Gpump

I have never used a LOC before, so please bear with me. For those of you who have added amps using line out converters I was thinking about trying to wire my setup so that I could use the factory fade/balance functions (I have navi). I pulled out the bin, which one is the amp and anyone have colors of wires to each speaker? I was wondering if it is possible to patch a LOC in such a way as to preserve the left/right/front/rear control with an otherwise stock setup (like catch the speaker wires as soon as they leave the amp)?
Also, when I took apart one of my rear doors, I measured the distance from the sheet metal to the structural bar in the door as 3 inches, but most are saying that you need a .25 inch spacer to provide enough room for woofer excursion with a speaker that has a 2 inch depth - I cannot reconcile my observations with what y'all have found, any suggestions?
I'm prolly gonna put polk db's in the doors, sub in the trunk, lose the 6x9's, plus/minus components in front - thanks, sorry all I offer to this forum are questions --Brian

mojo_RENAMED

The problem I had was not with depth of the speakers or magnets- it was the width. The hole that is currently in the car simply isn't wide enough to allow a normal 6.5" speaker to fall into place- the back bracket of the speaker hits the frame before the mounting flange comes in contact with the metal. If you look at the stock speaker, there's hardly any bracket behind it. But a normal speaker must come off the metal so that the bracket clears and the flange has something to screw into.

I hope this is clear- it's hard to explain...

Gpump

Gotcha - didn't think of it like that - that opening is a pentagon shape I think, really strange but oh well. Thanks - any suggestions as to the LOC part?--Brian

accsuperstar

hey gpump. i am actually working on a audio system myself. i am planning on running diamond s600 comps in the front and just get some real fillers in the back. i will add a sub later on, but will use the 6x9s for now until i get a sub.

as for your wiring setup, that was what i was planning on doing. i have the big helms manual and it lists the color codes for the wires.

on the bigger connector that runs to the amp.....

IT LOOKS LIKE THIS

LEFT SIDE OF | A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | A5 | A6 | A7 | A8 | A9 | A10 | RIGHT SIDE OF
CONNECTOR |A11|A12|A13|A14|A15|A16|A17|A18|A19| A20 | CONNECTOR


A1 right tweeter + blk/red
A11 right tweeter - pink/blk
A2 front passenger + grn/yel
A12 front passenger - gry/red
A3 front driver + grn/blk
A13 front driver - light green
A4 left tweeter + blue/orange
A14 left tweeter - gray/blue
A5 right rear speaker (6x9) + pink
A15 right rear speaker (6x9) - blue/yellow
A6 left rear speaker (6x9) + white
A16 left rear speaker (6x9) - green
A7 right rear door speaker + pink/blue
A17 right rear door speaker - blue/orange
A8 left rear door speaker + pink/blue
A18 left rear door speaker - purple
A9 ACC (main stereo power supply) yellow/red
A19 not used
A10 constant power white/blue
A20 ground black

i will post a scan of it if you need it. this should be good enough to give you a general idea of the wire connector colors. if you have any questions just email me @ accsuperstar@hotmail.com

e_lectro

If you are going to bypass the amp, lets not worry about the stock amp with a LOC. Get the signal before it gets into the amp. The signal going into the amp is RCA level (I'm pretty sure), and covers 4 channels (left/right for front and rear).

I wish I could scan you the pages and post them here... but they'll be more than 1 byte big.

I'll look into a way of hosting them so you can see the amp location and what all of the wires are.

e_lectro

damn, accsueprstar beat me to the post! lol

accsuperstar

lol that post took me like 1 hour, b/c i went to eat halfway

e_lectro

you win the award for the longest time writting a post, go celebrate lol

Gpump

Thanks for the info guys
E lectro - are you saying that the stock amp is actually a four channel setup running 8 speakers in parallel (2 ohms)? If so, then I will need to get a beefier amp that can accomodate that too cuz after I interrupt the signal to the stock amp I won't have any tweeters/6X9 anymore. I didn't see any RCA style connectors last night, but I will look again (assuming that is what you meant in your post). Thank you both for the assistance. Take care---Brian

e_lectro

The amp is an 8 channel amp with a 4 channel input. There are no RCA 'looking' connectors into the amp, the connectors are part of the 'B' wiring harness. If accsueprstar doesn't beat me to it, I'll post the pin-out of that harness for you later.

Gpump

OK, now that poses another potential obstacle. My amp is a four channel amp, I can run the 8 speakers off of it no problemo. HOWEVER, it only has 2 sets of inputs (A and B) so I cannot figure out a way to preserve the balance AND fader functions of the stock system without just tapping into the speaker wires individually with the LOC - am I missing something or is there a way (maybe an adapter of sorts?) that I can use the RCA outputs without losing fade and balance?

e_lectro

The amp has 2 sets of inputs, A and B, so you either want a 4-channel LOC. Look at the N-774 or N-774V here.

You could take the amp outputs for the front and rear door speakers as the inputs to those LOC. Take one set of outputs to the A input of your amp, the second set to the B input. They are kinda pricey, so you could get 2 normal LOCs and do the same thing, but that might cost even more.

