Out of the Box Install Question

Jhold87 · Jul 1, 2020

Hey Everyone, looking for some guidance and this one may be hard to follow, appreciate the help in advance.

2018 Honda Accord Sport (Base Radio, No Factory Amplifier)
Car Comes with 8 Speakers, it has Four Tweeters and Four Mids., essentially four sets of components except they are NOT linked together or put into any external crossover, its 8 different channels coming out of the factory head unit, all of the crossover etc. is done internally in the deck.

My current setup consists of Factory Head unit, the speaker / line level output from the front speaker Mids. going into an Audiocontrol LC2i, which is then tied into an aftermarket mono amp / subwoofer, thus taking care of the bass aspect.

Now with that taken care of, I want to look into upgrading the door speaker situation – this is where things get tricky. My goal here is to add a second four channel amplifier to be put on door duty, trying to find the best way to make this a reality.

here’s some ideas I’ve come up with so far, and frankly the easiest approach (if it works):

The Audiocontrol L2Ci has two sets of outputs, one labeled BASS which is already being used by my subwoofer, and a second un-used set labeled MAIN, which is a full-range pass through.
I purchase a 4-channel amplifier – I then use an RCA Splitter, going from 2 RCAs to 4, and I hook the four RCA Inputs on the 4-channel amp to the Audiocontrol LC2i’s two Main Outputs – thus giving signal to all 4 channels. The only downside I see to this is that I lose the ability to fade front to rear, as the source-signal is front-only, but im fine with that.
With the input out of the way – the output gets even trickier. Essentially attempting to wire up 8 independent speakers into a four-channel amplifier – here’s my thoughts
Channel 1: 2x Front Tweeters (High passed)
Channel 2: 2x Rear Tweeters (High passed)
Channel 3: 2x Front Mids. (Low passed)
Channel 4: 2x Rear Mids. (Low passed)

Is this possible or have I just completely gone off the deep end? I have would expect each speaker is 4 ohms, meaning wiring two into 1 circuit would turn it into a 2-ohm load, but the amp is capable of that.

Am I off my rocker? This seems really basic and really easy if this is actually possible.

1aespinoza · Jul 2, 2020

The only issue I foresee is that if you connect to the midrange output, is that you may not have highs on the amp's output side. Now the radio may be sending a full signal to those mids, only by testing you shall find out. On another note, the way you want to set up, instead of balance, it will fade. I would instead wire a full channel to each corner. Then I would add a passive cross over to each set of speakers. Most four channel amps have signal summing. Look for this feature to avoid using a y splitter.

Lasherž · Jul 4, 2020

Jhold87 said:
Hey Everyone, looking for some guidance and this one may be hard to follow, appreciate the help in advance.

2018 Honda Accord Sport (Base Radio, No Factory Amplifier)

Car Comes with 8 Speakers, it has Four Tweeters and Four Mids., essentially four sets of components except they are NOT linked together or put into any external crossover, its 8 different channels coming out of the factory head unit, all of the crossover etc. is done internally in the deck.

My current setup consists of Factory Head unit, the speaker / line level output from the front speaker Mids. going into an Audiocontrol LC2i, which is then tied into an aftermarket mono amp / subwoofer, thus taking care of the bass aspect.

Now with that taken care of, I want to look into upgrading the door speaker situation – this is where things get tricky. My goal here is to add a second four channel amplifier to be put on door duty, trying to find the best way to make this a reality.

here’s some ideas I’ve come up with so far, and frankly the easiest approach (if it works):

The Audiocontrol L2Ci has two sets of outputs, one labeled BASS which is already being used by my subwoofer, and a second un-used set labeled MAIN, which is a full-range pass through.

I purchase a 4-channel amplifier – I then use an RCA Splitter, going from 2 RCAs to 4, and I hook the four RCA Inputs on the 4-channel amp to the Audiocontrol LC2i’s two Main Outputs – thus giving signal to all 4 channels. The only downside I see to this is that I lose the ability to fade front to rear, as the source-signal is front-only, but im fine with that.

With the input out of the way – the output gets even trickier. Essentially attempting to wire up 8 independent speakers into a four-channel amplifier – here’s my thoughts

Channel 1: 2x Front Tweeters (High passed)

Channel 2: 2x Rear Tweeters (High passed)

Channel 3: 2x Front Mids. (Low passed)

Channel 4: 2x Rear Mids. (Low passed)

Is this possible or have I just completely gone off the deep end? I have would expect each speaker is 4 ohms, meaning wiring two into 1 circuit would turn it into a 2-ohm load, but the amp is capable of that.

Am I off my rocker? This seems really basic and really easy if this is actually possible.

View attachment 22374

Some things to be aware of with the Honda Accords, their rear speakers have weak range so while it's tempting to tap them for a signal since the wiring is easy to access, the front door speakers make much better targets for that. This was the case on the 2014's, but you can test for yourself with a 50hz tone. On the 14's you won't be able to hear the tone when you fade to the back.

KICKER | Test Tones

KICKER produces high-performance car audio, vehicle specific solutions, marine audio, home and personal audio, and power sports products since 1973.

www.kicker.com

Secondly, most factory speakers are going to be 4 ohms, and most factory subwoofers are going to be single voice coil 2 ohms. This isn't trustworthy though and you'll want to test the resistance of at least a tweeter and a mid-range driver to be sure. Speakers will read between 2/3 and 3/4 of the impedance value as a resistance value on a multimeter. The tweeter in the corner of the windows is easily accessible for a reading, so are the rear deck drivers from the bottom.

Thirdly, if you want to maintain the fader and balance functionalities controls inside the head unit then you'll need either another LC2i or to upgrade to one with broader inputs so you can tap the FL, FR, RL, and RR speakers. Such as this one:

AudioControl LC7i (Black)

6-channel line output converter with bass restoration — adds aftermarket subs and amps to a factory system

www.crutchfield.com

Otherwise your fader and balance will only be present on the amp controls, which is pretty inconvenient to fix the gains if you mess with them. The amp should usually be used to match all the speaker volumes and then be left alone while the head unit controls fader and balance so you don't mess up the gain knobs.

In my opinion maintaining fader and balance is less important than a good quality signal. I think your first step should be running different tones through your head unit and see which tones are produced in what speakers. If you get equal response from each of them then by all means maintain fader, but if like my Accord you notice the rear speakers are missing a big chunk of range then tapping that chopped signal is a bit of a waste of time and money.

The way that I would do this particular system is to leave the tweeters alone with the factory head unit and only worry about connecting the mid range speakers to the amp. Then if you want to replace the tweeters use component sets and wire each of their boxes up to each channel, this has the effect of what 1aespinoza was saying. I don't think you're going to damage your head unit or your factory tweeters if they remain connected to stock and I think you'll still be able to hear them loud and clear. Treble suffers much less than other tones when your car's rolling.

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