Some Car Audio Questions

[CJ Rodarme]

So I am about to go headfirst into my first rebuild of my sound system, which I installed just under a year ago. I had a 5 channel running 4 6.5 Kenwood Coaxials and a single Sundown SA12. However I got a great deal on 4 more SA12's and a few boxes so I finally got the chance to rebuild. I got a Audiopipe 2K (soon to be strapped once I get a good secondary battery) and a Skar 75.4 for the doors. I also purchased 40' OFC 1/0. To run 2 amps, how do I run the turn on wire so both of the amps turn on? Do I just stick a wire in the amp the turn on wire from the head unit and put a second one on the same input of the amp? Or do I solder in the wire somewhere else to split it? My second question comes with wiring my head unit. When I originally wired up the harness for the head unit I connected all the power wires, and it works fine. However, since I am not powering my door speakers using the head unit do I need to disconnect the wires for the door speakers on the head unit wiring harness? My third question is about my bass knob. On my old 5 channel I never used the bass knob because it didn't work. If I don't use the bass knob I still get full power of my amp correct? Or should I really use it? I don't really feel a need. I know to some the answers to these questions are probably pretty obvious, but I am self taught using YouTube and various forums so there's some missing basic knowledge.

 

[Doubeleive]

you can run the amp turn on wire however you like daisy chaining them together is probably easiest, if you are going to run the door speakers from a amp then it is probably easier to just run the amp wires up to the harness behind the deck rather than running individual wires to each speaker. A bass control knob is nice to have sometimes I like a lot of bass but if I have certain passengers with me it's easy to just turn the knob down. anyway that's my 2 cents worth.

 

[CJ Rodarme]

Okay thanks for the input it helps a lot

 

[adriver]

IIRC The remote wire turn on (for the amp) is 100-400 millivolts depending on the amp. That wire is good for either 500millivolts or 1 volt. Its not powering anything, its just engaging the switch. You can search and you might find the specific volt rating for the switch in the owners manual, but probably not. You could use a multimeter if you really want to know.


(1). If you are only doing two amps you should be fine if you wire them both together off the factory remote turn in wire right off the harness connector. You could daisy chain them where you would run your speaker's amp turn on wire with the factory wiring harness, then run the sub amp off the power wire/power terminal from the speaker amp. This way if one amp stops working you have just speakers and not just subwoofers, and its more likely you will pull that amp, or take the subs in or out. Just don't daisy chain it off the remote wire for the first amp, or you could draw too much power through the first amps remote turn on wire, and burn out the switch on the first amp.

The proper way I would say for doing 3 or more amps, (and if you are someone who wants to really over engineer things, you could do on your two,) would be to run the factory remote wire to a relay and run a splitter off the power wire from that. Either to a busbar, terminal block, terminal connector, or some way to split the power to each new remote wire that would be running separately to each amp.



(2) I would take them out if you are not going to use them. At the very least make sure the wires are protected and couldn't ever possibly cross and you're fine. Considering how easy it is to pull the head unit and harness connector; IMO take them out of the harness (but that's for peace of mind, and to clean it up a little).



(3) Unplug the bass knob completely, then it will stay in full power. As long as your amp is a good match for the speakers, you don't need a bass knob on the speaker amp. You will control it the same way with the volume control on your head unit, UNLESS at the off chance you want to be able to just run your subs at an overly high power and turn down your speakers (higher boom with lower sound). The only way that's different is if the bass knob on your 5 channel amp was set for the fifth channel (bass channel?) only. If you are running a separate subwoofer amp, then that's probably not happening. Most likely, you will want a bass knob for the subs amp, so you are not running full bass for your selected volume, all the time.

 

[Joseph Garcia]

I agree with the above responses. I would recommend using a bass/sub attenuation knob, if possible. Not using one simply runs the pre-amp input to the sub amp at the nominal level, consistent with the pre-amp levels to your other power amp for the door speakers. In my experience, I installed a bass/sub attenuation knob on all of my after-market audio system projects, and I find that I fine-tune the sub volume level very often, to adjust the level balance between the sub and the other speakers to my particular taste.

 

[CJ Rodarme]

I’ve got the head unit pulled right now so I can solder all the wires (they were originally crimped). Do I just pull the speaker wires out of the adapter harness?

 

[adriver]

yes. IIRC I just use a little pick like a toothpick and pushed them out. There might be a locktab on it.

 

[CJ Rodarme]

Not sure why I thought I wouldn't need the bass knob lol. I ended up just plugging it in and throwing the remote up front until I get time to properly run the wire. A good amp makes a insane difference, I can't handle full crank for normal listening. I'm running it at less than half on the knob. If anything I'd recommend at least running it and unplugging it/leaving it at full tilt just in case.