Wiring Amp & Sub

[diesel_kid 10+ year member]

Hey there, I am really new to wiring up stuff for car audio with the exception of hooking up my Headunit. What I need to know is how to hook up power-amp-my sub. Do I just run a fused power wire to my amp directly from the battery, or do I tap it into the ignition? From there I just run wires straight out of the amp to the sub, what about the RCA cables that come out of my Headunit, what do they connect too? Im sorry if these are stupid questions, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Jared

BTW- Its an Alpine 9835 HU, Xtant 403A Amp, Arc Audio Arc 12 D4.

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[dannyt 10+ year member]

1. yes, power wire with fuse from battery to battery terminal on the amp

2. rca cables run from your preouts of your headunit to the line-in terminals of your amp.

 

[jaygeorge1979 10+ year member]

danny is right...you will also need a ground wire that is the same guage as the power wire grounded somewhere in the trunk...also, there is a remote turn on wire, usually light blue color, coming out of the head unit that needs to be hooked up to the remote turn on terminal on the amp....this will tell the amplifier when to power-on (that is, whenever the head unit is on)...usually, you dont want to run the RCA cables near the power wire coming from the battery....run the RCAs on one side of the car and the power cable on the other....hope this helps

 

[diesel_kid 10+ year member]

Thanks guys, alright I think thats everything except size for the wire. For my 400W Xtant (underrated quite a bit I hear) for the main power to the amp I should run 4gauge with a 40amp fuse, then for the sub channel run 8 gauge with a 20 amp fuse right? Or should I just run the one fuse? Thanks.

 

[jaygeorge1979 10+ year member]

I dont quite understand what you mean...the main power to the amp should be the only fused wire you need...i dont understand what "sub channel" you are talking about, unless you mean the amps speaker output terminals, which, in that case, you wont need a fused wire....the only wires you need to run the amp is:

4 gauge fused power wire

ground wire

remote lead wire

RCA's from head unit

speaker wire of your choose from the amp to your subs

that is, unless i missed something important here...anybody else understand what he means?

 

[blackgeltabs 5,000+ posts]

Thanks guys, alright I think thats everything except size for the wire. For my 400W Xtant (underrated quite a bit I hear) for the main power to the amp I should run 4gauge with a 40amp fuse, then for the sub channel run 8 gauge with a 20 amp fuse right? Or should I just run the one fuse? Thanks.

Your remote wire will be blue with a white stripe.

You will only need one power wire for the amp. That will power the front 2 channes and the sub channel. You will also probably need a 4 channel RCA cable. 4awg will be overkill, you could easily get away with 8awg. Do 4awg if you plan on upgrading in the furture.

Make sure main fuse going on the power wire to the amp is no more than 18" from the battery.

 

[diesel_kid 10+ year member]

Yeah sorry about the mixup I thought that you might have to fuse the output to the sub from the Amp, I guess not.

The fusing requirements from Xtant on that 403A is a 60amp fuse close the Amp? I thought that I had to go to say a 20 or 25 amp fuse to protect the wire from burning up if I get 8 gauge, and 40 amp if I go with 4 gauge? I was thinking running 4 gauge for power & Ground, 8 gauge on my Sub output, and 12 gauge for my Component Outputs, does this sound alright?

For the remote & RCA inputs should I just use the stock wire size that my HU is using? Also I thought on my HU I only remember one pair of RCAs, yet this amp has room for three sets. This seems like a pretty complicated amp but I think I should be able to hook it up. Thanks.

 

[NewJan06]

when your tie in your fuse from the battery try and make as close as you can to the battery like 6-12 inches that should give you a good fuse.

 

[blackgeltabs 5,000+ posts]

Go with 4awg bigger is always better //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif If the amps fuse ratings are 60amp then I would fuse the main line with a 50 amp fuse. Wire your sub with 12awg and 16awg for your components