[oca123]

So Sirrus, how is the install coming along? Have you made a final decision as to the components in your system? Is the system installed?

[Sirrus]

I went with the Rainbow speakers, and I'm currently working on making custom ring adapters and the necessary speaker modifications. More info and photos to come in the next few days...

[oca123]

I find that adobe illustrator works great for making ring adapters. I draw my adapters in AI, print them, glue them to the wood, and dremel away. Unfortunately I did not save the templates I drew for the E92 doors.... if you end up going that way, post them up

[Sirrus]

So last weekend I picked up all of the big ticket items. I took everything home to do some final planning for amplifier placement, etc. I took the door apart to check speaker fit and confirmed that the Rainbow 4" speaker is slightly too deep to fit without pushing the foam backing against the window. I put the door back together and went over to my local boat supply store to pick up a small sheet of King Starboard polymer lumber for about $30. I also had to pick up a Dremel with circle cutting attachment and a routing bit (I'm an apartment dweller without many tools). I took some careful measurements and over the past few days I made speaker rings to essentially push the speakers farther towards the interior of the car. I also had to cut the metal tabs off of the speakers and CAREFULLY drill new mounting holes. Some photos of the process:













Test Fit!


Installed with gasket foam tape between door/ring and ring/speaker. I also ended up sanding down the edges of the ring to get a better seal. You can see in the photo how I first sanded the wrong side of the ring (it was a long night ). I purchased a Dynamat door kit but haven't installed it yet. I'm not sure if I will because it sounds pretty good without.

[Sirrus]

Next I needed to install the tweeters. I tried to fit them in the OEM location, but they were about 1mm too wide to snap in. I ended up running an included bold through the foam piece and attaching a nut on the end. The tweeter screws right into the bolt. I also had to take out the inner plastic piece that the OEM tweeter clips in to. The OEM grill is now held in place by pressure from the foam piece. If it comes loose or vibrates, I'll have to dab some epoxy on there.



I removed the black grill from the tweeter because it seemed redundant. I may go back and paint the silver part, but I'd be nervous about messing up the tweeter in the process.

[Sirrus]

I have a little gremlin and I'm hoping you guys can give me some ideas. I have a whining sound in my front speakers that varies with engine RPM and only exists with the engine on (I think it might be all of my speakers actually). On the front speakers, it goes away when I unplug the RCA cables at the MS-8 going to the JL amp. I've tried moving the ground on the MS-8 to where the JL amp and the battery are grounded, but that didn't fix it. Unplugging the inputs from the head unit has no effect.

Adjusting the gain on the JL amp seems to change the volume level of the whine. Though even with the gain all the way down and RCAs unplugged I think I can still faintly hear it.

My ownly other thought is to check my tweeters because I believe I have connectivity between the back of the tweeters and the door panel due to the screw I used to attach them, but I didn't think that part of the housing would be attached to the signal path.

Any ideas?

[VP Electricity]

Where is the MS-8 grounded?

I would ground the amp and the ms-8 both to the battery.

Is there noise if you pull the power fuse from the amp and ms-8?

Is the trunk assembled? The hpfp sounds like this too - it makes an rpm-related mechanical whine - bit I don't remember if you have a 335 or not.

[Sirrus]

Originally Posted by VP Electricity

Where is the MS-8 grounded?

I would ground the amp and the ms-8 both to the battery.

I mentioned in my post that I've moved both grounds to the battery ground point.

Is there noise if you pull the power fuse from the amp and ms-8?

I'll try that tonight.

Is the trunk assembled? The hpfp sounds like this too - it makes an rpm-related mechanical whine - bit I don't remember if you have a 335 or not.

Yes I have a 335, but it's definitely coming from the speakers. It's possible that the fuel pump is what I hear faintly when I unplug the RCA cables. With everything plugged in it is very apparent/annoying.

[oca123]

when you installed your speakers in the doors, how did you run the wires? Make sure that you didn't accidentally screw the panel back through one of the wires, thus creating a ground loop.

