Sub and amp wiring help! (long noob post)

Dreadi

Dreadi

Dreadi

Soldato
Joined
16 Feb 2006
Posts
7,523
First of all, sorry for my stupidity but i need someone to hold my hand whilst i go through this :D

Ok, so i now have some life back in my stereo (reat speakers are working) after finding it was a blown ACC fuse that was stopping it from working. Now i have want to get my sub and amp back in and working so i can get it back to how it was/better then before i broke it ( A friend took it all out for my when it stopped working but he's a busy guy and i cant get him to come sort out for me).

The front door speakers/tweeters are wired up to run from the amp and involve cross overs but i'm not sure if they are all working (find out if i get it all working i guess)

Now in the boot i have these cables..

05102009282.jpg


From the left

  • 2 set of RCA(?) cables (blue)
  • Red power cable
  • Silver cable in the middle of the wheel is a ground cable bolted to the chassis
  • Thin blue wire which i'm assuming is an antenna wire? (Going by the wiring on the sub, see picture below)
  • And the two sets of two silver wires top right are the wires for the front left and right speakers

On the sub i have these

05102009284.jpg


and the amp looks like this
05102009285.jpg

05102009286.jpg


Now am i missing anything?

Power cable in the boot to the amp power connector
Ground in the boot to the amp ground connector
Thin blue wire in the boot to the remote connector on the amp and the thin blue wire in the front which i'm assuming is other end needs to tap into the system remote in the harness on my headunit (pioneer 77mp, has an open input wired into it already from the cable?)
RCA's from the amp to the back of the head unit

With regards to the front speaker cables, which channels would i attach these to?

And the cables on the sub, where are these going? Am i meant to link them to the same terminals on the amp and what what wires the subwoofer itself as three cables shown are the only ones on the sub yet there are a few other thing on the side of the sub which can take cables in as seen below


Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post!
 
Its a four channel amp so you can either run 4 speakers (1 per channel) or 2 speakers (bridging channels 1&2 and 3&4) whether you need to bridge the channels or not will depend on the power of the amp and speakers you are connecting to it.

Edit
Or you could run
speaker 1 channel 1
speaker 2 channel 2
sub bridged channels 3&4

Edit 2
You have 2 amps? A stand alone unit and an amp build into the sub?
In that case
Stand alone amp run the front speakers.
build in amp for the sub.
 
Last edited:
Just the one amp so it would be fronts speakers to channel one and two and then bridge three and four for the sub? Strange thing is i cant find any speaker wire that would have been used for the sub.
With the sub power cables etc, do i connect them to the amp terminal as well?
 
jaxon said:
first thing you need to do is sort that power lead out, put a crimp on it or clean it up so there are no wires flying about!
Click to expand...

Yeah i'll sort those out tomorrow after finding all the crimping stuff in my old mans shed

johnny6 said:
Hang on a second the terminals on the side of the sub box would suggest a second built in amp..................
Click to expand...

It would??? I didn't think it did but then it could be as I have no idea.
 
An unamped sub box would just have terminals for the speaker cable.

In which case.
Power cable from the cars battery to the boot splitting in two and attached to the +12V on the sub box and Batt terminal of the seperate amp.

Remote cable (thin blue cable) from the back of the stereo to the Ant on the sub box and Rem terminal of the seperate amp.

Ground cable from the 2 GND terminated to your grounding point in the boot.

2 RCA cables from the preouts at the back of your stereo (1 for the front speakers and 1 for the sub and depending on the stereo pioneer normally have 2 or 2+Sub preouts) to the boot. The one you run to the sub amp can be plugged straight into the sub amps RCA terminals. The one you run to the seperate amp will need to be split with Y connectors (1 female to 2 male) and plugged into the four white/red terminals in channels 1 and 2 (not running in bridged mode)

Speaker cable from the seperate amp run back to the front speakers (1 speaker each channel with the fronts taking up channels 1 and 2)

try running the amp unbridged and see how it sounds.
 
Last edited:
I'm pretty sure the power cable doesn't split in two though(unrelated but its got 2 inline fuses, any reason for there being two?)? Could i not just run it to the power terminal on the amp as well so it gets power from there like you said about running both grounds to the same point, just bolted over top of each other?

Does bridging push more power through then i take it? running two bridge gives more power then running 2 out of 4 unbridged?
 
Where are you in the country Dreadi? You have to be careful with the power wire that you don't draw too much current through it. Can you take more pictures? Specifically showing where the cable comes through the car etc. There needs to be a fuse just after the battery but before the firewall.
 
I'm in gloucestershire mejinks. the cables comes from the battery, then there is a fuse. It then runs across the engine bay and through the firewall, down the passenger side of the car and into the boot where it then has another fuse. I'm guessing the second fuse is because the guy who i bought it off (who put it all in there before i bought the car) ran out of cable possibly as it changes colour at the second fuse
 
Ok well i have just been out and pieced it all together and its lives!...sort off.

I seem to have lost the left rear speaker but i think its cus the harness is a bit dodgy but i have music from the fronts and its loud :D but it seems louder on the left side of the car than the right. I have asssumed the polarity of the speaker cables going by one of the cross overs. One side has a blue stripe which is the positive on the cross over so have used this to do the +/- on the amp. If they were the wrong way, would it still work?

Just to let people know, its a vibe amp, says 800 watt on the top of it

Also, if i want to hook the sub up properly, do i need a distribution block like this one? Theres nothing like in this in the car so im not sure how the guy before me had the sub and amp both powered?
 
Last edited:
Also, as mentioned above about drawing to much power from the battery, if i manage to get the sub hooked up with its own amp (providing it works etc), could i hook the rear speakers up to the amp as well and have all the speaker in the car running in four channels from the amp and have the sub as well?
 
^Yeah, thats been done now (it was all disconnected anyways and had no power running through it) and the amp is all wired in. Just need to get some advice on the best way to get the sub wired in
 
Either run a cable from battery to one amp, then another cable from amp 1 to amp 2. That or use a splitter.

Or if its going to draw too much current, run another live to the battery (I doubt that though unless youve got a weedy live feed)

If it was me:

Battery ----> Amp ---> Sub
Head unit RCA out front and rear ---> Amp
Head unit RCA out sub ---> Sub
Head unit remote out ----> sub ---> amp
Ground ----> Amp ---> Sub

Then connect your 4 speakers to the amp - job done. Your 4 speakers connected to their own amp which will allow you to fade F+R and the active sub working as it should be.
 
iaind said:
Either run a cable from battery to one amp, then another cable from amp 1 to amp 2.
Click to expand...

So i can connect the sub's power cable to the battery terminal on the seperate amp where i'm connecting the cars live so both car and sub power cables will connect at the battery terminal on the amp? Thats pretty much all i need to know.

I don't know what cable the live is so i don't know if it's weedy or not...
 
Indeed, a relatively tidy way of doing it. Just dont connect the live of one to the earth of another :)

From the pictures it looks thick enough, what rating is the fuse? If you can find the specs for the amp and sub you'll be able to figure out if its enough
 
Thing is, thinking about now, i don't think it's gonna be very good. The red cable you see connected to the amp and in the picture in the boot is only a short piece. The cable that runs from the battery to the boot is blue and then where the fuse holder in the boot screws apart, it changes to the red cable......I've got a funny feeling i'm gonna be told to rip it all out and lay in a new power cable :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom