93 Es300 Aftermarket Headunit Install....speaker Problem..

[imrat]

so i just recently got a 93 es300 first thing to do was install an aftermarket headunit, i got an alpine. so i went out and bought the proper harness and what not, everything works perfect BUT anytime the headunit is on the speakers make this sorta static'y sound and it comes from all the speakers and if the car is off and i turn on the headlights or even the parking lights its make a little loud static sound coming from the speakers, now for alpine headunits you have to buy this special harness that connects to harness in the car itself, and on that harness there are 4 rca's 2 red and 2 white that you have to plug into the back off the headunit in order for the speakers to work. and then you have a few other wires that you hook-up to the harness that your headunit comes with that goes into the back of the headunit such as, power, ground, amp power on. whenever i take out the rca's i the sound goes away, but the i have no sound, because the rca's are the only way i get sound because of the special harness, anyone experience any problems with aftermarket headunits like i am, please help!!!

i was thinking, what if i was too cut off the top plug part of the rca's and just try to connect the wires directly with the un-used harness wires that are speaker wires coming from the (headunit) harness that i matched up the power, ground amp power on and a few others

if i confused you please let me know and ill try to clear things up

[blk_on_blk]

Okay, now I'm confused, too. I did a complete rework of our '95 ES300 stereo, and I've done several installs with Apline systems, and I'm not sure what you are referring to when you talk about the harnesses. There is a 'wiring harness' that comes with your new headunit, then there is/are the factory wiring harnesses, and then there is an interfacing adapter harness that I'm guessing is what you went out and bought so you can connect to the factory speakers/amp without having to cut wires, right?

So, I'd need to know the Alpine model to get a better feel of just what inputs/outputs you have. If it's anything like this Alpine head unit, you've got RCA's for your line-level input and outputs... none of them should be the amplified speaker signal. I'm presuming since you are connecting to the RCA's that you are not using the Alpine head unit's internal amplifier and you are routing the head unit through the factory amp. If that is the case, then have you checked your ground? Is it clean? Often speaker noise is caused from picking a 'dirty' ground location. "Buzz" noise in the speakers could also be caused from from a dirty power source, but then there is usually an isolator on the positive lead of the headunit, but that only gets you so far in cleaning up a noisy line.

It could also be an incompatiblity of the factory amp with the new head unit (impedence, circuitry, etc.) which is making the system succeptible to picking up noise from every other periphial electrical operation of the car.

Does your Alpine head unit have a nice internal amp in it? My last Alpine had a whoping 45 watts per channel, so I ran all my speakers off the new head unit. I just bypassed the factory amp and ran straight to the speakers from the Alpine.

I would also recommend running a low gauge wire directly from the battery (fused at the battery) through the firewall and to your headunit for main power. That will give you the cleanest power available.

One last thing to note, on our '95 there is a hands-free option somewhere in the factory radio (or so I was told) that is wired through the power antenna. If I unplugged the power antenna, I would lose sound to the front speaker. Weird. Perhaps some of this cross wiring for other applications is causing interference in your system. It's hard to know for sure.

I guess there are a few things to look into.

[imrat]

Okay, now I'm confused, too. I did a complete rework of our '95 ES300 stereo, and I've done several installs with Apline systems, and I'm not sure what you are referring to when you talk about the harnesses. There is a 'wiring harness' that comes with your new headunit, then there is/are the factory wiring harnesses, and then there is an interfacing adapter harness that I'm guessing is what you went out and bought so you can connect to the factory speakers/amp without having to cut wires, right?

So, I'd need to know the Alpine model to get a better feel of just what inputs/outputs you have. If it's anything like this Alpine head unit, you've got RCA's for your line-level input and outputs... none of them should be the amplified speaker signal. I'm presuming since you are connecting to the RCA's that you are not using the Alpine head unit's internal amplifier and you are routing the head unit through the factory amp. If that is the case, then have you checked your ground? Is it clean? Often speaker noise is caused from picking a 'dirty' ground location. "Buzz" noise in the speakers could also be caused from from a dirty power source, but then there is usually an isolator on the positive lead of the headunit, but that only gets you so far in cleaning up a noisy line.