Also, I'm not familiar with your amp and I don't know what your RCA cables look like, but I've had similar noise that was due to the outside part of the RCA connector touching the chassis of the amp... kind of hard to explain - the amp's chassis was not connected to the car ground, but the RCA connector's outside metal part, when plugged in, slightly touched the amp's body, and that resulted in similar noise, which would come and go, and could sort of be fixed by lowering gains (at least temporarily)

can we have some pics

[Sirrus]

Good idea, I'll use my DMM to test for ground - speaker cable connectivity.

I know what you're talking about with the RCA cables, but they aren't touching. I'll double check, though, and maybe try another RCA cable.

I'll also get some photos up later tonight.

[VP Electricity]

Yes, I was only mentioning the hpfp noise as a possible source with the rcas pulled.

I would not ground to where the battery is grounded - I would ground to the (-) terminal of the battery.

The passive crossovers can puck up RPM-related EMI depending on location, which you will test for when you pull the fuses. Where are they located?

What if you turn the gains all the way down? Is it the same as no amp?

It sounds like a ground loop.

[Sirrus]

Here are some photos I took last night:





Let me know if there's anything you'd specifically like more photos of.

[VP Electricity]

I would try moving that power wire away from that passive xover and see if there's any change.

[Sirrus]

Originally Posted by VP Electricity

I would try moving that power wire away from that passive xover and see if there's any change.

Thanks, I'll try that too. It is affecting both sides of the car though.

[Sirrus]

Originally Posted by VP Electricity

I would not ground to where the battery is grounded - I would ground to the (-) terminal of the battery.

I looked at the negative terminal, but it wasn't apparent to me where you would attach a cable on the OEM contraption.

[Sirrus]

Ok, update on the noise issue. The first thing I did was move the grounds for MS-8 and JL amp to the battery. That didn't make a difference. With some trial and error I think I've identified two sources of the noise:

Source 1: Rainbow crossovers

After unplugging Technic's harness, thereby disabling remote turn-on for all of my equipment, I did some careful listening. There was still a faint whining sound that was louder than I remember ever hearing before installing everything. I know the fuel pump makes some noise, but this was a little louder than that. I unplugged the speaker cables from the crossovers and sure enough the noise went away. Since my crossovers are velcroed to the floor, I was able to pick them up and move them up to sit on top of the false floor panel. Then I wired everything back up and the noise was gone. Thus I've concluded that it's either the nearby power cable or something under the plastic floor causing interference. Figuring out which of these should be easy enough.

Source 2: MS-8

Hoping that the crossovers were my only problem, I reconnected Technic's harness and powered everything back up. No such luck. I even tried living the JL amp off the platform by putting a book under it, in case it was picking up something in the area. I unplugged everything except for the following:

Technic's harness remote turn on -> MS-8
MS-8 remote turn on -> JL XD 400/4
MS-8 RCA channel 1 & 2 -> JL XD 400/4
Power from battery -> MS-8 & JL XD 400/4
Ground from battery -> MS-8 & JL XD 400/4
JL Speaker Out -> Crossovers & underseats
Crossovers -> tweeters and mids

Notice there is no input signal in to the MS-8 and I still have noise. I tried changing the RCA cable too. Unplugging the RCA cable makes the noise go away. I decided to connect the MS-8 RCA output to my computer and was able to record this:

Recorded Noise (Volume Boosted)

I graphed the noise with TrueRTA:


I circled the peak that moves around when I push the gas pedal. There's also a high frequency peak you can see. I wish I hadn't seen this because I didn't even notice that sound until after seeing this.

So I've already got my MS-8 grounded and powered from the battery, I'm not sure what else I can to do eliminate noise. The only other thing I can think of would be to physically move it.

