95 Es300 Non Stock Sony Radio Loud Hum

[igbeserk]

hey i have a 95 es300 and i have a Sony xplode system that i put in there about a year ago. Every time i have the car on with the radio or auxiliary it will make a loud humming or high pitched whine sound and i have to mask it by turning up the volume. Gets very irritating. Now it's hard to remember but i believe initially it didn't make this sound. But i can't remember i just remember driving and thinking to myself what the hell is this sound. I've tried taking it out making sure all the wiring is done properly which it is. I'm just trying to see if anyone here could know what the issue is. But its weird. the whining sound only occurs when the engine is on. if the engine is off but power is on there is no whining sound. So i don't know what type of interference is occurring. any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[DJSG3]

Where you getting your power from? Sounds like that's where your problem is. In the old days it would be the coil causing the interference your hearing. If your running a power cord from the battery, make sure it's shielded and away from anything electrical related to running the engine like the alternator, plug wires, the coil and distributor. If your getting your power from somewhere else...don't use the battery. The Scosche install kits available most anywhere is your best bet for wiring.

DJSG3

[igbeserk]

Where you getting your power from? Sounds like that's where your problem is. In the old days it would be the coil causing the interference your hearing. If your running a power cord from the battery, make sure it's shielded and away from anything electrical related to running the engine like the alternator, plug wires, the coil and distributor. If your getting your power from somewhere else...don't use the battery. The Scosche install kits available most anywhere is your best bet for wiring.

DJSG3

hmm i'm not sure where the power is coming from its not directly from the battery though from what i know. All i did was take out the original radio, added in an adapter and then connected the adapter to the new radio. Yea i used one of those twist caps to bridge the wire connections. so they aren't touching anything metal or what not to cause that. maybe i should try running the black and red wire well power wires to my cigarette port? yea it was a wiring harness that i had purchased off of ebay.

[BoaR]

Sounds like a ground loop fault.

DJS3G was right, totally power related. causes interference. the reason you get the noise only when the car is on is the engine/alternator (over simplistical layman terms). when off your only circuit "on" is the radio loop. with the car on the entire engine is now grounded along with the charge system. total noise interference.

I was wiring up a xm splice and the same thing happened to me. I chose the "ez" way out and wired in a fault loop adapter to cut the buzz. mainly because i wasnt running a new system, and only splicing off the OEM factory parts.

in your case, something is touching some metal, or rattled loose. and with any changes its always best to run clean wires to the batt and grounds. no chassy paint in the way grind it off to hit metal etc etc.

on a side note (your car you can do want you want blah blah) no idea why you removed the oem headunit...if you didnt change your speakers, your new headunit is kinda doing err nothing lol. the oem system is actualy tuned much better than almost any aftermarket. (unless you do a 100% swap of -all- parts) anyways. was just side note curiosity mentioning that lol. your car. can do whatever you want :)

[igbeserk]

so i have to look in there to see if any wires are touching? that seems hard lol. i've wanted to replace the battery wires along with some others but don't want to pay for it lol. Hm guess i'll look into it though and figure out what i can do but thanks though that helped me understand the situation better because I've taken it out and checked and double checked the wiring and same thing constantly happens.

I see a ground loop insolator at radioshack. that would help correct? http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062214

but do i need to do it for all 4 audio ports? since the head unit has 4 audio ports in the back. 2 for front and 2 or back speakers. this looks like it would isolate only one pair.

