I have a 2003 MCS. Just had the sound system upgraded. Added MB Quart 6.5" in the front, MB Quart 6x9's in the rear. Mounted the amplifier (Hifonics Zeus 8000 5-channel) in the boot.
Problem is, the battery is directly below the amp. This causes a high-pitched whine. Raising the amp minimizes the hum, though not a practical solution.
Waiting to have Dynamat Extremeliner installed under the amp in an attempt to quell the whine.
I've heard talk of people installing the amp under/inside the rear seats. Has anyone done or heard of this?
I searched the forum before asking this question and found no other reference.
Any suggestions on how to eliminate the high-pitched whine? The whine's there even when the radio's off, as there is no remote off connection off the head unit, apparently.
I have my amps (all three) sitting on 3/4" MDF as part of the fiberglass amp/sub enclosure in my boot. Found that I needed really, really beefy grounds. Also, I made a sandwich of vinyl and aluminum (thick aluminum covered by thick vinyl on each side) that is between the bottom of the amps and the top of the MDF mounting board. This also helped. I'd say that it's still *barely* there. Due to the battery being under the boot floor, the only way to truly get around this would be to raise the amp up.
R
Dark Silver/Black MCS
Premium and Cold Packages
Space Cloth
did you get this installed at a shop? they should be helping you with most of this, but here are some ideas.
first thing I would do is pull the RCAs out of the amplifier, does the whine still exist? This makes sure the problem is at the amp end and not the receiver.
dumb question, but which side did the installer run the rca preamp cables? i'm pretty sure there is a car powerline running on the drivers side.
did they have to run power to the HU? (only certain HUs required this)
next double check the ground point for the amp. i would use a point that is not used by another electrical device ( like the tail-lights etc) where did they ground the receiver? make sure there isn't a ground loop!!
how loud is the whine?
can you hear it idle or only under power?
have you shifted where the amp sits in the boot? I know that amp is kinda large, but I've found the drivers side of the boot to be "quieter" then the passengers side (well for my amp at least).
i recently went through this, so it's best to go in with a plan. i found that raising the amp (in height) did little good. I still have a slight whine at around 3000 rpm, but i'm still working that out (as is the case with all things car stereo!)
Thanks to both Davbret and Minhi -- Nice rig, Davbret!
minhi, what's an "HU"?
I'll check the grounding points (I think I recall them grounding the amp directly to the battery ground lug) and positioning of the RCA cable runs when we install the lead shielding tomorrow. I'll also let you know if the shielding helps.
The whine is only evident with the engine on and rev'd. The higher the RPMs, the louder the whine.
Davbret, you mentioned really, really beefy grounds. Are you referring to the wire gauge? If so, what gauge wire did you use and where did you place the ground?
that's headunit (HU), if they grounded to the battery lead, then that should be a sufficient ground. you should still verify that the headunit is properly grounded (otherwise you could have a ground loop).
There's a cavity under the passenger seat, under the carpet. I believe this is the space for satnav equipment, but there is a styrofoam insert in my car.
It should be possible to hide an amp there, some cuts in the carpet will give more room as well.
Here's a simple drawing of the dimensions of the insert.
Regards, Tore
I'd run a at least a 10 gauge ground from the head unit to the amp/batt ground. try to avoid other wires on the way. I bet the MB's sound great, had them in my last ICEd out car. did you have to trim the sheet metal for the fronts or did spacers buy enough room? crossovers in the doors? seems like your combo should sound nice and clean.
WARNING-Objects in rear view mirror have a tendency to disappear!
9/20 build '03 MCS IB/W/W, everything but the NAV & Sunroof
Great! I'll make sure they run a 10 gauge the way you describe. I had it installed by a local sound shop here in Northern California. This is the first Mini they've installed.
The speakers were straight drop-in swaps. Yes, crossovers are in the doors.
I'm not crazy with the sound, just yet. I'm having them remove the Hifonics amp to replace with an Eclipse (Fujitsu Ten) 5-channel. You can see specs (no picture) here: .http://www.eclipse-web.com/products/amp/36501.html
The MB Quart front speakers use titanium tweeters. They sound kinda hot. When they're done and I get the sound balanced, I think it'll rock.
i would run 8 gauge for the ground/power (the battery is right there, so it's not that expensive!) knowing davebret, i suspect he has 4 or even 0
are you sure the mbquarts are direct drops? looking at the mounting depth they would need spacers to lift them out of the door. i think mb quarts come with an adaptor for offset mounting holes? which is the other problem you have to overcome with door speakers.
i don't expect you to get much difference by swapping amps (unless the amp is just bad). you're limiting factor is the quality of the signal coming from the headunit and also that you're taking highlevel output from the headunit, converting it somehow to low level for the amp then converting it back to high level for the speakers.
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