Left speaker makes a crackling noise?

One car speaker makes faint crackling sound only when engine is on?

• hi. i have been having a weird sound coming out of one of the speakers in my camaro's stereo system. it is coming from the rear right mqin speaker behing the passenger seat. it sounds like a kind of metallic crackling sound. it is very faint, and you kinda have to know its there to hear it. this only happens with the engine running, never with it off it also happens more or less with tone/pitch sort of. volume might have an effect, but it will still craxkle with the stereo on with the volume at 0. finally, cd vs radio has noneffect. when i turn the stereo off with the engine on, the noise stops. unfortunately i drive the car almost exclusively of short trips, 4 miles about. i also sometimes will sit in the car, engine off, and listen to the stereo at very low volume. is it possible that the noise is 'rough' current flow coming from a hard pressed alternator? the car has an aftermarket stereo system. head unit, amp, subwoofer, and i think speakers (they are still in the origional cover, but they are far louder than i can imagime the stock ones were. the amp is 800 watts, and i know the sub is too small for that power, it it helps. it looks like the stereo shop oversold the previous owner, the guy who put the system in. the system was professionally installed. anyone have any ideas of cause and what to do? thanks a ton

• Answer:

  Can you be a little more specific about the details? "Camaro" and "800 watts" doesn't really tell enough to help diagnose your problem. They made Camaros from 1967 to 2002, then again from 2010 to present. That's almost 40 years they've produced the Camaro, and 5 major design changes. Do you have a CD player or Cassette player, 8-track, or what? What brand? What brand is the amp? Based on what you've said so far, it's coming from something electrical in the car when the engine is running. I'd guess you have a pinched speaker wire going to that speaker or RCA cable going to the amp for that channel. Does it get louder when you rev the engine? Does it get higher pitched when you rev the engine? You mentioned it doesn't do it when the engine not running, but does it happen when you have the key on "Run" and the engine off, or only when the engine is running?