Boar I removed the OEM head unit because the tape deck broke and I used a cassette adapter to connect my ipod to it. So i took the easier route since that was my second OEM head unit. I just bought a cheap sony xplode system to use the auxilary in. You're probably right about the OEM producing better sound but that wasn't the case in my car. The Xplod with the stock speakers and amp work so much better than the oem much louder too and its clear also. haven't heard any crackling or breaking or anything of that sorts. aside from the humming i'm very happy with the purchase. But yea that's why I removed the OEM one. :-)

[BoaR]

yes it's basically that part from radio shack.

but in your case you in theory dont even need to spend money on that at all. if you had no buzz when you first installed it, then there is a wire touching the "frame" metal somewhere, giving the buzz. find the touchy wire, problem solved.

what that part does is just filter out the noise - even though it's still not fixed and still a problem per se. only reason I used that on my problem was because the car was 100% stock. i was splicing off existing wiring without running anything new. so there was nothing for me to check like in your case. the only real solution for me was that little gadget.

you will need two if you use that yes. LR and LR channels on each. as 1 box does only 2.

sad your oem unit broke though. you could have probably found a scrapyard working one or ebayed a replcement for the ammount of money you now "have" to drop into fixing the problem hehehe. It's always a learning game with lexus. sigh.

before buying those things (which by the way cannot remove 100% of the buzz. it will get about 95% give or take.) i would tear it apart and recheck the wiring. always better to kill the problem at the source instead of putting a band-aid over it. :)

[igbeserk]

yea i suppose i'll check. but i mean aside from the cables that are right there when i pull out the radio i don't know what else to check? because i've checked those wires before and made sure they weren't exposed or touching. it sounds like i might have to do a complete tear down of the dash area and follow these wires to see if they are touching something they shouldn't. and i didn't spend much on this radio unit bought it new for 40 so that's not bad and the harness and wire adapter were about 20 in all. it beats buying another oem radio. since around here they try to charge a lot and on ebay the prices vary but i wouldn't want to be stuck in the same situation.

sounds like a few hours project bleh lol.

[lexis lexus]

I recall from years ago, that sometimes if you have reversed the polarity on one or several speakers, you may get that ground loop hum. It's easy to do, as the music plays, so you think ya did it right.

Lex

[igbeserk]

I recall from years ago, that sometimes if you have reversed the polarity on one or several speakers, you may get that ground loop hum. It's easy to do, as the music plays, so you think ya did it right.

Lex

all right i'll take a look into switching the wires around that' be nice if it were that simple but at the same time would make me mad because it took this long to get rid of that sound lol.

[igbeserk]

all right i spent friday examining the wiring. most of the wire i couldn't follow into the car i tried a few things. i couldn't switch the wires for the speakers because i couldn't find them unless i went to the speakers directly and switched them myself. so i'm out of ideas.

[BoaR]

just hot swap them with leads at the speaker to see.

unplug the speaker, take 2 thin wires, strip each end and insert them carefully into the plug, turn on the sound a bit, and manually touch the speaker reversing the wires to see.

no need to unsolder anything this way and you'll know right off if it's that.

[igbeserk]

all right i'll try that with the rear speakers i believe it's easier to acces those. taking off the door panel to access the front speaker just sounds like too much work lol

[igbeserk]

All right so just got back from messing with this thing again. I couldn't try to reverse the speaker wires because the wires are soldered onto the speakers and i have no portable soldering iron. I looked under the hood though i disconnected the battery and every ground point i found i sprayed it with maf sensor spray i loosened them and tightened them and cleaned them. Put it all back still got the loud humming sound. but one thing i do notice now is that when i shut off the car there isn't anymore excess power. before i could turn the car off and still had ample power left to roll up the windows or roll them down. but now once the car is off no power not even for a second. so i guess i tightened up something that was loose. you guys said i should replace the battery cables/terminals also correct? especially since it's an old car and i put in a new radio. well i could do that tomorrow i took a look and it's fairly easy to access and replace. Aside from that if this doesn't work then i guess i'll have to get those ground loop isolators.

