Your thoughts and opinions please

[hardgainer]

Ive had my system in my car for quite awhile now. I used to have an older kenwood that i really liked that had a motorized faceplate. The reception really sucked on it. Couldnt get an AM station to save my life.

Just a few weeks ago, I was driving not more than a minute and the headunit stopped workeing, i could never get it to turn back on. I decided to just buy a new headunit because i wanted bluetooth anyways.

Did i make the right choice? I decided to go with the Kenwood excelon kdc x993. i really wanted the pioneer 7100bt but i thought the bluetooth and ease of user selections was better for kenwood.

Now here is the problem. my wiring harness that came with the headunit for some strange ODD reason has a bad remote wire. I mean it has no juice, tested it, even tried hooking my remote from my amps up to it. It still did nothing. (the blue with white wire) so my remote from the amps up to the ignition switch. It ended up working great. Here is my question though.

You know how when you get the wiring harness, it has a longer wire for the ground? do you have to hook it up to something metal or just use a butt connector from the stock harness? I just used a butt connector. Could this be part of the problem? I have noticed that when i am driving and i shut off the headunit, since its wired to the igntion, i can still hear something going on slightly, i even notice a popping like my sub amp is turning on and off every few seconds. Should i rewire the headunit in any sort of way?

Thank you in advance. i hope to get a answer soon so i can start working on this lol.

[hardgainer]

Wow, its been weeks and not one response. I thought people on here were educated about this stuff.

[ponchonutty]

I am and this is the first time I've seen it. You should have bought the Pioneer becuase the sound spectrum is soooo much better than that of the Kenwood. Also, Kenwood's amp turn on lead is very, very low amperage which you found out the hard way. You should have used a smpt relay especially if you have more than one amp to turn on.

The obvious answer to your question (which you answered in your question) is that since you have the amp turn on lead to your ignition, of course you will hear a slight hum and also get a pop when you turn your head unit on. The amps never shut off until you shut the car off. Next time have someone with proper knowlege with you when doing this type of modification.

[PaulD]

funny, somehow I missed this one too

The black wire from the headunit goes to a metal ground in the dash NOT a black wire in the OEM harness. I know I'm an Alpine guy myself so I don't know much about the other brands (I am NOT a professional installer and do NOT work in the industry).