amp install help

[jcraft 10+ year member]

Hi all,

Need a little assistance on this install. I curently have a Sony head unit and a 12" sub/amplifier in the trunk. Currently I have fed the sub amp with an RCA cable from the headunit and the remote turn on wire from the headunit as well. Now I have purchased another small 4 ch. amp to power the four main speakers. The new amp can accept an rca input or speaker level inputs. So my first question is how to best hook this amp up which will be located in the trunk. If I go with speaker level I'll need to run 16 wires from head unit to amp. I have used the rca out so i can't use that to amp. I have heard you can purchase for relatively cheap a converter ( mount behind headunit) so you can bring speaker level inputs into it from headunit and it will have an rca output on it. Then I can run RCA to new amp. Then just run 8 speaker wires from amp to the front dask to tie into speaker wires. NOt sure which is better for signal quality. PLease let me know which you think is best. Also, seeing I am using the remote turn on already for the otrher amp I am wondering if I can just split off and feed the new one. IT looks like in the manual it gives a current rating for this terminal ( I beleive it is .3A). I was going to put a dc clamp on ammeter to the wire and turn the ex. amp on and see what it draws to turn on and then do the same with the new one and see if we would be drawing more than .3 A. LEt me know if that is how you would do it. Thanks for the help and Happy New Year.

Click to read more...

 

[tommydh 10+ year member]

buy a set of rca single male to dual female y adapters and run that way. You wont be able to fade things in or out but it works and unless your gonna buy a decent line converter 75+ bucks its the cheapest and clean. You should be ok with tapping the remote and using for both amps. If you have an issue you can add a relay to soak up the current for lack of words. You cant read DC amps with a clamp on meter they have to be read inline. You should be fine

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

How many sets of RCA outputs does your HU have? Are they front / rear or sub only or what?

Running 4 twisted pairs from the HU to amp's high level inputs is not a big deal. And yes you can combine the 2 remotes together.

 

[jcraft 10+ year member]

MY headunit only has right left channel RCA outs ( 4 total). one of the outputs term.is labeled sub out as well. right now I have one rca cable going from HU to sub amp ( using the one terminal). On the HU menu you can specify these RCA jacks as sub out ( which you can adjust the gain on the HU then, or rear out) i currently have it at su out. I switched this setting to rear out and the bass doesn't hit nowwhere near as hard. To solve I needed to adjust the level switch on the amp to all the way max. THen it was about the same as it was. So ii think I'll leave it there and run RCA cables back to the new amp and then I can put a Y splitter in and send one cable to the subwoofer amp. Does this sound okay?Thanks

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

I would leave the rear preouts as sub outputs and use a Y cable to feed the 4 channel amp from the other pair.

 

[alec14 10+ year member]

^^^ This is your best bet.

 

[jcraft 10+ year member]

OKay, I will be installing over the weekend so let me see if I have this right. So I should leave my HU set to sub out. THat way I can adjust the sub level via my HU. Then run another set of RCA cables from front (LR) jacks to the 4 channel amp. Then split each with a Y and use the 4 inputs on new amp. I know I would be losing fade control then but I would rather have sub control from HU. Is this the best option then. I have heard that splitting the RCA's is bad and the HU could overheat or something. Just making sure this is the best option. Thx

 

[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

happy new year!