Bad RCA cables or bad wire run??

Ok so I should try to:
1. take out the head unit - which I should be able to figure out using the guides here.
2. take out the filters they put on which should be as simple as just unplugging them I hope. there are 2.
3. Then I need to disconnect the RCA's and remove them - the RCAs will run through the front and rear doors? So I will need to take the door panels off to take out the cables right?
4. Then run the cables from the amp to the head unit through the passenger side - which I am not sure I understand how they go from door to head unit, I will have to remove something else it sounds like?

Thanks for helping with this, should I follow a guide like Metra, or maybe use Crutchfield support?

 

#1 Yes

#2 Most likely

#3 Disconnect the RCAs but they do not run through the doors. Just the sills below the doors which is a piece of cake. The panels covering the sills pop right off. See pic below

#4 Yes but they don't go through the doors. You will see what we mean when you pop the sill plates off. There is a nice channel that will hold the RCAs.

If you have trouble call me.

This pic shows a sill plate and the panel that covers it. The piece to the inside of the lighted PRIUS words is what I consider the sill plate for our purposes. You just pop that piece off by hand. Pic taken from this post:

 

Oookay that sounds pretty reasonable to me, I have no problem unplugging stuff and moving it around, I will give it the old college try and hopefully some good things will happen, do you think I would need to move the black-grounded wire location as well? I am now tempted to go out and work on this while Im at work... Better judgement is telling me to wait till I get home.

F8L advice on removing the the aftermarket head unit below the stock unit? Am I going to really need get behind that thing.

 

Ok yea the blue's are the RCA's although different brands can be different colors. I think I will be giving this a shot tomorrow night when I have little more time, the thing that I wonder about is the folks at the audio shop said they ran RCAs outside the car and that didnt do the trick, but I am hoping they were wrong.

 

Hmm, if they did that then maybe your ground should be changed first. Did they say whether they tried new RCAs when they ran them outside the car?

An, a side note. Weird things can happen when wires get pinched too.

 

I cant really tell whether or not they tried new cables when they moved them, so I will just have to try everything, how would I go about changing the grounding point? what tools?

 

10mm socket wrench probably fits that bolt. See if the ring terminal on the end of that ground cable will reach to some other bolt that's NOT part of the traction battery case. Look to the left for example, there's a little white plastic box bolted down to the floor (see photo), you might be able to get the terminal under one of those nuts. Just make sure the cargo tray isn't going to end up stepping on it.

- D

 

I'm sorry you guys are having such problems with noise. It is very frustrating for sure. It drives us nuts at the shop (when I worked there) too.

I wish you were closer so we could swap decks and see if it is a problem with your head unit.

 

That sucks KCobby, I haven't had the time to try yet, and tonight isn't looking good - maybe tomorrow I will try it out.

I will give everything a shot this week, and if things don't work out maybe I will need to arrange to make the trip to your shop F8L - in Fairfield?

 

I could meet you there on some weekend sure. I stopped working there once I got sick but they are my friends and would let me work on your car.

 

I'm beginning to think that the only reason I DON'T have the whine is that my amp for the front components is under the passenger seat. But it's also a different brand of amp, different HU, etc., so there are a lot of variables.
I DO have an unbearable hiss tho, which doesn't change with volume or the state of the car. Turn on to ACC and with the stereo on you hear hiss, no matter how far down I turn the amp gains (short of no sound at all of course!). Turn the volume down to 1 and you hear it, up to 50 and it's no louder. Very weird.
So in hopes of fixing that I've just bought the lightly used AudioControl LC6i off of McKeeius! In email exchanges with one audio guru he didn't think it would fix it, so I didn't want to pay full retail in an experiment. I called AudioControl and of course they think it will help! So we'll see.
Once again, PriusChat cooperation to the rescue (hopefully!). Thanks again McKeeius! BTW, clever new nickname!

- D

 

Both of my amps are mounted in the rear storage tray and I have zero noise and zero hiss. So the location should not be an issue.

Could there be any pinched wires?

 

Having been following this thread for a while now, a couple of new thoughts...
The "whine" sounds like it is DC power noise due to the electonics in the car. In a normal auto the alternator produces this sort of whine due to the AC and rectification process. A standard noise filter while sufficient, is tuned for alternator noise frequency.

It is usually cured by grounding the equipment directly to bare metal on the chassis rather than an available factory ground bolt as is often used to save time. You'll also need to make sure your charging system is in top condition and that your connections between the battery and components are secure as well as the integrity of the factory ground strap, an often overlooked component. You might also consider switching your RCA cables to a twisted pair model. Twisted pair cables will usually be less prone to noise than their coaxial counterparts.

This could be part of your problem. RS is not known for their Hi Quality Cable. This is one trick that I have used many times professionaly, which results in damn near 99% effective shielding. Unfortunatly if this method works for you, it means you will have to rerun new cables.
What you need to use is GOOD quality TWISTED PAIR SHIELDED CABLE. like Belden 9451. Any GOOD cable like this will work.
What you can to do is make up a new cable with RCA connectors at both ends, use the red wire for the center conductor, the black wire for the ground, First off, this cable is a twisted pair so it will reject outside emf fields from inducing noise onto it. Second and MOST important, connect the shield wire to ground at ONLY ONE END, at the input of the poweramp. DO NOT connect the foil shield or bare gound wire to the preamp output!!! If you connect both ends of the shield it reduces the effective shieding of the cable, If your problem is noise that is EMF induced, this will take care of it!
If the noise is indeed on the DC line, Electrolytic Capacators are usually used due to high capacity at low cost and low size. Smaller non-electrolytic caps may be paralleled with these to compensate for electrolytics' poor performance at high frequencies I would start at a 100mfd. at a voltage rating of 35 Volts or better. If there are are voltage spikes on the Prius DC buss, you do not want a cap with less DC rating than the DC Spike. As stated, if not fully effective, add a non polarized cap, say .05 mfd across the electrolytic at the amplifier, + on the +12 power line and the ground side of the cap to ground. Not enough suppression, up the mfd. value to say 1000mfd. That should shunt any noise component right to ground!!

Think about it!!

 

That's excellent news man!

In the process of removing my battery for charging I reset my X993 and now I have to reset everything which is a pain. I lost my center image too and was fairly frustrated all of yesterday but then I noticed my rear speakers are on so that may be screwing my image up.

 

Coolio, Knu gets a lot of praise for quality at a reasonable price and that 4 channel cable says it all. GREAT shielding, FOUR channels, good quality plugs and 6 meters at only $30 retail. Congrats! By comparison I have good Rockford-Fosgate RCA cable from the local shop that is 6 meters, TWO channel, not shielded at all and was $40. $80 for what you needed.
I'd actually like to see those Knu cut open. The specs say copper foil wrapped, mylar foil shield AND tinned copper braid so I'm wondering how it all looks.

- D

 

Thanks for the update, I am actually about to go out and start opening things up to move the RCA's from driver side to passenger to see if that works. Since it sounds like we are in the same boat I will probably end up needing those shielded cables - do you need anything special for those, or can I just order one set and that will be all I would need?