First amp install

[grant862 10+ year member]

So i got some boston acoustic s55 and s953 in my car with an apline 9847 hu and no sub but im going to get an orion 4004 amp for the 4 speakers i have in my car. this is going to be my first amp install ever, not really knowing what im doing other than some common sense and a general idea. whould you recommend me getting a amp install kit and if so what kind would be best for me or what should i be looking for and if you have any other words of wisdom for a newbie doing this install that would be greatly appreciated.... Thanks

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[kuijo 10+ year member]

Talk to johnecon2001 he'll get you hooked up with whatever wires you need to install it for cheap. YOu'll need a power and ground wire some RCAS and speaker wire.

Make it look nice the first time.

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

http://www.knukonceptz.com for a wire kit. get the 4 guage kit for that amp.

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

also, a little tip. if you arent worried about stock wiring, do this.

behind your HU, you have four sets of wires going to each respective speaker. find the FRONT LEFT , and REAR LEFT speaker leads (lots of times there is a wiring diagram on the hu) and snip them, and connect them, now you have a wire that runs from your front left speaker, through the car, to the rear left speaker. do the same for the right side.

now get to your rear speakers, and disconnect them. run brand new wires from the rear speakers to the amp, and extend the stock rear speakers to the amp.

your stock rear speaker leads, are now convienently ran through your car and through the door jamb and are now your front speaker leads.

it should save you a shitload of speaker wire, and it will save about 2 hours of wire running.

if you insist on running your own wire to your front speakers, be my guest.

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

also, a little tip. if you arent worried about stock wiring, do this.
behind your HU, you have four sets of wires going to each respective speaker. find the FRONT LEFT , and REAR LEFT speaker leads (lots of times there is a wiring diagram on the hu) and snip them, and connect them, now you have a wire that runs from your front left speaker, through the car, to the rear left speaker. do the same for the right side.

now get to your rear speakers, and disconnect them. run brand new wires from the rear speakers to the amp, and extend the stock rear speakers to the amp.

your stock rear speaker leads, are now convienently ran through your car and through the door jamb and are now your front speaker leads.

it should save you a shitload of speaker wire, and it will save about 2 hours of wire running.

if you insist on running your own wire to your front speakers, be my guest.

that's not a bad idea. if you have a factory amp i wouldn't recommend doing that because i did and the double amplification sounded like pure ***.

 

[grant862 10+ year member]

gracias

 

[grant862 10+ year member]

also, a little tip. if you arent worried about stock wiring, do this.
behind your HU, you have four sets of wires going to each respective speaker. find the FRONT LEFT , and REAR LEFT speaker leads (lots of times there is a wiring diagram on the hu) and snip them, and connect them, now you have a wire that runs from your front left speaker, through the car, to the rear left speaker. do the same for the right side.

now get to your rear speakers, and disconnect them. run brand new wires from the rear speakers to the amp, and extend the stock rear speakers to the amp.

your stock rear speaker leads, are now convienently ran through your car and through the door jamb and are now your front speaker leads.

it should save you a shitload of speaker wire, and it will save about 2 hours of wire running.

if you insist on running your own wire to your front speakers, be my guest.

If i did that wouldnt i still have to run new wires from the amp to my front speakers?

 

[QuikSilverRS91 10+ year member]

Alright, first of all that's the half-*** way of doing it.

That's got to be the most haggard idea for a 4-channel install I've ever heard of. Basically, he would only be running two channels.... so let's see... he's going to buy a 4 channel amp and then wire it up so he can only balance left and right, and it will sound terrible.

You've got good stuff in there man... I mean it's not like Boston's products are particularly cheap - DO THE INSTALL RIGHT.

You might consider having a professional install done on that 4-channel, and then try your hand at a sub amp first to get used to it and test your installation abilities.

Anyway, assuming you're going to continue with this by yourself, what kind of car is it? (make, model, year)

You would want to run new wiring all the way up behind the deck for all four speakers, OR (and this is especially true in a factory amplified system) rewire directly to the speakers from the amp. The factory has already done the work for you running wires to the speakers, so why do it over (this is assuming the wiring is still in good condition, if the car is very old or the wiring is noticably starting to go downhill you should rewire it directly to the speakers).

