Our support operation may be small but I'd still take it over that of 99% of our competitors.

Easy to say. You guys don't have any competition. :) Not in our eyes anyway. But I'd give your support job (including all your staff) high marks compared to any company in any industry.

Bruno

I got everything as far as power fix. I just ran a 18g wire from my amp to my empegs power wire, and left my sony to be on the cars power. That fixed it, no more batter icon.

Now my only problem is finding that sony va-107. I can't seem to find ANY place thats sells them and has them in stock. I called sony and they said that they don't make it but they have one line it for $300. WAAAY to much to pay for that.

-Greg

I just recieved the ipbus sux in (XA-300) from sony. I just realized that I hate sony now and that their a pile ; / I got everything connected now only to find out that the cheap rca's they gave me picks up my engine noise. More $$$ to spend on sheilded ones. Plus the stupid adapter makes a clicking noise when you select from the aux in back to the radio/cd. You'd think for $100 they would have made it more quality.

Now for my question. I ran a wire to the end of my amp wire to see if it was battey/alternators fault for not supplying my empeg with enough power alone with my sony. I found out its just the 12v wire running in my dash. Now i need to figure out where to attach the 12v, i would leave it on the end of the amp wire but everytime there is bass the text on my empeg shuttters (no, not the visual where its suppost to do that). I would run it to my battery but that is just a HUGE pain. The local installer here said to run it to my fuse box but thats not easily accessable either (the fuses are but not the wires going to it). Any suggestions?

-Greg

I got everything connected now only to find out that the cheap rca's they gave me picks up my engine noise.

It's unlikely related to the RCA cables. It's more likely a ground loop and not specifically the fault of the Sony unit.

Every time you add another "doodad" to your car stereo system, the chance for ground loops increases. Read the information in the FAQ regarding ground loops.

Hmm.. well the sony plays fine when its playing cd's and the radio.. no humming (even with the empeg on) but once i press the source button to input the empegs audio i get a humming... i have it grounded at the same place as the sony cd deck. Thats why im guessing that its the RCA cables being that they seem to be really cheap ones with no sheilding.

Shielding in car audio interconnect helps to pick up EMI. Be careful what interconnect you use. There is such a thing as crappy simple cable that is more susceptible to noise than others, but you may also be running it too close to your amp's power wire (though, really, the car's entire body is a ground that could also be a source of noise to your wire. :) I'm actually running cat5e UTP as interconnect. One run is good for two stereo pairs.

Do you get any noise on any other components? Where did you ground the empeg? If you thought the +12 wire in your dash was bad, you should really think about grounding the empeg (and your head unit) directly to the chasis as well. Bad grounds are a common (very common) source of noise in car audio. If you're grounding to the chasis, use an existing bolt if possible. Do not expect a good ground through the actual bolt. You should sand/gring the paint on the chasis where the bolt attached and make sure your ground connection touches bare metal. The bolt is just there to hold it in place (same goes for the ground connection for your amp(s) in the rear - but in that case you should have a dedicaed bolt, right through the floor of the vehicle).

It shouldn't be a big deal to run a new +12v 18ga into the car from the battery. Find where your current amp line comes in and put the new 18ga wire through the same grommet. Look under your dash so you know wher the wire will come through and then use something like a wire coat hanger.

Off the fuse panel you might have to unmount the panel so you can access the wiring on the back. Wire it into something suitable of course (ie. not protected by a fuse rated too low, provides constant 12v, etc.) Depending on your panel selection, it might be a better idea to go to the battery.

You're likely only having a problem with the stock wiring because of the drain your Sony HU's amp puts on that line. The same type of thing you see when you're using a line from your amp wiring and you get a good bass hit (though the fact this is hapening in this instance actually surprises me). You may end up with the same problem even when going directly to the battery if your amps are sucking too much juice on those hits. If that's the case then you'll want to go with a cap wired in parallel at your amplifiers.

Bruno

Ahh I finaly got around to a local car shop here (Audio Playground) and had them run my 4GA amp wire through the firewall since it was going around the door and for some reason bothered me. I also had them run a new line for my empegs power to my fuse box and check my power. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to get a Capacitor/New Alternator and I got lucky, the battery checks out fine even while running my 1200w amp with my 15in subs on them on full volume. The only thing I still have trouble with is the engine noise when I use the empeg, when using the radio its fine. I had the technician try different grounding spots on the chasis and I think he made it worse. Ohh well I guess he had no experience with it as he had never seen anything like it so I told him I'd have to look at it later, didn't want him to try anything and break it.

On the way home I stopped at RadioShack on a desperate measure to fix the problem. I bought a GroupLoop Isolator which I had used before on my homebrew mp3player to eliminate engine noise just to try and see if I could get rid of any of the noise. Besides, RadioShack has a great return policy just incase the $15 part didn't workt. Well this happened to be the perfect solution. After Plugging it into the rca from my empeg and then into my sony aux adaper (using female to female adapters) the noise is almost completly gone. You can still hear it faintly but im not even sure if its that or just the loudness of my engine. ; )

So just in case anyone else has a problem with noise, stop by radioshack and try it out, you can always return it. Its just a black cylinder with rca's on the end of each side.

-Greg

Too many adapters... :)

How long is the interconnect from your empeg to your Sony? Mine's only about 4" (ya, inches) long. Do you hear the noise on all your speakers, in-car-only or sub-only? I find it strange that the ones off your Sony head have noise. I would definitely use a shorter/better cable between the empeg and Sony. And again, try a different ground spot for the Sony and the Empeg (ground them to the SAME spot). Normally people will pick up noise in a run of cable that goes from the front to the back of the car.

Bruno

The RCA's that the sony adapter came with are 2 meters ( way too long for me but im really low on $). I was thinking this would pick up noise but if I turn my sony deck to full (in the aux in mode) and dont have the empeg in there is no engine noise. Once I put the empeg in the noise comes on, you can't tell too much when a song is playing, but when its on pause my car sounds like a jet engine. I would think that if its the wires doing it, it would pick up the noise with the empeg out of my dash as well when i have it in aux in mode.

-Greg

Forgot to mention that the noise is only in my car speakers. And also just to stress that there is no engine noise when using a cd or the radio from my sony deck, so its just comming from the aux-in/empeg part.

-Greg