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Hey everyone, I am not very good with electrical stuff, but is smaller the guage of wire, the bigger the wire is, right? To install my HU I need atleast 12 guage wire, but I can't find that exact guage, so what should I use then? I am getting an Alpine CDA-7893. Also, people have been telling me to use a 10 or 15amp fuse for the connection to the battery. I was reading the manual online for my alpine and it said to use a 20A for my particular model. Does that sound right to you all.

 
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That is correct, 10 is larger than 12. If you can't find 12, go with 10 and don't forget to put a FUSE on it.

 
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The alpine's harness already has an inline fuse in its power wire. No reason to add another imo.

 
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That's interesting... I wonder why you need to connect you HU to the battery using a seperate wire. You should have a harness that will plug into the factory power wire.

 
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I know the answer to that, the stock wire on the harness doesn't provide enough power to the new HU. The new one will need alot more power, which means a larger guages wire. The wire on the harness is a very small guage.

 
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Alpine just says that the units have a high-powered internal amp and the stock wiring isn't sufficient to support it. So, the alpine harness has a pretty big yellow power wire coming off of it with an inline fuse already in the line. I think the wire is 10 guage but didn't really pay much attention to it. I just soldered some 12 gauge to it and ran it to the main fuse box. It just really makes an installation a pain in the **** if you ask me. It's worth it though.

 
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That's interesting. I didn't know that. I thought alpine internal amps put out the same amount of power as any other HU does. 45x4 peak and 19-22 rms? Oh well... If it works, might as well do it.

 
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some of the newer alpine HU's have that new 60W x 4 "V-drive hybrid amplifier"....

 
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Alpine sya in order to get the true 60x4 from the deck that you need to run the 12 guage shot to the battery, otherwise they say you will only get about 44 watts. IMO screw the 12 guage to the battery, if your looking for true clean power then get a 4 channel amp. No matter what size wire runs to the battery the alpines begin to distort just like any other headunit.

 
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Yeah, I would have to agree with custom2k1 on this. If you need that much power, go with an amp or just wire in the headunit into the factory harness until you do. You're going to run a power wire anyways, may as well make the time you take to do it worth it. As far as what I said about a fuse....the oem harness power wire comes off of the fusebox, right? When you bypass it and run a wire directly off of your battery, you should always have it within 1 or 2 feet of the battery. If you take that route, I would just wire in a second fuse right off of the battery anyways. Better to spend a few bucks on a fuse than ruin your receiver, ya know.