Rep Power: 258

so i hooked everything up today, via setup:

aftermarket radio with aftermarket harness

i forgot to mark my rca's (so i could see which one is which), i was gonna test them out, but realized that whether my amp was on, or off, the sound was coming out of every speaker. i was under the impression that my rca's were going to control my speakers, but seems like my amp isn't hooked up correctly. should have i hooked the speakers to my amplifier, rather then connecting them in my harness? i'm very confused.

ps. i have an mtx road thunder 404 amp on page 3:

http://www.mtx.com/caraudio/products...T202_RT404.pdf

maybe i didn't have my amp config. set correctly, where should they be?

 
Rep Power: 812

im confused. what? how many speakers, what channel amp. need to be more specific. but yea if your deck has front and rear preouts, then you should have separate channels. and speaker wires there are two for each speaker that you connect between harness and amp.

 
Rep Power: 0

The way to have your amp power your speakers in your car is to run the rca (for front and rear if your deck supports them) to an amp and then from the amp to the speakers. From the sounds of it the amp you have now is just for your subs. Hate to say it but you got the wrong impression on how to setup your audio system.

 
Rep Power: 258

my setup is 4 speakers, 1x4-channel amp, and an aftermarket HU (with front/rear rca outputs).

damn, that's where i messed up. i thought rca connection all i needed, with my speakers hooked up to my hu harness only. didn't realize that the speakers had to be hooked up to my amp instead. what's the puprose of rca's then, if the speakers have to be hooked up to an amp anyways? (that's where my main confusion came from.)

what does "FR" (in the same place as "high/low pass") on my amplifier mean?

as far as i understand now, the speaker wires between my car harness, and my HU harness should be disconnected, and the speaker wires between from my car harness should be connected to my amp...so i'll just connect my back speakers str8 into an amp, and run the front ones from my harness to an amp. i have a roll of 16awg wire handy. would that be ok to connect it to a stock (18awg believe), or should a buy the same gauge wire?

thanks for all the help. i have to be the dumbest "installer" on this board

 
Rep Power: 0

The RCA's are input to the amp and the speakerwire is the output of the amp. The RCA's are used to provide a low level signal to the amplifier.

FR stands for front

16 guage will be fine.

 
Rep Power: 812

lol the deck outputs a clean, hi voltage audio signal through the rca to the amp. the amp then processes and "amplifies" the signal which then needs to be sent to the speakers. You can either run speaker wire from the amp directly to the speakers or to the stock wire harness (which connects to the speakers).

now you need to match up the rcas to the right channels. usually the rca is labelled like front right FR, front left FL, and rear right and rear left RR RL. now the speaker wires, the amp should have designations for each speaker as well. each speaker has two wires, plus and minus. and each one has to be hooked to the right place on the amp. also you need to find out what the harness wires mean if you connect them as far as which speaker equals which wires. if you run speaker wire from the amp directly to the speaker, you need to make sure the polarity is correct. using the stock harness eliminates this problem because you can just look up what the wires mean. if you do the polarity wrong, the speaker wont play any bass basically so you can always switch it around.

 
Rep Power: 258

you guys have been the most helpfull bunch!

if the rca's are not matched up (front/rear) will i be able to hear an audible difference (i have already ran them, but forgot to mark which is which)

 
Rep Power: 0

plug it in if there is no sound switch it it not going to hurt anything

 
Rep Power: 812

you'll hear it both ways, but when you use the deck fade and balance controls it wont match up. like if its backwards and you balance left, the right speakers will play, etc.

 
Rep Power: 0

actually the RCA's are used to carry a low voltage signal

quote=gearbox]lol the deck outputs a clean, hi voltage audio signal through the rca to the amp. the amp then processes and "amplifies" the signal which then needs to be sent to the speakers. You can either run speaker wire from the amp directly to the speakers or to the stock wire harness (which connects to the speakers).

now you need to match up the rcas to the right channels. usually the rca is labelled like front right FR, front left FL, and rear right and rear left RR RL. now the speaker wires, the amp should have designations for each speaker as well. each speaker has two wires, plus and minus. and each one has to be hooked to the right place on the amp. also you need to find out what the harness wires mean if you connect them as far as which speaker equals which wires. if you run speaker wire from the amp directly to the speaker, you need to make sure the polarity is correct. using the stock harness eliminates this problem because you can just look up what the wires mean. if you do the polarity wrong, the speaker wont play any bass basically so you can always switch it around.[/quote]

 
Rep Power: 0

Well I guess you could say it's all in how you look at it. 5V pre-out rca could be considered "high" while how most are 2v can be considered "low".

 
Rep Power: 812

oops my bad. ya its low voltage rca for cleaner signal cause it gets amped anyway. i was thinkin speaker wires.