I just installed an Alpine EX-10 iPod control system. It's a neat little unit similar to the Harmon Kardon Drive+play and includes bluetooth. It all fits in the center console, is powered through the cigarette lighter port and outputs sound through the aux in. I get some alternator whine, so I bought one of the PAC ground loop isolators from Crutchfield. Problem is, when I plug it in it sounds weird. There's some kind of phase cancellation problem. All I'm hearing is a hollow sounding version of the music, like the common sounds are being canceled and all I'm hearing is the difference between the channels, if that makes sense. I've tried two brands of ground loop isolators, different cables, etc, and it's always the same. If I plug the iPod directly into the filter there is no problem at all. Any ideas?
Is it possible that one channel of the device is miswired (reversed polarity), making the channels out-of-phase with each other?
On a previous car, I used the Radio-Shack GLI which terminates in two RCA jacks/plugs on each end along with two dual-RCA-to-stereo-minijack adapters. One of the adapters was bad so that it connected the grounds together on the RCA jacks but not on the minijack. I got exactly the same effect. Check that you are getting the ground connected on both ends.