Regarding VP's suggestion to remove the fuses: I was going to move the MS-8 fuse, but it was REALLY in there. I figured that unplugging the harness and disabling remote turn-on accomplished something very similar. I should also mention that shutting off the MS-8 also shuts off the amp, since the MS-8 relays remote turn on. I was also surprised to see that the XD 400/4 does not have a user-removable fuse!

I was going to check the speakers for ground connectivity, but then I remembered I did that a few days ago while troubleshooting another issue. I mgiht double-check anyway, but I really don't think that's the problem at this point.

[VP Electricity]

Good work (except I think the recording and graphing may be overkill, we'll see).

Try this as a test. Unplug the RCA at the MS8, and short the center pin to the shield on each connector with something metal ( jumper alligator clips work great for this)

This will tell us if it's a ground loop or an inducted noise onto the the RCA.

There are good sq ground loop isolators. I can send you one to try.

[oca123]

When you run the acoustic measurements (during the quick sweeps) do you still get noise?

[Sirrus]

Originally Posted by VP Electricity

Good work (except I think the recording and graphing may be overkill, we'll see).

Try this as a test. Unplug the RCA at the MS8, and short the center pin to the shield on each connector with something metal ( jumper alligator clips work great for this)

This will tell us if it's a ground loop or an inducted noise onto the the RCA.

There are good sq ground loop isolators. I can send you one to try.

So I made a plug with an RCA female connector I had handy and tried it in channels 1 and 2 of the amp (via the RCA cable). Neither of them had the "amplified noise" as I'll refer to it.

Next I connected the outputs from Technic's harness to the amplifier, bypassing the MS-8 and I got the same amplified noise as going through the MS-8. Remember though, I got the noise through the MS-8 even with the harness outputs disconnected.

So I guess this means that something is introducing noise into the ground of both the head unit and the MS-8?

oca123, I wouldn't know since I don't have the car running and engine reving while doing the sweeps. I would expect the answer is yes if I tried it though. When music is playing it's hardly noticable, but with the music (and air conditioning) off, it's quite audible.

[Technic]

Use the ground point on top of the left fender.

[oca123]

Sirrus,

Your head unit is grounded to a bolt a little north of where you put your MS8... so that would mean that your head unit and the rest of your system are grounded in two different places.

That is why I was asking if you still got the noise during the sweeps, because the sweeps are generated by the MS8 and are independent of whatever input it is getting.

Do you have a 3.5mm to RCA adapter? If so, try feeding some signal from an iPod or whatever and see if you still get noise.
Edit: feeding some signal into the MS8's Red/White Aux input, not the regular RCA inputs.

You can either re-ground your head-unit to where the rest of your system is grounded, or you can (easier) move your amp/MS8/etc. ground to that bolt.

If you need help locating it, read this: http://www.bavariansoundwerks.com/pr...stem_Guide.pdf
Edit: Scroll down to page 7 to see a picture the factory ground location.

I believe that should fix the issue....

Nice pics, btw. I have that same Dremel tool w/ the tool to cut out circles. BTW, do you live in Costa Mesa, say somewhere off of Harbor Blvd? That balcony of yours looks awfully familiar.

Aside from the noise, how do these front speakers sound? I hope they were worth all the trouble... the Focals were a piece of cake to install ;-)

Have you hooked up your trunk sub yet?

- Pascal

[Sirrus]

Originally Posted by Technic

Use the ground point on top of the left fender.

That's where the MS-8 was grounded originally. I can try moving MS-8 and amp back there if you think it will be preferable to the battery terminal.

I guess one theory is that if the head unit grounds to that spot, I will be common-grounded to it. Hopefully that would elminate the noise. Aw...now you got my hopes up!

Edit: Pascal, thanks for confirming what I was thinking...I responded before reading your post. Even with no signal into the MS-8 I get noise if it's connected to the amp.

That photo was taken outside my office in Newport Beach. All the landscaping is the same around here The speakers sound good, but the highs are a little too mild for me at the moment. I'm reserving judgement until I finish working with the levels and crossovers.