Voltage Reducer - Speaker Ground Loop

[Lee0]

*** Resolved ***
So final update and THANK YOU ALL so much for the help.


I wrapped the aux in and volume control lines with aluminum foil tape I had laying around and covered that with wire harness tape. - NO IMPACT

I took all the speaker wires and amp input wires and moved them far away from power cables - NO IMPACT

I took all the amp and wiring out of the cart and hooked to a 12v battery I had from my boat - NO IMPACT

That last 12v test was the final straw. I decided to take the amp apart and have a look and see if I could tweak anything internally.

Trial and error playing around I noticed if I put pressure (or twisted) the aux-in wiring plug the noise 100% went away. I carefully peeled the outer shrink tube off the tiny little plug wires and found that one of the ground cables on the input plug had exposed wire which was contacting nearby metal. Put a little electrical tape around it and VOILA - no more noise; problem solved. Probably should just return the amp but I already cut up the provided plug connectors to hard wire it into my cart. Likely replace with a better amp in the future so not too concerned.

Pic attached but may be hard to see. Used yellow electrical tape.