Stereo sounds good...until I turn on ignition....part 2

[jimidemo]

Kept reading on how all components should to be grounded together at the same battery and dug into my head unit wiring. Saw that it ran toward go front of boat and back around to the helm. Turns out the head unit is grounded off the back of the Taps gauge. The battery wire is hooked up to what I would call a rectifier block mounted on the wall above my sub. The power ignition wire is tied into the OEM harness that goes to the stock rocker switches. All these switches are grounded to one another. This can't be good for my previous issues. My question then is what is the remedy? If you haven't read part one I had horrible noise off of new amp and sub install with ignition on and when I activated taps it made the bass hit hard. Also activating any switches we could here awful noise in speakers. I ASSUMED the head unit was wired correctly. My bad there. Thought the amp was the issue. Still didn't return because I couldn't accept it being bad.

[UNSTUCK]

Didn't you say you put the old amp back in and everything was fine? Would the new amp be sensitive to grounding issues that the old amp is not sensitive to? That could be the case but seems weird to me. At this point, I still suspect the new amp is bad.

[chpthril]

At the end of the day, there is only one ground plane on a boat, and thats the block and all things end up there to some degree. With simple electrical components, the above grounding scenario usually does not pose a problem. However, with audio equipment it can. This can be amplified, pardon the pun, when we add in, well, amplifiers and other peripherals. I like to ground source units and the such, as close to my amps as possible, same with their B+. Big amps and batteries can offer some "filtering" properties and eat up stray noise and things like a TAPS pop.

Your amp may not be bad or defective in a matter of speaker, but you could very well be experiencing the design and build quality differences between a top tier like JL Audio and the price point sector. That old JL series is a tank. Big heavy heat sinks, stout power supplies, big CAPs, etc.

Regardless of what amp goes back in, I would certainly want to address the head-unit ground as well as its yellow B+.

[SATige]

Chpthril, can you elaborate on the Taps pop. I seem to be experiencing that as well. I have a marine Kicker amp which is running the two Kicker tower speakers and the Clarion sub. I get the pop out of the tower.

[chpthril]

The pop is often caused by the collapse of the magnetic field when the TAPS is turn off. First is to isolate the audio grounds as far from the helm and as close to the battery/amps as possible. Next is to put a capacitor across the TAPS circuit to eat up that stray electricity that causes the pop.

[jimidemo]

So I ran the ground back to battery 2 where the amp is grounded. Ran ignition wire straight back to battery selector switch. Used a toggle to tie ignition and yellow battery wire together. Hooked it all back up and no noises. No taps popping. That yellow battery wire was tied into what I had called a rectifier block...but it was 12 v for taps that someone thought should be shared. All in all the system is now completely isolated from ignition and helm components, which I am now seeing is the key. Thanks to all who gave advice.