hiss with aftermarket radio

[wolfie]

Circuit City installed an Eclipse AVN2210p into my car and the hiss was horrible. It was especially noticible at low volumes (including zero) and the frequency of it could be adjusted with the treble, mid, and bass control, which means it's either in the head unit or it's being fed into the head somehow. I find it very hard to believe that eclipse would sell a unit with a noise floor this high, but maybe they do...I had them try another AVN2210p, but it had the same problem. Then they installed an Eclipse 3100 - same problem! They didn't think the problem was there initially because it wasn't there at zero, but as soon as the volume was changed to 1 it showed up. This makes me wonder if eclipse makes noisy preamps and maybe they're tying to hide their problem by cutting the power to the audio signal when the volume is at zero?? A few hours after this intallation the unit quit working alltogether - not sure if this is related... maybe the harness just came unplugged (the guy commented that it was a really tight fit and hard to plug in)...I've seen variants of my problem on this forum and I'm wondering if I need this: http://www.crutchfield.com/App...eviewDoes anyone know the output specfication (impedance and voltage) for the factory radio (6 cd, not M&T)? Does anyone know the input specification for the power amp that it interfaces to? To me it would seem like as long as I bought a head unit that fit these specifications things would just work (assuming the head unit isn't a POS)thanks for any help...

[wolfie]

btw, i really liked the features of the AVN2210p - a lot of good stuff for the price.. if someone could help me to get that to work that would be awesome...

[audiovibe]

Thats strange what kind of material was used radio, cd, dvd? If its in cd or dvd it might be the recordings as most recording studios amp up the signal to create a louder production which in turn creates a hiss.But if memory serves their nav units arnt really known for SQ. I am really suprised the 3100 has the same effects as their mid level units generaly have great sq possibilities.I was gonna compare the specs of the 2210p with the likes of the 3100 and 7100 (which is an awesome HU) to see some differences but there isnt much listed spec wise for the 2210.Ill see if I can come up with something.Aron

[wolfie]

The hiss was exactly the same regardless of the source (CD, Sirius, FM, IPOD). It's definitely not comming from the recordings themselves - it wasn't there with the factory hu, it's not there on my home stereo, and it's present when the volume is at zero (at least on the 2210p). I tried looking for specs too and they don't publish very much regarding SNR. Thanks for helping...

[keithvibe]

did they use the existing factory harness with a pig tail or cut off the factory harness and wire it direct?Was a new power line run to the fuse block or did they use the factory harness to pull power?

[wolfie]

not sure.. what should they have done for best audio quality? could one of these things be causing the hiss? I'm going there at 10 so I can find out.

[keithvibe]

In the past if I have run a seperate power lead direct from the fuse panel I have incountered what you are talking about because it picks up static from the cars other electronics. Best method would be to use the piggy back and plug directly in to the factory harness.Are you running an external AMP as well? If so how is that powered? direct from the battery? Is the power lead for the AMP running along side the speaker wires? that could cause the static/hissing your talking about. The power lead and speaker wires should be separated.

[Sublimewind]

Ok, i'm not sure i'm clear on this, are you running through the factory Vibe amped system , or not? If it's the factory amped system, there is some sort of signal mismatch between the Eclipse and the amp... If not, your guess is a s good as mine.. I could make different suggestions, but I need that info first.. Welcome BTW, nice to see more and more Michiganders on the site..

[ColonelPanic]

If you had Sun & Sound / Moon & Tunes before, you have an amp underneath the passenger's seat... When you add an aftermarket radio you'll end up sending too powerful of a signal into that amp and it becomes noisy. I had a lot of white noise on mine when I first installed it. Fixed it with a Scosche speaker level converter which allows you to basically attenuate what signal comes from your new radio before it goes to the stock amp.

[wolfie]

hey guys, went back to circuit city today and they learned that I have an amp in this car. They wired things a little differently (although I'm not sure what they did) and the hiss is gone. New problem: if the sirius ECL1 tuner is attached, there is a very loud pop when I toggle between sources (tuner, CD, ipod, sirius). when this unit is disconnected I can toggle between the cd, tuner, and ipod without any pop. I had them leave the sirius out of the setup because the pop was unacceptable. i figured that maybe I could sort this out later. A few things still make it pop like turning the car off while the unit is playing audio and turning on/off a LPF, which is in the hu's menu. A few other things might make it pop too... I'll do a few experiments later to find out everything that makes this thing pop and post. My guess is that this problem can be solved... oh yeah.. this is the avn2210p unit. Thanks for everyone's input so far....

[keithvibe]

Quote, originally posted by wolfie »Circuit City installed an Eclipse AVN2210p into my car and the hiss was horrible. It was especially noticible at low volumes (including zero) and the frequency of it could be adjusted with the treble, mid, and bass control, which means it's either in the head unit or it's being fed into the head somehow. I find it very hard to believe that eclipse would sell a unit with a noise floor this high, but maybe they do...I had them try another AVN2210p, but it had the same problem. Then they installed an Eclipse 3100 - same problem! They didn't think the problem was there initially because it wasn't there at zero, but as soon as the volume was changed to 1 it showed up. This makes me wonder if eclipse makes noisy preamps and maybe they're tying to hide their problem by cutting the power to the audio signal when the volume is at zero?? A few hours after this intallation the unit quit working alltogether - not sure if this is related... maybe the harness just came unplugged (the guy commented that it was a really tight fit and hard to plug in)...I've seen variants of my problem on this forum and I'm wondering if I need this: http://www.crutchfield.com/App...eviewDoes anyone know the output specfication (impedance and voltage) for the factory radio (6 cd, not M&T)? Does anyone know the input specification for the power amp that it interfaces to? To me it would seem like as long as I bought a head unit that fit these specifications things would just work (assuming the head unit isn't a POS)thanks for any help...By the above comment on not having Moon and toons would have really helped if you did in fact know you did have it.... lol

[wolfie]

didn't think it was moons and tunes because I haven't seen a sub anywhere nor have i seen anything labeled as "monsoon". I just bought this car used a few weeks ago.. my main car is a dodge stealth twin turbo... now I know much more about that car;-) bought the vibe to tote stuff around in.... but I must say, i'm really surprised at how much i am liking this car... now where's the sub???

[GMJAP]

Quote, originally posted by wolfie »didn't think it was moons and tunes because I haven't seen a sub anywhere nor have i seen anything labeled as "monsoon". I just bought this car used a few weeks ago.. my main car is a dodge stealth twin turbo... now I know much more about that car;-) bought the vibe to tote stuff around in.... but I must say, i'm really surprised at how much i am liking this car... now where's the sub???The sub was added in the 2005 model year. If yours is a 2003 or 2004, that's why you don't have the sub.

[wolfie]

yep, 2004 GT. Thanks...