Speaker Wire into an OE Amp - OK?

[teagueAMX]

Folks I need your collective genius brains to give me some guidance.

I have a ’06 Lincoln Navigator with a bad navigation/THX audio system - sounds good when it works.

I’m replacing it with a Pioneer AVIC-W8500NEX. No one makes a harness for the Navigator’s system, but I’ve figured out the wires EXCEPT into the OE amp.

I figure I have 3 choices:

1. Run my speaker wire outputs directly into the OE amp, but maybe not so good?

2. Use some tricky little parts from Amazon to convert the Pioneer RCA pre-amp outputs
to single wires to feed the OE amp connector.

3. Scrap the OE Amp and install a new 5-channel amp. This sound quick and dirty, but none of the
other audio systems will work. It's like a taking a hatchet to audio system.

I like No. 1 best cus it’s easy and cheap and everything else works in the car the way it's suppose to work. I’m afraid I may be forcing too many positively charged electrons into the factory amp. And, I'm guess impedance issues?

The other thing is the OE subwoofer has it’s own amp.

I don’t want to rewire the whole car.

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[1aespinoza Premium Member]

Why not first do a dry run on option1? Connect your phone or ipod to a single channel of the oem amp to see how it sounds. I do not see why it would not work.

 

[Lasherž]

Folks I need your collective genius brains to give me some guidance.

I have a ’06 Lincoln Navigator with a bad navigation/THX audio system - sounds good when it works.

I’m replacing it with a Pioneer AVIC-W8500NEX. No one makes a harness for the Navigator’s system, but I’ve figured out the wires EXCEPT into the OE amp.

I figure I have 3 choices:

1. Run my speaker wire outputs directly into the OE amp, but maybe not so good?

View attachment 21673

2. Use some tricky little parts from Amazon to convert the Pioneer RCA pre-amp outputs
to single wires to feed the OE amp connector.

View attachment 21667

View attachment 21669

3. Scrap the OE Amp and install a new 5-channel amp. This sound quick and dirty, but none of the
other audio systems will work. It's like a taking a hatchet to audio system.

I like No. 1 best cus it’s easy and cheap and everything else works in the car the way it's suppose to work. I’m afraid I may be forcing too many positively charged electrons into the factory amp. And, I'm guess impedance issues?

The other thing is the OE subwoofer has it’s own amp.

I don’t want to rewire the whole car.

Option 1 or 3 aren't bad. Stock amplifiers in car packages take a high level signal, not RCA signal. Obviously option 3 is going to be better and you'll have more control over what quality you're getting out of it, but option 1 might end up being good enough for free. Option 2 would most likely fail.

 

[teagueAMX]

1aespinoza and Lasher2 - thanks for the suggestions/info.

1aespinoza - I'll check it out.

Lasher2 - I think that was my big question about if it required a high or low level signal to the OE amp.

BTW. on No. 2, I re-thought those hinky little connectors and bought RCA interconnect/patch cables. I cut them down to about 4 inches long and stripped back an inch to expose the 2 wires and the shields. I confirmed the + & -.

But as you mentioned about high level output to the OE amp is really important. Thanks.