Some more questions regarding install (should be easy to answer)

[JL12W7INAGS300 10+ year member]

Thanks for all of the answers from my last post on installing a head unit in my car. I have almost all of my questions answered except for a few....

I have 6 speakers (two tweeeters, two in the front, two in the back)

The amp in the head unit is 20 watts RMS/50 peak x 4 channels

Question one - Will this be suffecient wattage for my stock speakers. I know they are 4ohm, and I believe they are 15 watt, maybe a little more.

Question two - I will be running new wires from my stock speakers to the head unit. The head unit has RCA plug ins in the back. Is there a convertor or something I need for the wire to turn into an RCA plug

Question three - Can I still hook my tweeters up by splicing into the wires going to my front speakers?

The car is a 1998 Lexus GS300 - The head unit will be the JVC KD-AVX2.

Thanks a lot guys!

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[headless 10+ year member]

I have 6 speakers (two tweeeters, two in the front, two in the back)The amp in the head unit is 20 watts RMS/50 peak x 4 channels

Question one - Will this be suffecient wattage for my stock speakers. I know they are 4ohm, and I believe they are 15 watt, maybe a little more.

sufficient is subjective; you'll have to try it and see at what point the internal amp of the deck starts clipping. IMO you're wasting your time buying a 400$ screen and not even amping your speakers, but it's your setup and i wouldn't use stock speakers either, //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Question two - I will be running new wires from my stock speakers to the head unit. The head unit has RCA plug ins in the back. Is there a convertor or something I need for the wire to turn into an RCA plug

The deck should have a wiring harness that has pairs of outputs for all 4 channels of audio it can amplify. The RCA's you see are for PRE AMPLIFIER outputs and are not suited to driving a speaker

Question three - Can I still hook my tweeters up by splicing into the wires going to my front speakers?

Maybe. Note that if you 'splice the wires' you'll be adjusting the load your deck's amplifier sees. 2 4 ohm loads in series = 8ohm resistance, 2 4 ohm loads in parallel = 2 ohms. If you run it in series you're going to get less output overall but your internal deck's amp is probably not going to like a 2ohm load.

Long story short, if you want to run 6 speakers you should spend 100$ and buy an amplifier. Even a cheap 4x50watt would blow the shit out of the pathetic excuse for amps that are used inside these decks. If you're trying to run these 6 speakers off the deck amp along with a properly amplified JL 12W7 i would say you're crazy; the w7 is going to utterly drown anything those speakers can produce on 40w of power combined.

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

in a nutshell.

no, you cant run 6 speakers off just a 4 channel headunit. and the headunit says 20x4 - but in all actuality , thats at like 30% distortion. try 10~15w x 4.

 

[azbass 5,000+ posts]

x2!

stop doing that unless you are actually gona post somthing of value.

 

[Ingleside 10+ year member]

if you're going to go this route there is a good chance that only one set of speaker wires go to each front door where they then go to a crossover and then to the tweet and mid.

instead of running new wire to each door why don't you just run speaker wires from your deck to the factory amp and catch the stock speaker wires there. it might save you a lot of time. if your stock amp has 4 channels you should be good to go.

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Question one - Will this be suffecient wattage for my stock speakers. I know they are 4ohm, and I believe they are 15 watt, maybe a little more.

Question two - I will be running new wires from my stock speakers to the head unit. The head unit has RCA plug ins in the back. Is there a convertor or something I need for the wire to turn into an RCA plug

Question three - Can I still hook my tweeters up by splicing into the wires going to my front speakers?

1: NO

2: //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif crackhead

3: **** no....

805 posts, I hope your joking but I figure you would have been around long enough to know this basic stuff.... if not I'm sure your product manuals or a quick SEARCH can help you wire it up

 

[JL12W7INAGS300 10+ year member]

1: NO
2: //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif crackhead

3: **** no....

805 posts, I hope your joking but I figure you would have been around long enough to know this basic stuff.... if not I'm sure your product manuals or a quick SEARCH can help you wire it up

I searched for a lot of things and found answers to a huge majority of my questions, these were some of the more specific questions I was looking to get answered so the search function wouldn't do much for me.

I have everything figured out as far as wiring goes and thank you guys for all of the answers to my questions.

Does anyone know what mode I should run the speakers in? Mono or stero? Thanks

 

[Ingleside 10+ year member]

how do you have it wired up?

and how would you run it in mono? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eyebrow.gif.fe2c18d8720fe8c7eaed347b21ea05a5.gif

or am i missing something here

 

[JL12W7INAGS300 10+ year member]

Sorry stupid question, I just realized what I asked hahaha.

I will wire the four speakers directly to the head unit. I will loose my tweaters but I plan on upgrading my componets and amp in the near future. This set up is just temporary until I get everything else hooked up

 

[ilvwhtgrls 10+ year member]

You can run the front speakers and tweeters in series to have all 6 speakers work.

 

[KaeZoo 10+ year member]

You can run the front speakers and tweeters in series to have all 6 speakers work.

You can not run a woofer and tweeter in series if you plan to use a crossover on the tweeter, which is always a good idea.

However, there is a good chance that Ingleside is correct, and that the factory system uses a passive crossover on the tweeter. If so, both the woofer and tweeter are running from the same amplifier channel, and it would be pretty simple to just hook it up to your head unit instead. Then you wouldn't lose the tweeters. Most of the Toyota amplified systems I have seen work this way, but I'm not familiar with the Pioneer system in the Lexus.

 

[Ingleside 10+ year member]

However, there is a good chance that Ingleside is correct, and that the factory system uses a passive crossover on the tweeter. If so, both the woofer and tweeter are running from the same amplifier channel, and it would be pretty simple to just hook it up to your head unit instead. Then you wouldn't lose the tweeters. Most of the Toyota amplified systems I have seen work this way, but I'm not familiar with the Pioneer system in the Lexus.

exactly!

how do you think shops bypass the factory amps on alot of cars? they run wires from the headunit to the factory amp where the wires to the doors all meet up.

in my subaru the stock system had speaker wire go to the door and then there it went though a very simple high pass/low pass passive crossover. it might be the same in the lexus.

to really make sure find the factory amp, disconnect the speaker wires and with a DMM check how many ohms are present. if you have 4 all around then just hook up the speaker wires from the headunit to the speakers wires at the amp. you won't be using the amp, just the speaker wires that come off of it.

 

[JL12W7INAGS300 10+ year member]

I just took the front panel off of my car and the front right/left speaker both say 2ohm! But.. my rear speakers are both 4ohm. The front tweeters plug into this little case around the speaker. Do you think if I unplug the tweeter the speaker would go back to 4ohm? How would I check the ohms with a DMM..