how do i wire 4 speaker output to 7 speakers?
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how do i wire 4 speaker output to 7 speakers?
Ok - figured out i have to bypass my factory amp - now how do i wire my after market headunit 4 speaker output to my 7 factory installed speakers
TIA,
Boyd98
BTW - i am taking pictures and notes of my install and plan to post them since there are a lot of ppl with questions about after market car audio and the factory 7 speaker system
TIA,
Boyd98
BTW - i am taking pictures and notes of my install and plan to post them since there are a lot of ppl with questions about after market car audio and the factory 7 speaker system
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RE: how do i wire 4 speaker output to 7 speakers?
I'm not a pro but I have installed new audio systems in a my own and a few other people's cars. The cheapest and easiest thing I can think to do is just splice the three extra wires in with the standard four. This of course is going to cut down on the amount of power you are delivering to each speaker. The better thing to do assuming your head unit has RCA outputs for front and back speakers is to buy a speaker amp and run the door speakers off the speaker amp and the dash speakers off the head unit. This of course will require more work and more money to do. Did you buy a connector to bypass the amp or did you splice around it?
You could also drop by your local car audio specialty store. My experience has been that most of the guys working there in the service shop just love cars and doing all the stuff you can do to them and will usually gladly offer you free advice on ways to try to do certain things.
You could also drop by your local car audio specialty store. My experience has been that most of the guys working there in the service shop just love cars and doing all the stuff you can do to them and will usually gladly offer you free advice on ways to try to do certain things.
Joined: Jan 2006
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From: Walnut Grove, CA
RE: how do i wire 4 speaker output to 7 speakers?
ORIGINAL: AeroRam
The cheapest and easiest thing I can think to do is just splice the three extra wires in with the standard four. This of course is going to cut down on the amount of power you are delivering to each speaker.
The cheapest and easiest thing I can think to do is just splice the three extra wires in with the standard four. This of course is going to cut down on the amount of power you are delivering to each speaker.
It's been years and years since I cared enough about car audio to get involved, but back when I was in high school one of the popluar amps on the compitition circuit was the Rockford Punch 45. 45 watts (22.5 per channel) sounded like so little but you could get a lot out of them becasue the amp was stable down to 1 ohm (might have been 1/2 ohm, I don't remember for sure).
The moral of this story (other than the fact that I'm getting old) is that you don't want to just start adding speakers without considering what impedance you are going to end up with vs. what your amp is rated for.
And the guy above is right. The correct way to do it would be to run a multi-channel amp or even better several 2 channel amps so you can dedicate each to the frequencies it will be driving.
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RE: how do i wire 4 speaker output to 7 speakers?
Zelatore is right. I should have been more clear about the wiring configuration. You'll want to hook them up in series if you don't know how low a resistance your head unit amp can handle. Alot of people that don't really understand electronics make the mistake of wiring things in parallel thinking that more wattage is always better and then they end up ruining their equipment.
I really would recommend getting at least one four channel amp for the door speakers. You should be able to get one that isn't too fancy but will do what you need for at least $200. If you want to spend as little as possible and are patient I would recommend stopping in at your local Best Buy every few days to see if they have any open box, returned, or clearanced amps. I've found several good deals that way. If the manuals are missing you can usually get them online as Adobe Acrobat .pdf's these days.
I bought a $400 Rockford Fosgate dual band pass twin 10" sub box with two $100 10 inch RF subs in it for $180 from Best Buy. It had been a store display and I knew the subs had been abused but bought them for the box. I used the RF subs for 2 months then sold them for $100 after I found a pair of very nice 10 inch Orion XTR's with dual voice coils at a local car audio "pimp my ride shop". These were normally $180 a piece but were being discontinued and I got the last two for $70 each. I bought a 500 watt amp from a friend of my brother for $75. It was worth about $300 new and he only used it for 3 1/2 months until he decided that he just absolutely had to have a 1000 watt amp instead. He was way too eager to sell his old one to get the new bigger one so I really lowballed him and he jumped right on it. I also paid half price on a 1/2 farad capacitor because it was a returned item. I bought my speakers at 10% and 20% discounted prices from Best Buy, since they were returned. The only thing I paid full price for was my Pioneer head unit and the hardware I needed to hook everything up. Unfortunately all this stuff was in my old Tbird and won't fit in my new Ram. If you can be patient you can find good deals on stuff like this. Doing the install work yourself saves alot of money too and it really isn't that hard if you think about the best way to do it ahead of time. It will look good and be well done too if you can be patient and not rush to get everything all functioning it one afternoon. Take the time to do it right and you won't be wishing you hadn't cut corners when you are looking at exposed amp power wires and pulling door panels off to fix things that have come undone. I've seen people do their cars that way and it just looks cheap and crappy.
Good luck.
I really would recommend getting at least one four channel amp for the door speakers. You should be able to get one that isn't too fancy but will do what you need for at least $200. If you want to spend as little as possible and are patient I would recommend stopping in at your local Best Buy every few days to see if they have any open box, returned, or clearanced amps. I've found several good deals that way. If the manuals are missing you can usually get them online as Adobe Acrobat .pdf's these days.
I bought a $400 Rockford Fosgate dual band pass twin 10" sub box with two $100 10 inch RF subs in it for $180 from Best Buy. It had been a store display and I knew the subs had been abused but bought them for the box. I used the RF subs for 2 months then sold them for $100 after I found a pair of very nice 10 inch Orion XTR's with dual voice coils at a local car audio "pimp my ride shop". These were normally $180 a piece but were being discontinued and I got the last two for $70 each. I bought a 500 watt amp from a friend of my brother for $75. It was worth about $300 new and he only used it for 3 1/2 months until he decided that he just absolutely had to have a 1000 watt amp instead. He was way too eager to sell his old one to get the new bigger one so I really lowballed him and he jumped right on it. I also paid half price on a 1/2 farad capacitor because it was a returned item. I bought my speakers at 10% and 20% discounted prices from Best Buy, since they were returned. The only thing I paid full price for was my Pioneer head unit and the hardware I needed to hook everything up. Unfortunately all this stuff was in my old Tbird and won't fit in my new Ram. If you can be patient you can find good deals on stuff like this. Doing the install work yourself saves alot of money too and it really isn't that hard if you think about the best way to do it ahead of time. It will look good and be well done too if you can be patient and not rush to get everything all functioning it one afternoon. Take the time to do it right and you won't be wishing you hadn't cut corners when you are looking at exposed amp power wires and pulling door panels off to fix things that have come undone. I've seen people do their cars that way and it just looks cheap and crappy.
Good luck.
