So I had my system running perfectly with the Z1 Arc amp etc.. All of a sudden the other day I started getting an extremely loud engine wine (the more I rev the enginge the higher the frequncy). Also it seems to buzz and pop really loud from time to time like it can easily wake up the neighbors. I tried disconnecting each speaker from the amp and still had noise in the remaining speakers. Same thing with RCAs. When I turned the amp off eaverything was quiet and only the sub was working.

I had it installed by a guy who is really not being very helpfull, and I dont know much about car audio.. I talked to another guy who owns the shop that I bought everything from except the Z1 which I bought from 6ave, he says it is the pioneer unit since they are notorious for this kind of thing. Guys do you think its really the Z1?

If you search the forums you may found your answer for the popping, also the revv in the speakers is caused by a bad ground (but what do I know)... my .02 cents

k about to search the forum now. But how can there be a bad ground if it was working perfectly fine before.

did a search and did not find a single thing relating to my topic. I do not have a factory amp at all. I have two amps. And Arc and a sub amp. When I turn the arc off sound is gone but obviously since speakers are now turned off. Ughh I am so confused guys Ir eally dont know what to do at this point. The system was working fine for 3 months... and I really dont know anything about car electronics and if I take it to a shop they will probably charge me like crazy especially since I did not get anything installed or bought from them. I really don't know what to do.

Check your ground first. They can become bad. Should be grounded to a paint free point on the car. Avoid using seatbolts since then tend to be very bad ground points.

Prime example of the situation your in by not supporting your local specialist. The little bit you saved from 6th ave is going to cost you more by far to rectify your situation. There's not a local specialist I know that would not take advantage of you in your time of need. You made your bed (Buying from the Internet), now lay in it!

Wellknown-n-da-biz said:

Prime example of the situation your in by not supporting your local specialist. The little bit you saved from 6th ave is going to cost you more by far to rectify your situation. There's not a local specialist I know that would not take advantage of you in your time of need. You made your bed (Buying from the Internet), now lay in it!

Okat thanks for the nice comment I appreciate it as though im not stressed out enough right now.

Guys how can I check the ground points and dcan you be specific on the bolt names how do they look like? Also where would the ground point be coming from the z1. Is it directly attached to the Z1, is it a wire? How does it look?

Also I just ordered the PAC ground loop isolators do you guys think it might help this?

ok just take it in and get it fixed. Best Buy is really good about finding that stuff.... but if you dont know what your doing you could cause more problems...

maxse said:

Wellknown-n-da-biz said:

Prime example of the situation your in by not supporting your local specialist. The little bit you saved from 6th ave is going to cost you more by far to rectify your situation. There's not a local specialist I know that would not take advantage of you in your time of need. You made your bed (Buying from the Internet), now lay in it!

Okat thanks for the nice comment I appreciate it as though im not stressed out enough right now.

Guys how can I check the ground points and dcan you be specific on the bolt names how do they look like? Also where would the ground point be coming from the z1. Is it directly attached to the Z1, is it a wire? How does it look?

Also I just ordered the PAC ground loop isolators do you guys think it might help this?

Damn talk about a useless comment. Anyway, sounds like you might be better off taking it to a shop or something and asking them to troubleshoot it. Places like best buy and circuit city will generally charge 30-35 per half hour to diagnose the problem. I'd ay have an installer listen to it first and ask them if they think they can fix it. Best bet is to be respectful. Remember if you don't want to get bent over don't act like an ass.

There's always a wise ass in the crowd. Call the local 6Ave store (if there is one near by) and ask them to help you and tell them that you bought it from 6Ave. If the problem is the Z1, they should honor the waranty. Give it a try, you never know.

thanks guys. So you think I should take it over to best buy? Any clue how long it would take them at $35/hour? And does that include fixing the problem or will they just be its your HU? And any clue how long it should take to diagnose? Or do you guys thik I should take it to a local shop? or am i gonna take it in the A** at the local shop?

Also I just ordered 2 PAC SNI-1 isolators. It seems from posts on here guys have had very good luck with them. What is your opinion on them?

I try to avoid using ground loop isolators unless I can't get rid of it any other way. They do cause a bit of degradation of sound quality. As far as how long it takes, kinda hard to say without being able to hear the noise and see the install. I wouldn't imagine it take too long though. Maybe an hour or so.

thanks guys. So Im going to try to ground the RCAs first and see if the problem goes away and see what happens with the ground loop isolator. If not I guess I'll have to take it to the shop.
Any1 have any tips on how to ground the RCA's? How d I make the wires stick around the rca terminal? And is it safe to ground all the 5 RCA's to the same point and have the grounds touching? Thanks.

if you take it out throw a long wire (tap into the existing ground and cut it) and run it from the window to the unpainted bolts of the suspension. Try it and it should sound better (I guess).

Wellknown-n-da-biz said:

Prime example of the situation your in by not supporting your local specialist. The little bit you saved from 6th ave is going to cost you more by far to rectify your situation. There's not a local specialist I know that would not take advantage of you in your time of need. You made your bed (Buying from the Internet), now lay in it!