Anyway, find some good tutorials that will go step-by-step with you, if you want a good one and you want to make sure it's done correctly, I'll write one for you.

 

[grant862 10+ year member]

Its a 94 bmw 318. so the battery is in the trunk, which makes things easier for me seeing how the amp is going in the trunk. the factory wiring is intact so my plan if i cant figure out how to take the dash apart to run new wiring from the HU was to just extent the factory wiring from each of the 4 speakers to my amp and then run new wiring from my amp back to the speakers. sound like a good plan or should i try to run new wiring from the HU to the amp.

 

[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

just do what req said. the guy above you obviously didn't read the whole post, because you would not be running only 2 channels, and it saves you the time of running wires through the car, when they are already run.

 

[QuikSilverRS91 10+ year member]

Yeah it saves you time but lets see...

If you tie the rears and fronts together and then run wire directly from the amp to the rears, it would be only two channels you smart ***.

If you're looping the left front off the left rear, you can only control the whole loop as one, and same for the right.

ALSO, lets think about timing. If you wire directly to the rears from the amp with lets say 16 awg wire like he probably will, thats about 3 feet of 16 awg wire. Pretty good.

But now if you loop the front through the rears, the signal has to travel throught the 3 ft of 16awg wire, another 17 feet of about 18-20awg factory wire to the head unit, and then about another 14 feet of 18-20awg factory wire to the fronts. The smaller wire has a higher resistance... this creates a small delay between when the signal reaches the fronts and when it reaches the rear, not to mention putting a nice fat strain on the amp that doesn't need to be there. Why do it half assed? If you run all 4 sets of wires up behind the deck then you can control each individual speaker. You can't do that with that haggard looping method you call an install.

Being that it is a BMW.... My advice is just to run wire directly from the amp to the speakers - it will take a little longer but in the long run you know it was done right and with quality.

 

[00PewterSS 10+ year member]

Yeah it saves you time but lets see...If you tie the rears and fronts together and then run wire directly from the amp to the rears, it would be only two channels you smart ***.

If you're looping the left front off the left rear, you can only control the whole loop as one, and same for the right.

ALSO, lets think about timing. If you wire directly to the rears from the amp with lets say 16 awg wire like he probably will, thats about 3 feet of 16 awg wire. Pretty good.

But now if you loop the front through the rears, the signal has to travel throught the 3 ft of 16awg wire, another 17 feet of about 18-20awg factory wire to the head unit, and then about another 14 feet of 18-20awg factory wire to the fronts. The smaller wire has a higher resistance... this creates a small delay between when the signal reaches the fronts and when it reaches the rear, not to mention putting a nice fat strain on the amp that doesn't need to be there. Why do it half assed? If you run all 4 sets of wires up behind the deck then you can control each individual speaker. You can't do that with that haggard looping method you call an install.

Being that it is a BMW.... My advice is just to run wire directly from the amp to the speakers - it will take a little longer but in the long run you know it was done right and with quality.

You can control 4 speakers, no idea what you are talking about. He would just run 2 sets of RCA's off his head unit.

He is only pushing 50W RMS with that amp, though 30' of smaller gage wire isn't the greatest idea it should work just fine. Electricity runs thru wires pretty quick compared to how quickly sound waves travel thru air. I would be shocked if you can hear a phase lag between running thru 5' of wire vs. 30' of wire that would be more significant that speaker placement.

I would run the wires direct also, but the idea of using existing wire should be transparent to the install.

Brian

 

[QuikSilverRS91 10+ year member]

Well yeah I mean it's gonna be a minimal lag... but the resistance is higher so the fronts wouldn't get as much wattage as the rears. But how can he control all four speakers if he is using a setup with two loops? Basically it would be wiring two speakers in parallel in each loop.. and if the two speakers are on the same loop you would only be able to control the loop and not the individual drivers. (sorry for the excessive use of the word loop)

Anyway maybe I missed something in the original post, let me know if I'm wrong on this.