stereo ground location suggestions

What speakers are the amp driving? What brand amp? Is it a four or two channel?
Did you say 30watts? if so, why bother? The Pioneer will do 22rms per channel
Anyway the RCA wires need to be of decient quality, no $2 specials. The ground for the amp and the deck need to be as short as possiable and make sure the spot you ground them to is clean, ie; sand the paint and rust off. The power wires need to be run on one side of the car and the RCA (signal) wires need to be on the opposite side. Pioneers are sensitive to ground loops so poor RCA wires will make them whine. If the deck is powering the main speakers and they are whining try to unplug the RCAs from the back of the deck. If they still whine then the decks ground is bad or the deck itself is bad. You can do the same thing in the opposite direction if the amp is driving the main speakers.
Hope it helps.

put the amp in the trunk or under the seat

pudman said:

thankx laser. for starters i am using the bargain rca connectors. will change those out. 1 more question for anyone.... should the amp (btw its a 4 channel) be away from the deck? right now mine sits right below it

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Thats the problem right there. That location has power wires running all over the place so they are too close to the amp and will cause whine.
What is the brand and modle of the amp? If its small enough to fit behind the dash next to the stereo and all it runs are the stock sized speakers then I would just get rid of it and use the Pioneer to run everything. The pioneer has a more powerful amp in it if your little four channel has a 20 amp or smaller fuse.