Rep Power: 231

ok so basically what i have now is a sony xplod deck, small mtx audio amp, and an alpine s-12 sub powered from my amp. thats about it. everything else is stock...and it all works just fine.

im not all that great with systems, and ive only ever installed this one that i currently have, so some good solid advice would be appreciated since i only want to do this once.

i just purchased a new pioneer deck and im going to install it maybe tomorrow, but i know that i also want to change my rear 6x9 speakers when i get some. there are 3 sets of rca hookups in the back of the new deck that are labelled rear, front, and sw.

im assuming i will run the rcas from the sw spot and remote wire straight to the amp like i currently have. now when it comes to installing my rear 6x9s, how do they hookup? do i need to run another set of rcas from my deck in the spot labelled 'rear'? or how does it work when installing the rear 6x9s?

basically, i want to install my deck now, and my 6x9s once i get them...but i dont want to have to remove my dash again to get at the deck.

 
Rep Power: 238

rear/front should both have x2 each RCA jacks which are to goto other amplifiers.

sw = subwoofer pre-out

blue wire, from deck (usually) = amp remote

speakers....just take em out and put the new ones in. If you dont touch the wiring for the speakers themselves then the deck itself wil power them. If you want an amp to power them then youll need another amp seperate for these.

 
Rep Power: 231

ok so tell me if any of this is wrong so far....

a) blue remote wire goes from deck to my amp (what i have going on now)

b) red/white rca hookups on the deck that say 'sw' go directly from there to my amp 1 that powers my sub. (what i have going on now)

c) red/white rca hookups that say 'front' would go directly from there to amp #2 that powers front speakers? (if i want the fronts powered by an amp instead of the deck)

d) red/whtie rca hookups that say 'rear' would go directly from there to amp #3 that powers the rear speakers? (if i want the rears powered by an amp instead of the deck)

 
Rep Power: 236

Yeah you are right, are you just going to replace the rear speakers and not the fronts?

 
Rep Power: 231

well to be honest, i didnt really intend on changing much except my sony xplod into the pioneer deck. im not really into listening to blasting music, which is all ive ever run is a deck, amp, and 1 sub.

even with that setup though, my rear speakers sound like **** when i turn the music up so i cant even get half the potential of the sub by going with these stocks in the rear. and yeah i only planned on changing the rear speakers...not the fronts (yet anyway).

 
Rep Power: 236

Well if you are going to just change the rears, I would not recommend running an amp to them. I would only run an amp to the speakers if you run it to all 4 speakers rather then just the rears. Sounded very wierd when a friend of mine did it to just the rears.

 
Rep Power: 231

ok ill just run them off the deck then.

ok so normally youd use 1 amp to power the sub, and 1 amp to power the 4 speakers if youre changing all 4?

so in other words the only set of rcas im going to have coming out of the deck are the 'sw' ones. the 'rear' and 'front' ones will be unplugged. that will be the same setup as i have now.

 
Rep Power: 236

Usually having a four channel amp is much easy then doing 2 seperate amps as its just one unit instead of two.

Yes, if you are just running just the sub off an amp run the rcas from the head unit at the sw input rcas to the amp rcas input.

If you decide to run the speakers off an amp, four channel amps have a rca input for the fronts and an rca input for the rears.

 
Rep Power: 231

a couple more questions....

so from the sounds of it, i will have my 1 sub, my 1 amp powering it, and my 2 rears powered by the deck. what if i want to add some front speakers later on, will they run off the deck as well if i just switch them in place of my stock fronts?

if thats the case, why even have the amp powering all 4 speakers when the deck itself can run them?

 
Rep Power: 219

It can get more complicated when you get into bridged amp etc. But for one sub, yes, your best bet is one mono amp for it. And btw, only if your amp currently hooked up is spliced in getting signal off of your rear speakers should it affect their sound. If your amp is currently hooked up to rca outputs on your current sony unit, it should not draw power away from your rear speakers.

 
Rep Power: 236

You are correct, all four speakers will be run off the deck. While the sub will run off the amp.

Now when choosing speakers, make sure they are not overload for your deck. Alpine Type S's are good speakers to run off head units as the rms is low.

 
Rep Power: 231

well i did some research regarding deck issues in the back, and clearance measurements.

ive decided on either the alpine-s or the infinity kappa 692.7i or 692.9i. im about 80% sure im going to go with the kappas since theyre all pretty comparable, but i can probably get kappas for cheaper.

and again..why doesnt everyone just run the fronts/rears off of the deck instead of using a 4 channel amp? is it because of power issues or what?

thats something else i was going to ask...about the rms, wattage, etc. what should i be looking for if i want to run them off the deck?

 
Rep Power: 236

Kappas are also a good choice.

Well an amp will provide much more power for the speakers. Running an amp will allow you to play the speakers louder with less distortion.

If you are looking at the kappas, either one of those speakers would work perfectly fine. They both have a low rms (2-110) which will work very well considering the head unit puts out between 15-25 rms per channel depending on the head unit.

www.crutchfield.com is a very good place to learn about car audio. I would recommend reading a few of the articles there.

Any other questions?

 
Rep Power: 236

BTW when I said "Well an amp will provide much more power for the speakers. Running an amp will allow you to play the speakers louder with less distortion. ", I do not mean that the kappas running off the head unit will distort at a normal listening level but when you max out the head units volume, the speakers will distort. I have alpine speakers running of my head unit right now and they sound very good.

