout in the car--> heard plenty of people saying this about the bmw e46,

4) Inferior equipment--> plenty of people have said INPHASE and JUICE (same company) are poor quality and CAR AUDIO CENTRE only supply that brand hence why everything else you order from there is out of stock except INPHASE and JUICE.




so CONCLUSION ---> HAVE A COMPLETE NEW SETUP WITH PROVERN BRANDS SO.................................................................................
Can anybody recommend which brand/speakers to go with for say a £500 budget give or take a ton,
i want to keep location standard so 2 rear decks and components up front no SUBWOOFER , the 4/6 speakers need to give me good loud clear sound with a good level of bass, can anybody help me on my quest....
regards
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Juice are a budget brand and for what they cost they are good.
I had a Class D Juice amp and it was perfectly good.
Have a look on Bassjunkies they do some good package deals. ;)
 
cheers turbo, regarding the juice amp, its a 4ch 1200 and for some reason it just doesnt do the job, have tried it on another rig with better branded speakers and it just seems weak,
but hayho im going to enquire at bass junkies to see how much equipment and fitting would be, i have used bass junkies stuff before and was happy with them matter of fact my mate still has the twister amp i bought 5 years ago
 
update''''''''''''''' taken ages due to the new addition to family reaking havoc,

i purchased 2 sets of inphase xtc 601 from car audio centre, after many grazed knuckles and swearing, i layed down all new wiring (van damme cable) and whilst id got the glovebox and surrounding trim remove i noticed an exposed piece of speaker cable that must have been shorting on the metal, since ive patched this up and run my new wires, ive been getting awesome sound, only running 50 watts per channel on low gain at the moment even though the speakers can handle 100w rms -- i just want to run them in first before pounding them, i can honestly say im happy with the install, im using the same juice amp id earlier criticised which in actual fact is running these speakers a treat, so long story short PROBLEM SOLVED CASE CLOSED LOL
 

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