philip_g

not sure I know quite how to describe this...

I have the amp behind the passenger seat, I have it grounded to the ground lug behind the passenger door under the plastic trim.
Occasionally the stereo will just sound terrible, it'll clip at pretty moderate volumes (by clip I mean any significant bass will cut off and I'll usually get a sort of digital sounding pop sound) usually it seems on my way home from work. Once I hit my driveway and the body flexes I'll hear the stereo pop a little bit and it'll be back to normal. I think it's a grounding issue but I'm trying to correlate the chassis flex with the grounding.

In any event, I tried the passenger seat lug and that didn't prove to be a very good ground when I installed the stereo, anyone have other suggestions?

WAwatchnut

The ground point behind the passenger seat is as good at you'll get. Make sure you have the paint sanded off under the bolt so you're making a good contact, and if you're still having problems, it's almost certainly something else causing it.

Any other issues with the electronics? Possibly a bad ground connection off the battery.

If it's limited to the audio system, you might have a bad ground elsewhere (is the deck wired off the stock harness? possibly harness not fully connected), or you might have a bad/pinched RCA cable, or something in the amp or deck.

My bet is there's a pinched or loose RCA cable somewhere. Chassis flex wouldn't usually be enough to cause internal components in the electronics to be effected - hitting potholes or other bumps would usually do that. But if an RCA cable is pinched or loose, it would cause the issue you're describing.

philip_g

well I'll have to pull the HU and check, I just put the amp and components in a few months ago and everything WAS ok. The HU is wired through the stock harness but I didn't do that part, previous owner paid a shop and they probably used crimp connects so something could be loose. I just hate to pull the dash apart again.
I'll do some sanding at that ground, it's just really odd that multiple times just as the car creaks over the driveway the stereo pops and stops clipping. There's a connection there, I'll find it somehow, lol.

vet55

Are you sure the problem is not in the head unit?
With a change of ground and no better, I would look
there...fwiw.

philip_g

well, I guess relatively, yeah. It's a pretty new pioneer nav unit. But do you ever know? Nope. I'd replace the AMP first if I were to start swapping things out.

vet55

Sorry, yes agree, Amp first.

philip_g

I'll contact ARC and see what they think too, maybe there's a way they can test it.
Such an odd set of circumstances.

vet55

Yeah. If there was a way to bypass the amp,
you could rule it out too. I'm sure you have been through
all the cables.

philip_g

I could but it involves rewiring the HU to the XO's, I'd honestly just buy a used JL amp and swap it in it's just a little 3 channel so it's not expensive.

it's a shame because when it's working well it sounds REALLY good. Story of my life. DD mods said in another thread they have trouble with these arc's and I didn't pay a lot for it so I'm neither surprised nor disappointed.

vet55

Well it might need an in line buffer of some
sort. But with the flexing, I feel like it must be,
as you say, connection or short. Could just be a
bad connector.
Keep us up to date, please!