Hi everybody. I'm a newbie here and want to first start off by instroducing myself to the community. I got a 2003 CL 6spd and have finally decided to join the forum. I've been a long time member of the Acura Legend forum as I also have a 95 Legend GS sedan. The forum has been extremely helpful with any repair and upgrade needs I've had and I hope to find the same in this forum for my CL. Now moving onto my audio question. I want to replace my stock head unit (6 disc cd changer) and the front / rear speakers with aftermarket audio equipment. I'll power the speakers up with a 4 channel amplifier. My question is, can I just do a straight install or do I have to bypass anything such stock stereo or speaker amps?Sorry if this has been discussed before but I didn't find a direct answer to this when I searched.

 

Well first off, if you want to keep your stock HU you will need an rca adapter to connect the aftermarket amp to the HU. Then take out your speakers, hook em up to the amp with different wire and you are done.

 

Well it's called a rca converter but yea or line out converter (loc)

 

I actually don't want to keep any of my stock audio equipment. I'm replacing the speakers and HU. So I can't run a 9 conductor wire (8 speaker+ 1 remote wire) from the aftermarket amplifier to the universal harness up front in the HU area to feed off of the stock speaker wire from there?I have to run all new speaker wire to the doors and rear deck?

 

If you want to use the oem wiring in the car for speakers and deck then I believe it is just that simple.

If your car has a Bose amplifier though you will have to take an extra step to bypass the amp.


If your planing on running all your speaker wires then you have nothing to worry about.

 

It will just be easier to run all new speaker wire. Factory speaker wire in every car I've worked on was no bigger than 20ga (stupid small). I run 12ga for my speaker wire. Plus, new speaker wire is safer. Not only safer, but simpler, especially if you have a factory amp. Like Old Hatch said, if you have an amp and you run speaker wire outs from the amp back to the factory wiring, you'll be sending that signal right to the stock amp, which will likely blow it. This means you'll probably have to end up running new speaker wire in the end anyway, so why not just do it right the first time?

OP, what's your budget? Or do you already have all of your equipment picked out already?

 

Yes, I have Focal Audio 6 1/2's for the front, Focal Audio 6x9's for the rear deck, a JL Audio 300/4 amplifier, Alpine HU, and an eclipse EQ. I took this equipment off of my Accord when I sold it and just haven't gotten around to installing it on the CL. I always do my own sound system installs but thought this time would be a difficult task because I would be dealing with a stock amplifier. I'm actually thinking of going with a new double din HU with Navi to replace the Alpine. Anybody have an aftermarket double din HU with Navi installed on their CL? What kit did you go with to make it look as OEM as possible? Pics if available please. Thanks guys for all your input.

 

Focal ftw thats what im running.

 

If you do a quick search for "metra", you'll find the double din kit you're looking for. Plenty of pics posted as well. One thing to consider is that you'll lose steering wheel controls with an aftermarket HU. If you want to retain them, then you'll have to also purchase the appropriate adapter. Which one will depends on your HU.