[pj8708]

All right so just got back from messing with this thing again. I couldn't try to reverse the speaker wires because the wires are soldered onto the speakers and i have no portable soldering iron. I looked under the hood though i disconnected the battery and every ground point i found i sprayed it with maf sensor spray i loosened them and tightened them and cleaned them. Put it all back still got the loud humming sound. but one thing i do notice now is that when i shut off the car there isn't anymore excess power. before i could turn the car off and still had ample power left to roll up the windows or roll them down. but now once the car is off no power not even for a second. so i guess i tightened up something that was loose. you guys said i should replace the battery cables/terminals also correct? especially since it's an old car and i put in a new radio. well i could do that tomorrow i took a look and it's fairly easy to access and replace. Aside from that if this doesn't work then i guess i'll have to get those ground loop isolators.

I don't mean to but in, but very quickly, unfourtunately, something went wrong after you finished snuging up your connections. The system is designed to retain power to the accesories such as windows, radio, etc, for several seconds after the ingnition key is removed so you can have the accessories available as you get ready to leave the car. If you no longer have this retained/timed out power, then something is, well, not good?

Paul

[igbeserk]

All right so just got back from messing with this thing again. I couldn't try to reverse the speaker wires because the wires are soldered onto the speakers and i have no portable soldering iron. I looked under the hood though i disconnected the battery and every ground point i found i sprayed it with maf sensor spray i loosened them and tightened them and cleaned them. Put it all back still got the loud humming sound. but one thing i do notice now is that when i shut off the car there isn't anymore excess power. before i could turn the car off and still had ample power left to roll up the windows or roll them down. but now once the car is off no power not even for a second. so i guess i tightened up something that was loose. you guys said i should replace the battery cables/terminals also correct? especially since it's an old car and i put in a new radio. well i could do that tomorrow i took a look and it's fairly easy to access and replace. Aside from that if this doesn't work then i guess i'll have to get those ground loop isolators.

I don't mean to but in, but very quickly, unfourtunately, something went wrong after you finished snuging up your connections. The system is designed to retain power to the accesories such as windows, radio, etc, for several seconds after the ingnition key is removed so you can have the accessories available as you get ready to leave the car. If you no longer have this retained/timed out power, then something is, well, not good?

Paul

really? hmm guess i'll look into it. because when it comes to other cars i notice that once they're off you can't use anything. guess i'll look into it. thanks.

[pj8708]

All right so just got back from messing with this thing again. I couldn't try to reverse the speaker wires because the wires are soldered onto the speakers and i have no portable soldering iron. I looked under the hood though i disconnected the battery and every ground point i found i sprayed it with maf sensor spray i loosened them and tightened them and cleaned them. Put it all back still got the loud humming sound. but one thing i do notice now is that when i shut off the car there isn't anymore excess power. before i could turn the car off and still had ample power left to roll up the windows or roll them down. but now once the car is off no power not even for a second. so i guess i tightened up something that was loose. you guys said i should replace the battery cables/terminals also correct? especially since it's an old car and i put in a new radio. well i could do that tomorrow i took a look and it's fairly easy to access and replace. Aside from that if this doesn't work then i guess i'll have to get those ground loop isolators.

I don't mean to but in, but very quickly, unfourtunately, something went wrong after you finished snuging up your connections. The system is designed to retain power to the accesories such as windows, radio, etc, for several seconds after the ingnition key is removed so you can have the accessories available as you get ready to leave the car. If you no longer have this retained/timed out power, then something is, well, not good?

Paul

really? hmm guess i'll look into it. because when it comes to other cars i notice that once they're off you can't use anything. guess i'll look into it. thanks.

Whoops!!

Got that wrong. Guess I was thinking of the Bahamas! The power remains on to the accesoeies after you turn the key off as long as the key is in the ignition and has been turned only one click to the accesories position and not beyond. You can open the doors, etc. and the power to the radio and windows should still be there. My reference re: time out is about my Volvo with push button start. Sorry.

Paul

[igbeserk]

bought two ground loop isolators. put them in. no more humming/whining sound!!!! yea!!!!! now i can ride with the sound low. :-)

[pj8708]

bought two ground loop isolators. put them in. no more humming/whining sound!!!! yea!!!!! now i can ride with the sound low. :-)

Congratulations!!