Factory and Aftermarket H/U

[Goldenknob 10+ year member]

What is required to have a factory and aftermarket headunit both installed? My Ex wants to me to install a spare cd deck that I have into her car. she currently has the factory unit, only a tape and radio deck, in and dosn't want it taken out. Do I need any sort of signal converter or anything to have both hooked up.. would I just splice all the wires together? she dosn't have anything fancy everything is factory in her car. there is no sense in telling her to change any of it because she would just rather not have a cd player if it's going to cost money (a real penny pincher). anyone have any recommendations?

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[andy1234 10+ year member]

protable cd player with a tape converter

 

[Goldenknob 10+ year member]

ok.... as I stated... I am installing a headunit into her car that has a cd player.. along with her existing factory headunit with a tape player.. so she can have the best of both worlds... she isn't a audio fanatic.

 

[KaeZoo 10+ year member]

It is much Much MUCH more trouble that it's worth to try and run two head units to the same speaker sets. No, you CAN'T just splice all the wires together unless you want to fry them both. What kind of car is this?

 

[btmorris972 10+ year member]

why would she still wanna keep her factory radio?? tell her she can put the factory hu back in at a later date incase she wants to sell the car.

 

[Goldenknob 10+ year member]

this is a ford thunderbird. a 92? or something in the 90's model. she uses her tape player.. that's why she wants to keep it in... she won't use both at the same time, obviously.

 

[linvillegorge 10+ year member]

The previous poster suggesting using a portable CD player with the tape deck converter probably had the most practical idea. If your wife isn't an audiophile, why bother with a horribly complicated install?

 

[PhatTonyDeMarco 5,000+ posts]

Post some pics of this woman, so we can decide how you should wire this up...

 

[Goldenknob 10+ year member]

here you are... now can you help? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/veryhappy.gif.fec4fed33b4a1279cf10bdd45a039dae.gif

 

[Goldenknob 10+ year member]

no portables.. I'd like this install to look and work decent I know I could just splice the speaker wires together or just run another set to the speakers... the only thing is that she would have to make sure only one was on at a time.

 

[KaeZoo 10+ year member]

no portables.. I'd like this install to look and work decent I know I could just splice the speaker wires together or just run another set to the speakers... the only thing is that she would have to make sure only one was on at a time.

Nice if it was that easy. Unfortunately, if two different outputs are wired up to one set of speakers, then the output that is playing will be sending voltage directly into the output that isn't playing, as well as to the speakers. Chances are the first one you play will be the last one you play.

You can do it by using 4PDT relays, activated by the aftermarket head unit's remote output, and wired so that they switch the speaker connections from the old head unit to the new head unit when it's powered on. Way more trouble than it's worth, IMO.

If your new head unit has an aux input, I suppose you could use the old head unit as an aux source with a line-out converter.