New System Noise.

dash

Now that I have had a chance to listen to the new Eclipse, I have noticed there is now white noise that was never there before. With the ignition off, regardless of the source, with the volume fully down and every last option either flat or disabled, there is a noticeable white noise, that is present throughout 1/3 of the volume control, until the music drowns it out. While driving, there is absolutely no ignition noise, and the white noise doesnt increase during acceleration.

When I asked the store techy about it, he said a bit of noise was normal. I asked him if my old Sony was abnormally quiet, since it never produced any noise at all, and he basically walked away, so I guess I'm on my own.

The only thing that has changed in the system, to the best of my knowledge, is swapping out the H/U. Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks all.

MacLeod

Which ever store you bought the unit from and told you noise is normal, NEVER buy anything from them again! Noise is NOT normal. I have ZERO noise in my system at any level.

Quick way to tell is to slap the old HU back in there real quick and see if you still have the noise. If you dont then you have a faulty HU and should return it. If you still have the noise then something happened when you were installing the Eclipse. Could be a ground worked its way loose or one of the speaker wires is touching metal or something like that.

dash

Well....I used to have zero noise in my system at any level. Unfortunately, the retailer is the only Eclipse game in town, so I guess I just have to stay on them. Before I payed for the original H/U, I took the salesman out to the van, and let him listen to it with the Sony installed......I specifically commented to him about how quiet everything was between songs, and he agreed.....he will be back in the store on Tuesday, so I will harass him until I'm happy.

Thanks Mac.

Greg Peters

Wait...before you swap HUs again, did you lower your amplifier gains after installing the Eclipse? I'll bet the pre-out voltage on the Eclipse is at least 3V higher than that of the Sony. If you made the swap without compensating for that, it could be the source of your noise- the pre-existing noise floor now coming through loud and clear.

Worth a shot, at least.

1996blackmax

Good advice there Greg.


The new Eclipse HU's are all 5v's except for the CD5000 which is 8v's.

MacLeod

Greg Peters wrote:

Wait...before you swap HUs again, did you lower your amplifier gains after installing the Eclipse?

BAH! You beat me to it!!

I was watching Strongbad cartoons and this just dawned on me!

A buddy of mine in MECA uses a stock HU but runs it thru a Zapco processor and it works brilliantly however he has to have his gains on the floor or else he gets hiss.

I think this is more than likely your problem.

dash

Cartoons Mac?....hahahaha.....I shouldnt talk, rarely does a day go by that I don't catch Jimmy Neutron, in my opinion the coolest animation I have ever seen.

Anyway, thanks again. After I read the suggestions, I ran out and turned the gains to zero, and shazam......dead quiet. I guess I was foolish to think that the installer actually did this, before he turned it loose.

You guys rock.

1996blackmax

Reason why I do my own installs.....

dash

1996blackmax wrote:

Reason why I do my own installs.....

The only problem with that is, is if I run into problems that require warranty, the first thing they look at is who installed it......it's a pretty easy out for them, to blame a faulty customer install.....and here in Canada, these things run close to a grand after taxes, which I just can't afford to gamble with. I honestly don't have the confidence to do an install, that would parallel the quality of the equipment I would be installing.

Greg Peters

In Canada, Eh? Pity...;)

I'll bet that if you pulled apart what your installer did, you'd find that you would have done it neater/cleaner (and probably charged yourself less $$).

Attention to detail goes a long way. I'm more careful with my car than they ever would be. Most equipment I've purchased was given with full warranty- even though I installed it myself. Usually, if the sales person knows you even halfway know what you're doing they'll never make an issue out of it. Plus, keep the product in "saleable condition" until you know it's a keeper...

dash

That's probably quite true Greg.....I typically am a detail freak....I've done satellite installs for years, and attention to detail goes a long way when you're drilling holes through someones 1/4 miilion dollar walls.....now I'm not even sure if the meager $40 install fee was worth the price, since I do have to rip everything apart again. Maybe if I keep hanging out here, I will learn what I need to.

Thanks again for all of the guidance.

1996blackmax

dash wrote:

The only problem with that is, is if I run into problems that require warranty, the first thing they look at is who installed it......it's a pretty easy out for them, to blame a faulty customer install.....and here in Canada, these things run close to a grand after taxes, which I just can't afford to gamble with. I honestly don't have the confidence to do an install, that would parallel the quality of the equipment I would be installing.

Understood...

Which HU did you purchase? I have owned three Eclipse HU's so far (CD8454, CD8455, & a CD7000). All have reproduced very nice music.

dash

I started with the 5000, had it a day, and couldnt get used to the navigation, among other things. I ended up with the CD7000, which now that its void of any noise, is quite impressive.

1996blackmax

I could not be happier with my CD7000. I think it is an awesome unit. Great SQ along with extensive sound tuning options make it very hard to beat. Trust me when I say this, as I have tried many HU's over the past few years from Alpine, Pioneer, and Eclipse, and I always came back to Eclipse. Once you get it going get the microphone, it will make tuning your system a little easier.

dash

I'm glad you said that, cuz $1000 lighter does make one wonder if the right decision was made.

Since you mentioned the microphone, I have been trying without success, to import my settings from the website, no matter how closely I follow the instructions. It errors out reading the disk, as I don't have a memory stick tonight. Any suggestions for getting it to read the disk? Not only my timing settings, but my wallpaper and movies don't exist either. Putting them all in their own root directories didnt work either.

I'm going to go and try to figure out my clock radio now, and work my way up from there.

1996blackmax

I made a couple of discs before I bought my memory stick, and both worked with no problems.

Now if I could only figure out a way to put music on the memory stick and have it play on the HU.....

Greg Peters

The old "drag and drop" doesn't work? I would think this would fly with mp3 files, but I guess not.

With my HU, I have to select in the setup menu whether I want to be playing mp3 files in order for it to recognize them from an mp3 disc.

dash

Greg:
It isnt MP3 I'm having trouble with, it's getting the HU to recognise that data exists on the disk, so I can import whatever settings I downloaded off of Eclipses website.....wallpaper, movies, etc, all for the 7000.

Greg Peters

That was mostly a response to the "playing music off a memory stick" dilemma. In a general sense at that.

For the settings burned to disk for Eclipse products, I have no idea- Juan would definitely be the best man to answer that question...

1996blackmax

The memory stick "player" in the HU will only play atrac3 files. I have them on my computer, but for some reason the program does not recognize my multicard reader's memory stick slot as a memory stick but as a disc drive, and so I cannot put music on it. I tried just putting it in there through the drag and drop method but it did not work..... I will keep tyring.


As for the CD-R's not working, I will take a look at mine to see how they are setup. Will get back to you with the info...

1996blackmax

ok I opened up the disc. I just put the files on there, no folders used. I know you have already seen this... This is exactly how the files are on the disc.





Also, the movie files take a looong time to upload. Some take as long as 9 minutes or so. I have made the mistake of turning the hu off while doing this and you just lose the original file you were overwriting and the new one. So if you do this, you will just have to start all over again.