speaker wire instead of rcas?

[pbnj22 10+ year member]

on a boat (which doesnt matter but) with a head unit, 4 channel amp and 4 speakers, could you use speaker wire to go from the radio to the amp and then to the speakers? versus the traditional rcas from radio to amp, then speaker wire to speakers? the manual for the kit had both ways as an option but i can only imagine the rcas would be much better. any thought?

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[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

It doesn't make a difference to the amplifier how it gets the signal if it supports high level/speaker level inputs. If you don't want to run RCAs then use speaker wire. Just keep the signal wire away from electric motors and things like that which radiate RF energy, which is the same as you would do in a car.

 

[THATpurpleKUSH 5,000+ posts]

You can do it, but most amps require a special harness that is usually packaged with the amp from the factory. Another option is using a line out converter, which splices into your speaker wires and converts the signal into an rca output and you use rca cables to hook that up to the aftermarket amp. The downside to using a line out converter occurs when you are using it for a subwoofer, since there is no low pass filter, you speakers will still receive a full spectrum signal, so they will still try and play bass and they will sound muddy.