If you wanted to skip this and try skiping the OEM amp like I was talking about before, you could take the 4 outputs of the deck to the inputs of the amp. Just get a set of cheap RCA cables, cut the wires about a foot from the end, and we can make RCA outs from the headunit.

Before we get to how to connect them, here is the connector info I promised you:
Here is how you would connect these wires to the RCAs.

This should work, but I have not tested it myself. I would say try one channel first and see how it goes. If it does work, this way would also give you a better quality sound. It kinda sucks to have a low signal, amplify it, take it back down, and then bring it up again.

Never the less, either way would preserve both fader and balance.

mojo_RENAMED

Sorry e_lectro- I meant to get around to this before you had to type all that up. I've posted a copy of the manual page with that diagram here. Sorry- I don't remember the source...

e_lectro

gee, how unacceptable is that? the pic and text is all crooked! lol
glad to see the scan up somewhere

moda_way

If you want a really nice LOC, check out Partsexpress.com. They are located near to me. These LOCs are small and less expensive. The only concern I had was the input signal strength from the TSX radio. I'm not certain what wattage it is putting out.

Gpump

Thanks Mojo and E lectro - will try to get the speakers soon. For my clarification, then, I will need to run the 6X9 and the rear speaker on one side off of the same output in parallel- I'm still a little fuzzy on how I can control both fade and balance if I completely bypass the stock amp given I only have 2 sets of inputs. Maybe I should get another amp or am I missing something (ie do the white and red rca inputs each contribute a separate input that only sends a signal to one of the output channels?- thinking functionally here). I apologize if my lack of basic knowledge is making this more difficult than it has to be. Thanks for all of y'all's time/effort - when I get this working I'll post something on how to with pictures and all, but I gotta wait for a few weeks at least - damn money...

e_lectro

fader/balance has nothing to do with the amplifiers. It is controled by the head unit before it gets to the amplifier. The headunit only knows that it has 4 outputs, Right-front Left-front Right-rear Left-rear. It does not know that the amp spreads that out to more speakers.

So, if you preserve the 4 channels comming out of the Headunit by either bypassing the stock amp of using 2 stereo LOC's wired from the front door speakers and rear door speakers, you still will have your fader and balance. If you only went with one 2 channel LOC, and then used if to power both inputs of your amp, you would loose fader, but still have balance.

Does that help?

Gpump

You the man - what was getting me was that each plug on an rca cable had the center core channel and the ring channel - thanks a million (or at least the several hundred a new amp and/or parts would have ultimately costed me) - another thing, is the signal from the head unit to the amp balanced (twisted pair in that coil?) - need to find an impedance converter if so -- by the way, nice job on the diy dvd - take care ---Brian

e_lectro

I'm not sure if is balanced, we debated this on the other site for awhile, but we never tested it. Some were speculating that it was because of the sheild connectors, but according to the service manual, the shields are only connected on one end, which makes me doubt it.

Just think, if you do this, you'll be the first to actually do it

Gpump

Can you scan the picture with the unconnected end picture in it? I know someone around my house who is pretty good with this stuff too - trying to get all the input I can before I go out and screw something up. Also, is the other end of the B connector (at the radio) simply another plastic connector? IE, if need be can just replace the wire/connector piece if I cut it up and it doesn't work?
My resident advisor (father in law) seems to think that the safe way to try this would be to assume that it is unbalanced - if we're wrong then I may fry my amp but won't hurt the car. That being said, he also thinks that the wire setup looks like a balanced type configuration - prolly gonna try it by splicing into the amp inputs and have the amp on my garage floor with speakers and see what happens. Will get to that in the next 10 days (BIG, EXPENSIVE test coming up early next month) - I'll risk my amp as it is almost 7 years old anyway.
Thanks ---Brian

By the way, my father in law says that it is not uncommon to only have the shield connectors attached at one end to reduce the risk of a short or something like that (grounding out the system?)

ortiz

I have a friend that is going to try to do this set up on my car. I just need to buy an amp. Since the head unit is made by Alpine so I thought I would get a 4+1 channel amp. I will post pics when it all gets done. Hopefully within two weeks or less. I have to order the amp no one local keeps it in stock.

e_lectro

The navi is by Alpine, the cd-player is panasonic, speakers are pioneer.... i guess someone could not make up their mind on a vendor

Gpump

E lectro or mojo - if I interrupt the signal between the head unit and the amp, it won't interfere with the voice from the navi, will it? --IE, is the voice/mute of the navi (when it's giving driving instructions) ties in before the amp doesn't it?

e_lectro

Nope, it won't mess up the navi voice. The navi voice is injected into the cdplayer before it gets to the amp.

Gpump, you still want those scans? Drop me an email or pm if you do, they are to hi-res for me to host on sounddomain and still be able to read them.

e_lectro

I just saw this: RCA adapter

It's a premade RCA that could be used to tap into those factory wires before the amp. It says it's made for speaker levels, but it would also work for this.

Still would be cheaper to cut your own, but I thought it was neat to see it premade