1. When I install my amp should I get my signal before or after the stock amp? What would be the pros and cons of this choice?

2. And where are the speaker wires for the tweeters in the dash, is there a crossover where the Door speakers signal is split with the tweets, or is it its own wire out of the amp?

Any help would be great.
Thanks

 

Here is my take:

1) I would imagine you would want to get the signal directly from the head unit since, I would guess, passing the signal through any other processor first (like an amp), would degrade the signal before it gets to your aftermarket amp.

2) In most stock systems the component speakers are not crossed over between the mids and the tweets. The mids in the doors might be running full range and the tweets just have a filter to keep from reproducing anything other than the high frequencies. I've had stock systems that also had the filter on the mids so the mids were not running full range....but not an actual crossover.

A caveat here....I am not a techie or an installer, this is just an example of what I have experienced in the past when upgrading with aftermarket equipment.

 

1). You will get a cleaner signal by using the wires before the amp. Problem- They are low level signal, so you must use them as RCA input directly. No Line level converted needed. Scroll down the page to get pin out and wiring color. These colors are correct, I have personally verified it.
Audio Wiring

2). Normally a manufacture will design the system with the crossover built into a amp, not with the TL, the door speakers are run full range and the tweeters only have a Cap crossover on them. You do a real crossover, you will want to drop the wires down through the dash. Place the crossovers in the kick panels and use the factory door speaker wires.

 

People have had success with both approaches. Getting the signal b4 the amp will give you a very very weak signal. This will require to use a preamp (such as the audiocontrol matrix) to boast the signal. This process may also boast any noise (altenator, engine) along with the signal. You can run the signal directly (once you convert the + and - to RCAs) to your amps without the matrix but you need to set your gains on your amp very high which may result in more noise.

You can get the signal after the amp. This is a high level signal and will require you to bring the signal down so that it can be fed into your amps. For this you will need Line Out Converters ( such as the Matrix LC6, LC8) . Some amps have this feature so you can wire your speakers line directly to your amp without the need for LOCs.

I got the signal after the amp. I used LOCs from Navone engineering on my install and had great success.

The front doors are full range with a cap on the tweeters. I believe the distribution blocks are behind the glove compartment

Like Adamo0926 said:

A caveat here....I am not a techie or an installer, this is just an example of what I have experienced in the past when upgrading the TL AUDIO SYSTEM.

 

KOP,

Do you know if the factory amp is bridgeable ? My installer is probably going to keep that amp to drive the center channel when I play a DVD Audio disc. In another thread someone correctly noted that the center channel would be overpowered at high volume levels. But if the factory amp has channels that can be bridged then more power could be fed to the center channel, right ?

 

Good question Adamo0926. I don't think it is. Not really sure. You can try to play with the balance and boast the center to have it play louder. That may be all you can do if the stock amp is driving the center.

 

Simple answer! NO. The amp was not designed to see a bridged load. Plus there is no way to bridge a mono amp. Mono means it is single, and a center channel amp would be a mono channel. I hope this helps.
Jason

 

Jason....I didn't mean bridging the center channel from the factory amp. Clearly there is two channel power in there for the front speakers and the rear fill speakers....and I was wondering if either of those 2 channels could be bridged into one.

 

The problem you start running into is retaining the center as a center. If you bridge left and right, it is just a combo of left and right, not center. Still, it was not designed to be bridge on those channels. You would actually lose power by bridge them, as the factory speakers are 2 ohm, your bridge load would be 4 ohm, so you have effectively cut the power in half. But again, the amp is not setup to bridge.
Jason

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you bridge 2 2ohm speakers (parallel) positive to positive and neg to neg, then doesn't that mean you get a 1 ohm load. This would cause the stock amp to over heat and be dead.

 

Yes you would have a 1ohm load. But in order to bridge an amp, it has to be capable of being bridged, and the stock amp is not. Jason

 

^But what he was asking was about bridging 1 4 ohm speaker on the factory amp. Therefore there wouldn't be a change in the impedence load.

Quick guide for determining impendence. Zt is final impendence, Z1 is Impendence 1 and Z2 is Impendence 2. Zn represents any given #.

Speakers in Parallel
Zt = (Z1 x Z2) / (Za + Zb) Zt = (Za x Zb x ... x Zn) / (Za + Zb x ... x Zn)

Parallel is when all resistances share a common + and common -.

Poitive Bus
+ ---------- +
2 ohm 2 ohm
- ----------- -
Negative bus


Speakers in Series
Zt = Z1 + Z2 Zt = Z1 + Z2 + ... + Zn

Series speakers are "daisy chained".

+ ------------- + 2 Ohm - --------------- + 2 Ohm - -------------- -