popping and cracking while engine runs

[70chevellemalibu]

i have a 1970 chevelle fully restored and i just put in a new Kenwood deck. I used the factory yellow power wire and factory ground for the stereo connections plus a new wire to the BATT terminal on the fuse block, all wires are soldered and heat shrinked. I do not have an external amp or any RCA's.

When the car is off the stereo sounds pretty good its not a ground pounder but it sounds good, i start the car and i get the popping and cracking/delayed music almost like a CD is skipping, this sound occurs with FM, AM, and USB. I have already tried to disconnect the FM antenna, i have removed the deck from the car and moved it around and i get a very minor improvement. The sound does not change with RPM.

I have also tried a different ground location and still no change.

I should note that the car has GM HEI and has steel braided cables that do NOT have ground cables, i shut the lights off in the garage with the car running to see if they were arching and I didnt see any sparking along the headers or firewall.

I have read some online car audio threads and the all seem to be a bad ground or RCAs.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[vette427-sbc]

Run your positive (yellow) and ground (temporarily) direct to the battery posts and see if the sounds go away. Also you could try putting one of these around the power wire at the radio:
https://www.theretrofitsource.com/radio-static-reducer-rings.html

If all else fails... get a Pioneer

[70chevellemalibu]

thanks i will try it this weekend, i assume moving direct to the battery will eliminate picking up engine sound from the original wire harness?

Also why do you say if all fails get a Pioneer? just a preference or does pioneer have built in noise reduction?

[jlcustomz]

Thanks for that link Chris. I've seen things on various cables that look like that, but never knew what they were.

Inline noise suppressors on power supply lines, (both) can help this issue.


I get the popping & cracking sound issue sometimes in my sprinter van work truck, which has a hell of a lot of factory wires to snake by with no room to spare. Mine does change with rpm though. I jammed another large ground wire from floor to the metal frame the radio (pioneer, ha ha) slides into & in my case it helps a lot. Still never bolted the damn wire up yet.

[vette427-sbc]

Did you end up testing with the wires to the battery? Curious if that helped or solved your issue?
In regards to the pioneer comment; yes just a preference, I own a car audio shop and usually see more issues with kenwood products over pioneer...

JL- that link has all kinds of great electronics fab stuff for relatively cheap. Excellent resource even if you're not building a set of headlights

[jlcustomz]

Yea, thanks Chris, I actually looked at some stuff there before, but never looked at the ferule things. Moving tools at work today & spotted several of em on sawcords. Never knew what the heck they were.

Just to mention for laughs, many of my work truck sound system issues are due to old age & laziness. What I 'm actually referencing by that statement is my amp to my subs is an infinity rsa450 purchased in 1988, which still works, but causes all sorts of issues from rca connectors getting loose & I'm to lazy to work on work truck after a 9 to 14 hour day. HA.
Agree with ya on the pioneer preference though. Still got a bad taste in my mouth from Kenwood years ago. Was ok as any while working, not staying working being the issues.