It could also be an incompatiblity of the factory amp with the new head unit (impedence, circuitry, etc.) which is making the system succeptible to picking up noise from every other periphial electrical operation of the car.

Does your Alpine head unit have a nice internal amp in it? My last Alpine had a whoping 45 watts per channel, so I ran all my speakers off the new head unit. I just bypassed the factory amp and ran straight to the speakers from the Alpine.

I would also recommend running a low gauge wire directly from the battery (fused at the battery) through the firewall and to your headunit for main power. That will give you the cleanest power available.

One last thing to note, on our '95 there is a hands-free option somewhere in the factory radio (or so I was told) that is wired through the power antenna. If I unplugged the power antenna, I would lose sound to the front speaker. Weird. Perhaps some of this cross wiring for other applications is causing interference in your system. It's hard to know for sure.

I guess there are a few things to look into.

i have an alpine cda-9884

http://www.alpine-usa.com/US-en/products/p...?model=CDA-9884

on the club lexus forum i posted on the guy said i should try by passing the factory amp and run the wires directly from the alpine headunit to the factory harness that comes from the car, i think that might be a real possible solution, i was also the car has a premium sound system, does that affect anything at all? i think im going to try to by pass the amp, i just kinda nervous about !Removed! things up with the factory harness cause if i do then im screwed

he gave me a wiring guide, for the factory harness, check it out added it as an attachment

and about what you first said yes.

"Okay, now I'm confused, too. I did a complete rework of our '95 ES300 stereo, and I've done several installs with Apline systems, and I'm not sure what you are referring to when you talk about the harnesses. There is a 'wiring harness' that comes with your new headunit, then there is/are the factory wiring harnesses, and then there is an interfacing adapter harness that I'm guessing is what you went out and bought so you can connect to the factory speakers/amp without having to cut wires, right?"

i have the harness that came with the alpine headunit. then the factory harness that connects the amp and the speakers. and then i went out and got another harness adapter like thing that has the 4 rca's coming out of it, so i would not have to cut any wires, its the rca's that are messing things up

[blk_on_blk]

Hmm. That's interesting that the adapter harness you bought has RCA terminals on it... I'm not familiar with that. Most interfacing harnesses have the automotible specific molded plug on the end, but then loose wires on the other end that you match up with the loose wires coming out of your new Alpine. Then it's just a plug and play. It doesn't make sense to have an interfacing harness with RCA's, unless that harness is expecting you to use the factory amp... then I could see the RCA's plugging into your new head unit, but you risk the chance of a mismatch in interfacing with the factory amp.

It looks like the guy on CL is pointing you in the right direction with the pin-out diagram he sent... it seems to be to the harness on the output of the amp, which goes directly to your speakers. You shouldn't need to cut or change anything in your factory system to wire in your new system. Here's how I would suggest to wire it in:

1) your adapter harness should have the loose wires needed to wire direction in to the vehicle's power. I would connect all the loose wires, except for the speaker wires, from your Alpine to your interfacing adapter. This will mean you'll have power, ACC, ground, antenna, illumination, etc. all wired in. Again, the only wires that should be loose will be the powered speaker wires from your Alpine harness.

2) Solder some speaker wire to the ends of the powered speaker leads from the Alpine harness. It's easiest to use paired audio speaker wire. Use lengths long enough to reach the factory amp (and then a little more to ensure you have slack). Mark the ends of the wires to which speaker they apply to at the end closest to the amp.

3) Tin the ends of the newly run speaker wires. Tinning just means to coat the tips with a layer of solder. If you pick the right gauge of wire, or even trim off a few strands to get it the right thickness, then once you tin the end, you can slide the tinned tip right into the matching slot on the factory harness... that way you don't need to cut any factory wires. Once you get them all matched up and seated nicely in the factory plug, then you can wrap the thing with electrical tape to seal it all up. But be sure to test check the stereo to ensure you've got everything matched correctly.