 
Rep Power: 231

yeah thats what i figured, it was a power thing. i am actually on crutchfield.com as we speak, and ive been reading a bunch of different things on there over the past few nights. thanks for all of your help so far though.

i do have a few more questions though. so im going to be running the rears off of the deck, and if at some point i do get fronts, would it be a better idea to make all 4 run off of an amp at that point instead of the deck?

my next few questions are regarding the deck itself. i remember a little while ago i posted a long post about this whine sound i currently have with my sony xplod deck. its always there when im driving, it gets louder as the music turns up, louder as i turn the heat on, and louder/quieter with my rpms. the end verdict i got was that it was a ground loop, and gearbox was telling me to run my power straight from the battery to the deck, and my ground straight from the deck to the chassis....that would mean not even using the power/ground from the harness. what do you think about that? and in the case i do run power from the battery...it will be an 8 gauge wire....and will i be connecting that to the little tiny wire on the back of the deck harness?

 
Rep Power: 236

I would see if you want more sound out of the stereo after you change all the speakers. Running new wires to an amp in the back isnt fun, so if running from the head unit is good enough for you, then I wouldn't.

I personally will be putting an amp in but thats just because I have the amp lying around.

First thing I would do if the ground is attached to the harness is create your own ground as gearbox said. That solved it for me. If that doesnt work, then I would listen to gearbox, he knows his sh*t. I would ask gearbox about running that wire. My guess would be to run another wire, 8 gauge is a little bit of overkill considering a 16 gauge would be plently in my opinion.

 
Rep Power: 231

well i still have that whine sound because i havent done anything about it. i was waiting to get a new deck to start messing with it.

and you were saying it solved it for you? disconnecting the ground from the harness and connecting it straight to the vehicle? did you have the same problem with the loud whining sound?
i will be connecting the ground right to the chasis using maybe some speaker wire. do you think that will work? and the power, i think im going to leave it as is for now and leave it connected to the harness. unless you think i should do that too...but i dont see how that would matter. if its getting power, its getting power...no?

 
Rep Power: 238

yea....connect the ground from the hadunit to the bare chassis somewhere.
if this still allows for altenator noise (whining) then get yuor self a noise suppresor/filter

 
Rep Power: 236

Yeah, I had the whining sound that would vary with the rpm range. Like FPCOUPE said, I took the ground from the head unit directly to a ground you make on the chassis. I made a ground right behind the head unit. Make sure to scrape off the paint back there when making the ground. Speaker wire will work perfectly fine. Yeah, like I said a couple posts ago, do the ground first, if that doesnt work I would talk to gearbox to see what he thinks about doing the power wire. The power wire could be why its getting interference. But it is normally the ground.

Also as FGCOUPE said you could try the noise suppresors, I have never had experience with them but i am sure someone on here has.

 
Rep Power: 231

right on, ill try all of this and see how it goes. if i have any more qs ill post them up...but thanks thus far. +1 for all of you.

 
Rep Power: 236

Alright man, Ill be checkin the site pretty much all day.

 
Rep Power: 231

ok well the 8 wires for the speakers, the power constant, power ignition, and ground to my chasis are pretty straight forward. thats 11 of the wires.

now i have 3 wires left.

1) an orange with white stripe. i think this is illumination...i have it on my honda harness, and on the stereo harness. should i connect them together? or just leave them apart. when i had my last deck installed, it also had it but i left it unconnected from the honda harness.

2) the blue wire with white strip. i think thats the remote? again, when i had my last deck installed, i ran my remote from my amp and spliced it into the set of yellow (power ignition). should i do that again?

3) the yellow with black stripe? i dont know what that is on the new pioneer harness. on my honda harness i have an orange and white (labelled illumination), and also a solid orange (labelled dimmer). on the pioneer harness, theres an orange and white (im assuming allumination), and a yellow/black (dimmer??).

what should i connect and what should i leave?

 
Rep Power: 219

I connected all but power antenna, since we have antenna built into rear window. Other than that connect all that match. You sound like you got them all paired up.

 
Rep Power: 231

got it all done after some serious frustration, but it all is ok now. i connected everything with wire connectors. the pioneer vs honda harnesses had some weird things going on though. all 8 speaker wires (pur, grey, white, green), the ignition power, constant power were all the same colours. the pioneer harness had a white/orange called illumination, and the honda had a white/orange called dash lighting, and a solid orange named illumination. i was thinking about connecting the white/orange together, but i did some research on other forums and apparently one guy burned out his dash lights somehow by connecting the wrong one.

for future reference, if anyones installing a pioneer deck that has a white/orange wire labelled illumination, the correct wire on the honda harness to connect it to is the solid orange named illumination, not the same colour coded white/orange one named dash lighting.

anyway, there was also a yellow/black wire on the pioneer one for cell phone mute or something that i read somewhere? i just tied that thing off..

biggest problem before was that deafening whistle whining sound from the ground loop. i did a nice ground connection right to the body this time instead of using the two harnesses, so lets see how that works. hopefully i dont have to ask gearbox to save me again haha.

 
Rep Power: 236

Haha well good job man, the illumination and dimmer always causes my friends problems. It shorted out one of my friends brakes when he did it.