Hooking up rear speakers to my headunit?

[J30]

I have a 1993 Infiniti J30 with a JVC KD‑R330 HU. On the back of the HU are 2 rca outputs, a white and a red. My car came with bose 6x9's that had built in amps, so the plugin for the rear 6x9 speakers had 4 wires going to it, two black, one white, and one white with purple stripe.

So I tested the new 6x9 (Alpine type R) with the black and white and the black and white/purple stripe. Curiously, both combos worked but black + black didn't and white + white/purp didn't work either.

I got some 14 gauge wire (they were out of 16) to hook up the rears but I have two questions:

First, since I don't plan on using an amp anytime soon, can't I just use the RCA outputs on my headunit to power the rear speakers? Like, just get some scosche wires from walmart with rca connections on them, and run that to the rears, then splice it into a pos and neg speaker wire to connect to the new 6x9?

Or

Should I run the 14 gauge speaker wire I got from the headunit right to the speakers? I'm confused how to do this because of the 4 wires going to the factory speakers and not just 2.

The factory wire is not very thick so I probably shouldn't use it. Any advice on this? Thanks!

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[maylar 10+ year member]

I have a 1993 Infiniti J30 with a JVC KD‑R330 HU. On the back of the HU are 2 rca outputs, a white and a red. My car came with bose 6x9's that had built in amps, so the plugin for the rear 6x9 speakers had 4 wires going to it, two black, one white, and one white with purple stripe.

2 wires per speaker? OK...

So I tested the new 6x9 (Alpine type R) with the black and white and the black and white/purple stripe. Curiously, both combos worked but black + black didn't and white + white/purp didn't work either.

So the blacks are probably negatives, and the whites are the positives. Sounds logical so far...

I got some 14 gauge wire (they were out of 16) to hook up the rears but I have two questions:
First, since I don't plan on using an amp anytime soon, can't I just use the RCA outputs on my headunit to power the rear speakers? Like, just get some scosche wires from walmart with rca connections on them, and run that to the rears,

No. The RCA outputs can't run speakers. They're for plugging into an external amp.

OrShould I run the 14 gauge speaker wire I got from the headunit right to the speakers? I'm confused how to do this because of the 4 wires going to the factory speakers and not just 2.

The factory wire is not very thick so I probably shouldn't use it. Any advice on this? Thanks!

I'm confused too.. are you trying to run 1 speaker where there were 2? You can't do that.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

the factory speakers do have built-in amps on them. so the 4 wires include amp power (12V pos and ground) and audio input (pos and neg). a DMM will tell you what wires are for power.

with an aftermarket HU - just eliminate the factory amplified speakers. run new wire from the HU to the new speakers. i never use stock wiring with Infinity or Bose systems.

 

[J30]

Good and bad news. Good news is that I found the stereo wires actually said pos/neg rear left and rear right, which made it pretty easy to match up the 14 gauge I had to the rear 6x9's. The bad news is, instead of getting new connecters I was going to solder the 14g to the old connector and I think I held on the soldering pencil for too long. The front 4" speaker I had started to sound really muddy and then died. Now the radio turns on for 1 second and then shuts off. HOPEFULLY this is a fuse somewhere. Any ideas?

I was soldering the new 14 gauge wire that goes directly to the rear 6x9 and wasn't hooked up to the headunit yet so I am confused about what exactly happened.

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

You probably shorted one of the speaker lines and the radio is upset with you.

 

[J30]

You probably shorted one of the speaker lines and the radio is upset with you.

How to know which wire though....At the time, the 6x9's were connected in the rear but just sitting in my lap waiting to be connected. I don't understand why the radio now does not work, that is very strange. The new 14 gauge wire was only connected to the 6x9's. I guess I will inspect that 14 gauge wire and look for imperfections.

 

[J30]

I got it. Not sure what was wrong.