Howdy.. I just finished an install in my 95 M3. I had a blaupunkt pa4100 amp in there, which seemed to be defective.. but I'm running into problems with my new one as well..

When I start up the car or turn on the empeg with the car off, there is a very loud buzzing noise (sounds like a bee right in your ear) that comes mostly out of the front speakers. When I started the car, it would buzz, and the buzz would slow down in pitch over about 10-15 seconds and then go away entirely. Note that the intensity of it did not fade, just the pitch.. and once it slowed down enough it dropped off. This is independant of which channel is hooked up to which. I finally traced it back to the gain settings on my amp. I turned the gain down a tad and the noise went away entirely. However, I inched the gain back up to where I wanted it (and tested in between runs), so I had the gain where I wanted it, and no buzzing! I let the car sit for awhile, then started it back up, and the buzzing is back! I don't want to turn the gain down any, because the max output from the system would be too quiet! The amp should have MORE than enough power to run the system, so that's not the problem.

Any ideas what the cause of the buzzing is? Is it a noise from the empeg that's being amplified? The noise seems to occasionally pop and fade out from one side speaker, so it's not totally consistant, but seems pretty solid otherwise. Is it from my RCAs? Why on earth does this fade away after the car's been running for 20 or so seconds? Is it perhaps related to battery voltage? IE, either turn down the gain or crank up the voltage going to the amp to get it to go away? Maybe this means a power connection could be better.. ?

Anyway, any ideas you can provide would be great. My last amp had a blown rear channel, I don't think I did it, but I suppose I could have.. I'm finally getting the system running essentially right, except for this buzzing noise! Don't want to blow another amp..

- reid