How to wire speakers? Directly from amp or back to HU through stock speaker wire

[Woody17]

I'm trying to figure out how I should wire up my amp and speakers. I'm going to be running a 5-channel PDX under the passengers seat. The sales rep that I bought the amp from said to run the speaker wire out from the amp back to the headunit and through the stock speaker wire (all speakers except sub obviously). I have the non-JBL stereo.

I've never done this before. I've wired up 3 Nissan Max's in the past, and this is my first 4Runner. Normall I route 4 seperate sets of speaker wire to each respective speaker.

Do you suggest I just route up nice new speaker wire or does the stock wire suffice? What gauge is stock speaker wire?

I'll be running 75RMS to each speaker.

Thanks!
Woody

 

[riceandpho]

if u have an aftermarket deck in all u need to do is use that harness that u pluged in from the truck to the new deck, first find the speaker leads, one small plug was for the rears so cut and tape the one off the deck, then the front should be with the big plug, cut and tape off, now run 4 pairs of speaker wire, best to run 2 sets at a time and run it under the seat then thru the cent and back to the harness for the small plug, find the positive and neg on the speaker leads, harness should tell u, then do the same for the front, also run the rca cables the same way, shouldnt take more than 1 hour for a clean fresh install, remember to run the power on the driver side, under the sill, then the ground under the seat, there is a ground bolt that can be use right behind the left nut that holds the seat, should be to the right a little, use that bolt for ground, plain and simple, all u need is about 7 feet of speaker cable thats can run 2 pairs of speaker, and 6 feet rca will do just fine, power about 12 for some extra to use incase of upgrade or moving around, and 2.5 feet of ground.

 

[Larry77]

If you are installing aftermarket speakers or plan to I would run higher quality wire to all the speakers from the amp. The wires coming off the deck are pretty small and the only advantage to using them is saving time and labor costs. If you're doing it yourself you might as well do it right the first time...

 

[Woody17]

Well...I saw this 16 guage monster cable in the store for $.99/ft, so I bought 10 ft of it. I figured it would be much easier to just go this route. I'm only running 75 watts rms. Sorry for the camera phone pics. I thought 16 guage would be ok because the speakers are more than 50 feet away.

 

[Woody17]

the wire also has a remote wire running through there. its pretty legit.

 

[Woody17]

uno mas

 

[mytyeerinpie]

I have found out of the numerous installs I have done, if you have an aftermarket HU then all you have to do is run RCA's to the amp, I run 2 sets one for Sub amd one for frontstage amp. The only wires I have going from my stock harness to my HU are

Power
Ground
Accessory

then RCA's to the amps then I prefer to get NEW wire, 16ga is fine I like 12-14 because you can tell a difference in sound as the wire gets larger. Some professional sound quality guys use like 8 ga to thier speaker ( I think thats over kill)

Then from the amp all you have is a + and a - from each speaker.

Did you get aftermarket speakers too? Then you would have to run a +/- from the tweeter to the crossover and the midrange to the cross over, then you just have 4 wires going to the amp after that.

 

[Woody17]

This is what I'm saying (using a 5 channel amp):

Color chart is as follows:
-Pink- 3 sets RCAs
-Blue- Remote
-Dark Green- Monster cable with four sets of speaker wire wired to Metra harness (It is going to go through the center console as well I just didn't have enough room for it)
-Yellow Circle- Harness
-Orange- Are the factory speaker wires that go to each respective speaker (driver front, driver rear, pass rear, pass front)
-Light Green- To sub.

I thought the guage is determined by how far away the speaker is and the quality of the speaker wire? If the speakers are less than 50 ft away, then 16 guage would be fine right? Somebody chime in.

Yes...I know there also is the manual way running RCA's and a remote from the HU, then running speaker wire to each door individually. Is it worth all the effort for only 75 watts rms?

 

[mytyeerinpie]

Are you just putting an amp on the stock speakers? Or aftermarket speakers. It sounds like you are trying to run an active set up but you can only due that if your HU supports that by having internal crossovers

 

[Woody17]

no...i think you're looking too far into it. i dont ever plan on putting the speaker wire through the HU...just the harness. The reason I'm considering doing this is because then I won't have to route speaker wire all throughout my car. Apparently this is what alot of the install shops are doing these days.

 

[mytyeerinpie]

Sorry, ok so stock speakers?

 

[mytyeerinpie]

I know it seems easier to use the stock wires but from my experience in the long run its easier to run new wire. You should be able to use the stock wires, some of them won't be long enough though.

On a side note I don't ever reccomend putting amp under the seat unless you are adding cooling fans. I have seen a few vehicles destroyed in fired because of that. Seat mateial is very flammable for some reason

 

[Woody17]

thanks for your advice, i appreciate it. i'm going to not be using stock speakers...and my amp is a kenwood excelon that has a fan built into the amp. it'll go up to 90 watts rms x 4, but i'm gonna put in 75 rms speakers (i had infinity kappas in a maxima and my hearing was severly worsened lol...i found myself asking "what" alot)

 

[mytyeerinpie]

Yeah if you are installing new speaker I would use new wire. It really does help with sound no matter what the rms. Be really careful under the seat too. Just reach under there and check every once and a while. I would hate to see a 4runner destroyed by a amp fire:awais:

 

[tarheeltp17]

I've never once seen a car catch of fire because of an amp under the seat.

If you aren't going for a sound quality competition, using the stock wiring is fine! I guarantee if you went to a shop to have a 4 channel put in, they will use the stock wiring unless you request and pay for installation of new wiring. It is nice to have new heavier gauge wire ran but I doubt in your case necessary.