Sure. That's why my local "specialist" tried to bend me over big time. By the time I would have been done using him, I would have paid the same price I did through a reputable seller with a better return and customer service record and I would have had a half assed installation to boot. I have never met an installer who would take the care to do a job the way I would...which means soldering and shrink wrapping every splice and taking the time to route every wire out of the way and tied safely from damage. They couldn't possibly do all that and stay in business. All they want to do is get them out the door and the next one in the shop. So keep your comments to yourself....they don't hold water here.

To the rare installer who does it right...this wasn't aimed at you. It's just that you are few and far between and you charge what the job is worth...which is more than most can afford.

I've done a lot of construction but I'm new to the car audio install game. But I've found many similarities between the occupation. The common thing is with both, there are many "short-cuts" that a contractor/installer can make. Some of these "short-cuts" may not rear their ugly head until later in time. The Z1 requires multiple wires to be connected correctly and properly...it takes just one to be "off" and your left with a mess. I would suggest that you ask for references from your installer. The hard part is once you get your vehicle back, everything might look good but you do not know what is lurking behind the dash.

My avic z1 is doing the exact same thing and sounds like the same setup. I am using 2 new fosgate amps, 4 infinity components and 1 JL12W6 sub. all wiring is new. new rca's ran on the left side of the car. battery is in the trunk with 2 guage wires ran to them on the right side of car. 2 gage wire grounding all the way to the block and to the trunk. 4 guage from batt to amps and 4 ga ground from amps to trunk floor. I have also searched the forums and not found anything except for this thread. My local pro's keep telling me to change to $100 RCA's. I did that and same exact noise.

Sounds like you all might be experiencing the same problem. Pioneer uses very small fuses on the RCA outputs. If I understand properly, they do this to insure that IF the installer doesn't ground the amp properly, the amp won't seek ground through the deck and fry the board in the deck. Instead it will blow these tiny fuses instead. This can be avoided by leaving the deck unpowered while you wire up the amp. But, as most installers will admit, they wire up the deck first, test it for power, and then go on and install the rest of the system. If the RCA cables are plugged into the outputs, and power and ground are supplied incorrectly to the amplifier, it can blow these tiny fuses on the RCA outputs, and the deck will then have bad engine noise. Very common, but easy to avoid but most installers don't know why it happens.

whtcrxghst Thank you for your reply. Where are these fuses located on the Z1. Are they internal or can I replace them? Hopefully on the back of the hu?

whtcrxghst said:

Sounds like you all might be experiencing the same problem. Pioneer uses very small fuses on the RCA outputs. If I understand properly, they do this to insure that IF the installer doesn't ground the amp properly, the amp won't seek ground through the deck and fry the board in the deck. Instead it will blow these tiny fuses instead. This can be avoided by leaving the deck unpowered while you wire up the amp. But, as most installers will admit, they wire up the deck first, test it for power, and then go on and install the rest of the system. If the RCA cables are plugged into the outputs, and power and ground are supplied incorrectly to the amplifier, it can blow these tiny fuses on the RCA outputs, and the deck will then have bad engine noise. Very common, but easy to avoid but most installers don't know why it happens.

This is a new one on me. For the number of Pioneer units I've taken apart I have never seen these "fuses"

Its there. Very small fuse on the RCA ground

cntrylvr79 said:

This is a new one on me. For the number of Pioneer units I've taken apart I have never seen these "fuses"

Nope, they are internal. Probably a simple repair once you get to the board but would definitely take someone knowledgable to do it. How old is your deck? Maybe you could take it back and tell them its causing engine noise

71Nova said:

whtcrxghst Thank you for your reply. Where are these fuses located on the Z1. Are they internal or can I replace them? Hopefully on the back of the hu?

I should also mention here that it only makes the noise when the engine is running. Sounds great when it is not running. I also get a hum when I turn on the head lights, even when the engine is not running. Today I re did the grounds to the head unit and xm unit. 16ga ground wire about 8 in long bolted to a sanded shinny part of the firewall. Next I am going to try re running the always on 12v wire directly to the battery instead of under dash wire harness. Ill keep my fingers crossed. The only other thing I can think of if that does not work is replacing the alternator.

When i was installing my Z1 just this WE I noticed I had a whining noise. Since the noise wasn’t there 5mins prior to hearing it, as I was installing I was confident it was the bunched up wiring. So I simply adjusted and moved the wires a bit behind the Z1 and the noise disappeared.

I also used a central point for each leads like battery, acc, and most important ground.

If you have another head unit u could try hook it up quickly and see if u can narrow down the noise to HU, RCA'a or AMPs. That should give you a direction at least.

Also for testing purpose I would verify the voltage from your alternator and battery... alt should be ~14.4v and battery no less then ~12v.

My hunch is it's somewhere in the area of your HU. Since you had it professionally installed and if its really a 71 Nova, I would think your installer would know better to install RCAs say parallel to a 4 gauge lead from a rear mount battery etc.

maxse said:

thanks guys. So Im going to try to ground the RCAs first and see if the problem goes away and see what happens with the ground loop isolator. If not I guess I'll have to take it to the shop.
Any1 have any tips on how to ground the RCA's? How d I make the wires stick around the rca terminal? And is it safe to ground all the 5 RCA's to the same point and have the grounds touching? Thanks.

I also have some noise problems with my Z1, and am wondering if you solved yours and how. Thanks.