Stereo Buzz/whine

motoroil · January 1, 2009

So the es300 i bought used has a crappy broken headunit in it (aftermarket).

I found a great headunit, installed it, and I get a loud buzz/humm. I installed the headunit with red (constant power), yellow (ignition power) , black (ground), blue (antenna & OEM sub power), and the RCAs.

I noticed the old unit had an inline thing called a Ground Loop Isolator installed on the RCAs. I plugged it in, and the whine dramatically reduced.

Still there though.

I'm going to head to Radio Shack and buy a new ground loop isolator--hopefully the old one has just worn out and the new one will eliminate all of the whine.

Anyone ever seen this or done this before?

I heard its b/c aftermarket headunit generally have a built in sub, and the OEM (under passenger seat) sub is also still connected, and that causes this feedback. The solxn is to disconnect the OEM sub and to wire the speaker wires manually (big mod) to the headunit.

That would be really awful to do.

Who has experience on this??