Right, i've spent about a week struggling to figure out car audio. Turns out I remembered diddly-squat from my physics a-level and embarking on this mission has been a nightmare.
Well anyway, in the morning i think i'll be able to wire up my amp, and the headunit side of things is done so i'm quite happy to finally be getting somewhere.

I'm hoping to power the front speakers from my amp in the boot, so i've got a few questions.
Firstly, is it true i shouldn't run the speaker cable along with the amp power cable?
Secondly, how do i feed the speaker cables into the doors?
Finally, if i were to connect the my new speaker cables to the old ones (that are already fed through the doors) then i would lose sound quality? Just seems to make sense that it would lose the benefits of having high quality cables imbetween?

Any help at all would be great...
Thanks,
Josh

joshkiddy said:

Right, i've spent about a week struggling to figure out car audio. Turns out I remembered diddly-squat from my physics a-level and embarking on this mission has been a nightmare.
Well anyway, in the morning i think i'll be able to wire up my amp, and the headunit side of things is done so i'm quite happy to finally be getting somewhere.

I'm hoping to power the front speakers from my amp in the boot, so i've got a few questions.
Firstly, is it true i shouldn't run the speaker cable along with the amp power cable?
Secondly, how do i feed the speaker cables into the doors?
Finally, if i were to connect the my new speaker cables to the old ones (that are already fed through the doors) then i would lose sound quality? Just seems to make sense that it would lose the benefits of having high quality cables imbetween?

Any help at all would be great...
Thanks,
Josh

Click to expand...

Joshkiddy, done all this myself so here goes. Try and keep at least 12" between power and speaker/rca cables. On the Stilo its easy to feed these cables down behind the dash, through the centre console and then to the Amp in the rear (if thats where youre putting it). I cabled direct to the existing speaker cables at the rear of the head unit. It makes diddly squat difference unless you are talking premium sound installation systems-not enough for the ear itself to measure. You can't run cables through the door without drilling holes and creasing the cable. If your'e gonna amp them for gods sake upgrade the speakers or the choice of cable will be last thing for you to worry about. Remember, amp them up at the junction where they feed into the head unit.

If you do a search on POD in the Stilo section you wil find a post where I mounted new speakers in the existing factory pods, this removes all and any vibration you might encounter. Let us know how you get on.

Cheers bozzy,

I've managed to get it all wired in now. In the end i eventually managed to get the power cable through the dash and ran it down the driver side of the car, and then ran all the other cables down the passenger side.
Already changed the speakers and followed your guide on that one... thanks.

Relieved not to have to run the speaker wires into the doors, had a little look and realised it would've been impossible! However, in the process i did manage to put a hole in my passenger door panel ... so now feeling inspired to build custom door panels... any ideas where to find a guide on this?

Oh, and where did people earth their amps? I cant find a decent screw that my cable end will fit over!

One more thing... has anyone mounted there amps on the side of the boot interior? I was thinking if i slipped some mdf behind there then maybe i could just screw the amp onto the carpet wall? Although i know nothing and thats probably stupid and its all going to fall down!

Josh x

I mounted my amp on the underside of my rear parcel shelf. Obviously not just like that though! I made an MDF cutout to fit in the dip of the parcel shelf, mounted my 6x9's on either side then screwed the amp in between. Doesnt take up any boot space at all.

Me bein me, I think my speakers are underpowered. They're Vibe SEK69's, 525w peak, 175w rms. Its powered by a 400w amp. So 2x200. Is that right?