I recently had a new Pioneer radio/CD player installed in my Mustang. As the installer was showing me how everything on it worked, he mentioned that there would be a loud “pop” from the speakers when I turned on the car. I didn’t understand his explanation, but it had something to do with the fact that the car already had a certain volt amp, and the new radio had a different volt amp, and it is possible to add a particular wire to the setup to eliminate that pop, but they don’t have that wire.
Doed this make sense to anyone? Or did the installer just do something incorrectly and his explanation was just gibberish to get rid of me?
If I forget that the loud pop is coming, that bang is quite a shocker, and I would really prefer to not experience it forever.
It’s gibberish.
Sounds like he should have installed a choke to prevent this from occurring and just forgot. He then realized that he’d have to re-do the entire install and tried to get you to accept the radio as-is.
If they have a warranty, I’d suggest returning it and having them fix it correctly. They can order the part that they need(or drive to Radio Shack and pick it up ) and do the job right this time.
I went back to Best Buy and explained the problem to Mr Manager (who looked about 23). He agreed, “Yeah, that doesn’t sound right” and we scheduled an appointment to have it looked at.
Back in the service area, I demonstrated the noise to the service tech (a different guy than before). He said that the original radio powered up gradually, which eliminated the pop, but the new radio was not designed that way. It just came on all at once, and any charge left in the capacitors would discharge also, thus causing the loud pop. He said they could try adding some sort of resistor, and I said to go ahead.
When finished, he said he did the best he could, but there was still a marginal popping sound which he could not totally eliminate. However, to my pleasant surprise, I could hear no pop whatsoever. To me, the problem was totally solved, and I was a happy customer.
A friend of mine later explained that they added a big resistor between the circiut and ground. When playing the radio, the electricity flowed thru the radio, pretty much ignoring the path thru the big resistor. When the radio was turned off, the path thru the big resistor became relevant, and any charge in the capacitors gradually discharged thru the big resistor to ground.