Your head unit is a 50x4 max power, and Alpine always tends to under-rate their power numbers, so you've got a monster of a head unit and it should drive the hell out of the factory speakers. Just as a note, when I did our install, I dropped the front dash speakers, since they face the windshield and tend to be kind of screamers with higher power, but I retained the little 'wing' tweeters and door speakers. I just used a couple of crossover pods for some after market separate speakers I had left over to keep the frequencies clean.

If you do the install this way, you can always pull your head unit at a later date and reinstall the factory unit super-easily if you ever go to sell the car and want to keep your system.

Here's the link to my install a year or two ago: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...=stereo+install

[motoroil]

Does your Alpine head unit have a nice internal amp in it? My last Alpine had a whoping 45 watts per channel, so I ran all my speakers off the new head unit. I just bypassed the factory amp and ran straight to the speakers from the Alpine.

blk_on_blk--I have a question for you. I installed a new headunit--but used the factory amp under the passenger seat and the internal headunit amp--60 watts per channel. I get a LOUD buzzing noise. I think its a ground loop.

I used a ground loop isolator--almost gets rid of the buzzing. Now there is a quite whining noise that gets higher or lower in pitch according to engine load. I might try adding a second ground loop isolator.

-----------------

A better fix would be to circumvent the OEM amp altogether like you did. How did you do that? It seems I'd have to run wires from under the passenger seat to the headunit? Or run wires from each individual speaker to the headunit? That seems difficult to do. I know some cars, such as the Taurus and Contour, has factory amp bypass harness made by Metra and Scosche. You plugn play harnessess that bypass the OEM amp. Anything like that for our ES300's?

Did you run wires from where the OEM amp was to your headunit?

How'd you do it? Any advice?

Thanks!!!!!!

[motoroil]

http://bicostereo.com/index.php?act=viewPr...p;productId=787

Metra 70-8119

Looks like this is the amplifier bypass harness, attach it to the amplifier, find a way to run it up to the back of the headunit without looking awful, and then solder/crimp the wires and be good to go.

Just a little pricey, but looks like its the way to do it.

[motoroil]

Well if anyone's got any advice...

I used the metra amplifier bypass--wired up great. But with it my door speakers and tweeters won't work. (They're all stock). Rear speakers and dash speakers work great.

Without bypass the stock amp and using it, (wiring via the RCA cables), I get loud feedback.

Lesser of two evils....

[capnfred]

I have been reading this topic interestedly, first of all I have a 93 ES-300 which the previous owner/owners butchered the audio system, if you want to bypass the the amp all you have to do is jump from the input to the output of the amp, the factory radio is wired to the amp, the speakers are wired from the amp, get the FSM, find out which connector pins are the inputs and which are the outputs, its not difficult at all.... I had to reconect the wires that the preious owner cut both at the amp and at the door connectors in the kickpanels....In the process I had to learn the lexus wiring system and the FSM, both of which are great..I would think from a technical viewpoint that taking the amplified output of the headunit and feeding it into the amplifier input would overdrive the amp....which would cause distortion and poor sound quality.....lastly the built in cell phone has a relay located by the antenna in the trunck which allowed the drivers door speaker to be used for the hands free... when you talked it energized the relay which muted the speaker, if you leave it alone the speakers should be fine as it was only designed to mute when you used the cell phone.....anyway I rewired my car so the oem radio works like the engineers designed it to, as an aside I am looking for the mounting hardware from the oem radio that attaches it to the hvac module, also the trim panel that goes between the bottom of the radio and the top of cup holder, as the previous butcher destroyed them in the process of installing a kmart radio into a nice sound system... I also have a good power antenna that I am going to sell.... if anyone here is interested let me know.

thanks

Capn