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Amp to speaker wiring

A

andy

New CEG'er
Joined
Sep 1, 2002
Messages
25
I just picked up a set of JL TR570 and I'm very excited to install it when I receive it. I'm only doing the fronts. Right now I have an Aiwa X407 HU which has 45W peak but probably real low RMS. If I ever install a separate amp, I'm wondering what is the industry standard way to wire between the amp and the front speakers. Should I cut at the HU harness to hook up the speakers? Obviously cutting after the factory harness would ruin the harness if I ever want to go back to original. But cutting at the HU harness ruins that harness if I ever decide to sell the HU. What type of connector do people use to join up amp/speakers, spades? I can certainly get the job done one way or another, but I just want to know what pros do to get a robust and easy install. Searches turn up lots of finished pics and large subs (which has no factory wiring), but not so much of the nitty gritty details like wiring. Thanks.
 
well I see two ways.

you run speaker wire straight from the amp to the door speakers. this means finding a way to get the wires into the door.

or what I did was I ran the speaker wires back to the radio. Since I already had the radio installed and i didn't have premium sound I took the speaker harness adaptor and wired it to the speaker wires from the amp. I then plugged it into the stock harness. If you have premium sound I sure something similar could be done also.
 
I would personally run extra wire from the existing hu wiring back. Cut the wire before the factory plug, then using a connector on the speaker side, and opposite connector on wire to amp and wire to factory plug. This way if you ever go back to stock or HU power you just remove the tape, swap which plug its hooked to and tape it back up.
 
Its easiest just to run it to the factory amp harness, You would basicly need to do this for the front speakers anyways. When I first did it I ran the front outputs to the amp harness, and ran the back outputs to the B pillars and spliced them in there. I did this because I was going to mess with the adjustible timing feature. I then took everything out to bring the car back to stock to sell the car. I decided to keep the car so I put everything back in, but this time running both front and rear to the amp harness. much easier and no difference in sound quality.
 
Easiest way to do this.... Run your RCA's to your amp, run speed cable to the HU cavity, use a harness which mates up to the speaker output of the factory amp, and wire your speed cable to the harness in there. That way you won't have to hack up any harnesses and you'll keep everything nice and clean, including your door boots.

If you want to see what happens when you drill through your A and B pillars I can show you an install I fixed for a fellow CEG'r that had Circuit install their components... some of the after pics ended up in the beginning, just be sure to read the titles and you'll figure it out...

http://contour.org/ceg-vb/showthread.php?t=14798&page=2
 
the only thing about using the wires behind the deck is that if you're running a high amount of wattage to the speakers, the wires might not be thick enough. But thats only if you're running more than 60wrms IMO
 
DJBERN said:
the only thing about using the wires behind the deck is that if you're running a high amount of wattage to the speakers, the wires might not be thick enough. But thats only if you're running more than 60wrms IMO
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I have yet to have an issue with reusing factory wiring.... :shrug: (knock on wood) Although I had a guy last night who ran what looked like 4 awg monster cabled for his speakers, the inside wire pairs looked to be about 10 awg, and he was going to use that to run his front speakers and rear speakers.... Grossly over sized if you ask me... 16 awg would of been fine IMO.... Bet he had fun hiding that wiring running it to the front :D
 
Thanks for the replies. When the time comes I'll be sure to reference this thread. I'm not a loud music kind of guy so I'm just looking for maybe 50w RMS amp, and probably never turn it up near the limit. Seems like "low" wattage amps are hard to find. Everyone wants to sell their 100w, 1000w or whatever marketing scheme sells amps.
 
andy said:
Thanks for the replies. When the time comes I'll be sure to reference this thread. I'm not a loud music kind of guy so I'm just looking for maybe 50w RMS amp, and probably never turn it up near the limit. Seems like "low" wattage amps are hard to find. Everyone wants to sell their 100w, 1000w or whatever marketing scheme sells amps.
Click to expand...

Well look at it this way though, if you were to buy a 50W x 4 amp, to get 50w, you'd have to practically have the gain turned all the way up... If you had say a 100wx4 amp you would only need about half the gain, the second setup would be more efficient since you don't have to push the amp as hard to get the same sound.... amp will stay cooler, etc...
 
CSVT_2004 said:
Well look at it this way though, if you were to buy a 50W x 4 amp, to get 50w, you'd have to practically have the gain turned all the way up... If you had say a 100wx4 amp you would only need about half the gain, the second setup would be more efficient since you don't have to push the amp as hard to get the same sound.... amp will stay cooler, etc...
Click to expand...

Same way I think about it, Its like getting a V6 or a V8 to do a 4 cylinders job. I can do the job that much easier with less effort without stressing anything out. And if you ever decided to get more power hungry speakers you'll already have the power to do it.
 
CarpePoon said:
Same way I think about it, Its like getting a V6 or a V8 to do a 4 cylinders job. I can do the job that much easier with less effort without stressing anything out. And if you ever decided to get more power hungry speakers you'll already have the power to do it.
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Well you can always get what you want for a setup, but if you plan on upgrading well then have fun redoing your power and ground for your amp atleast...
 
CSVT_2004 said:
if you were to buy a 50W x 4 amp, to get 50w, you'd have to practically have the gain turned all the way up...
Click to expand...
not if the source unit has a strong output voltage. Even the standard 2v signal is somewhere near the middle of most amps' sensitivity adustments. 4v is becoming pretty standard in all but the cheapest HU's, which would put a lot of amps near minimum gain to produce full power.
 
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