It's not even comparable. Our stock HU is really not that bad. It has it's short-comings, but it's going to take an act of God for me to go Double-Din.

 

I don't think the whine is coming from the sub...but more so from the rear deck speakers which I'm tapping into. BUT, the noise is still there when i pull the RCA's out from the JL amp. no speaker output connection, but still the noise...what the heck.

 

Actually, the wires are still connected. If you are disconnecting the RCA end but not the end you tapped into the wires, the RCA's are now antennae for picking up EMI (electromagnetic interference).

Probably a PITA, but there's no help for it - disconnect your taps AT THE FACTORY WIRES and test again.

This is why at my shop we usually tap into the speaker outputs of the Bose amp if we are only adding a sub, instead of tapping into the preamp wires. The preamp wires should be better sounding since they are not Bose-equalized and they will be somewhat lower in distortion. BUT the noise risks are too great in my experience, so we usually grab the OEM woofer out wires. (Actually, usually we convince people to get a multichannel amp and new front mids and highs and the issue is moot

 

you are describing exact what i have experience before, on some cars, like some vws, mazdas etc, when you tap into the factory speaker wiring, somehwere along the line it injects noise into the spedaker wire itself, leading to whines coming out of hte stock speaker.

turn your headunit volume to ZERO, do you still hear the whine? now turn your headunit OFF, do you still hear the whine?

b

 

yes, i still get the noise with volume all the way down. matter of fact, that's the only time i can actually hear the whine with no music playing. even when the headunit is off i still hear it, because the amp is still on (hooked up to remote wire from the bose amp).

 

took the ground wire out completely - noise still there.
took out the remote wire - noise still there.
volume/gain all the way down - noise still there.
tried to put wires away from each other - noise still there.

sounds like the "whine" is coming from the Bose amp itself. i can't hear anything coming out of the speakers. it has to be the speaker output connections on the Bose amp, right?

 

Are you saying the noise is coming out of the Bose amp, or the speakers connected to the Bose amp?

From your message it sounds like you haven't disconnected your signal taps yet.

Did you connect to the Bose amp signal in or the speaker outs?

It is possible for amps to start whining in the power supply section - old Rockfords were famous for that. You "fixed" them by popping the cover off, finding the big inductor that was whining (by touching your finger to it and seeing if that changed the noise), and then squirting clear silicone (clear - WITHOUT ANY METAL IN IT!) onto the top of the inductor to damp it down. Dynamat would probably work too.

But I didn't think the Bose HAD a power supply...

 

I believe that the whine is coming from the BOSE AMP itself, not the speakers. You're right, I HAVE NOT disconnected the signal taps from the BOSE AMP yet.

I connected the RCA's to the BOSE AMP SIGNAL (light green, purple, blue, and pink wires).

 

Wow. If I heard the amp itself emitting that whine, I'd unplug it, unbolt it, take the cover off, then plug it back in and carefully start touching big coils of wire to see if I could make it stop the noise.

But first I'd disconnect my signal taps and see if that made a diff.