Car Charger - Interference with Audio?

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I got one of these yesterday:

http://www.amazon.com/Google-Nexus-O...dp/B002W52DVK/

I was playing some audio through the aux jack connected to my car's speakers. As soon as I plugged in the charger, the audio was distorted. It sounded very electronic/mechanical; hard to explain. As soon as I unplugged, the audio went back to normal.

Is this how all car chargers operate? Or is this one defective?

Does anyone know of a similarly priced car charger that doesn't have this issue?

your car audio system and charger are sharing ground. I don't recall the exact solution...so search forum... solution is on the forum.

EDIT: I just remembered... change the ground on your car stereo.... just attach it to some other metal piece.

Originally Posted by arkavat

change the ground on your car stereo.... just attach it to some other metal piece.

Sorry, attach what?

Not too knowledgeable about car stuff.

Originally Posted by Paul22000

Sorry, attach what?

Not too knowledgeable about car stuff.

your car audio system should have bunch of wires in the back. Look in the user manual, one of them will be "ground wire". It is either attached to the "ground" wire coming from your car or just attached to nearest metal piece. usually a screw etc... in the vicinity of the audio system. Just remove the wire and attach it to some other metal.

If you don't want to mess with your car audio, do the same thing to charger outlet. try to locate the wires coming into the charger outlet. One of them is ground. change it's location.

If you are not too comfortable with this, just as your car mechanic to do it. it is fairly easy if you already know which wire is what... so it should be an easy task for him.

So all car chargers with the N1 will behave this way?

Originally Posted by Paul22000

So all car chargers with the N1 will behave this way?

Lord I hope not, I was in the market for a good car charger too..

Originally Posted by ChillRays

Lord I hope not, I was in the market for a good car charger too..

the problem is not with N1 but rather with the electrical arrangement in a particular car. I do not have this problem,but, unfortunately for paul, all chargers will cause this interference.

Re: Car Charger - Interference with Audio?

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Isolate the Ground!!! It's not rocket science, and it sure as hell ain't the n1....

So there's definitely 0% chance that it's the charger and getting a different one wouldn't make a difference?

I tried just plugging in the power, without any audio playing, and the speakers play a lot of metallic interference garbage. Unplug/plug in, plays weird sounds every time.

Originally Posted by Paul22000

So there's definitely 0% chance that it's the charger and getting a different one wouldn't make a difference?

Try this to know for sure:
1) don't connect charger, and play music through car speakers
2) use charger and play music through battery powered speakers

Both should turn out ok.


For information about ground loops see this pdf:
www.ebtechaudio.com/findloop.pdf

I tried just plugging in the power, without any audio playing, and the speakers play a lot of metallic interference garbage. Unplug/plug in, plays weird sounds every time.

A ground loop is simply an antenna formed by the cable from ground, to your phone (charger), to your radio, and back to ground. The noise you're hearing when you don't play music is random noise from any and all radio waves that might pass through this giant loop antenna.

Think of all the stuff that emits RF noise: ignition/sparks, power supplies, phones, BT, wifi, electrical mains and poor connections. All these faint signals are picked up by your giant ground loop and amplified by your radio.


There are also some audio ground loop isolators, but I don't know how well they work.
www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062214