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What Am I Doing Wrong?

D

dandan

Charter Member
SM 2003
Full Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2002
Messages
644
Location
Central Texas
I have a Pioneer DEH 470DH HU. Decided to put in my Alpine 3554 4/3/2 channel amp in. It's older but has worked well in past vehicles. I had it bench tested and worked fine. Did the following steps. What am I doing wrong?

1. HU has a preout RCA output (red and white). I ran two RCA plugs tied with a Y adapter (one male to two female) from the red output at the HU back to the amp and plugged into Channel 1 and 2. Did the same with the white output of the HU to Channel 3 and 4 of the amp.

2. Ran 16 ga. speaker wire from each terminal of the amp to the specific speaker wire in back of the HU and tapped in. For example Left front speaker terminals at amp tapped into White and White/Black wires behind the HU, RF speaker was Gray and Gray/Black, Right rear was Purple and Purple/Black and Left rear was Green and Green/Black.

I ran all these wires down the right side of the indside cabin.

3. Ran 8 ga. power wire for amp from the battery under the truck and came up at the amp location on the passenger side rear.

4. Ground run from the metal body to the amp.

5. Remote turn on wire run down the right side.

Turned radio on. Amp indicated power. At first I got no sound, then I turned on the sub option off the radio and got serious scary noise.

C- rod or anybody. I feel like I'm doing some little thing wrong. Any help?

 
Maverick said:
I have a Pioneer DEH 470DH HU. ?Decided to put in my Alpine 3554 4/3/2 channel amp in. ?It's older but has worked well in past vehicles. ?I had it bench tested and worked fine. ?Did the following steps. ?What am I doing wrong?

1. ?HU has a preout RCA output (red and white). ?I ran two RCA plugs tied with a Y adapter (one male to two female) from the red output at the HU back to the amp and plugged into Channel 1 and 2. ?Did the same ?with the white output of the HU to Channel 3 and 4 of the amp.

2. ?Ran 16 ga. speaker wire from each terminal of the amp to the specific speaker wire in back of the HU and tapped in. ?For example Left front speaker terminals at amp tapped into White and White/Black wires behind the HU, RF speaker was Gray and Gray/Black, Right rear was Purple and Purple/Black and Left rear was Green and Green/Black.

I ran all these wires down the right side of the indside cabin.

3. ?Ran 8 ga. power wire for amp from the battery under the truck and came up at the amp location on the passenger side rear.

4. Ground run from the metal body to the amp.

5. Remote turn on wire run down the right side.

Turned radio on. ?Amp indicated power. ?At first I got no sound, then I turned on the sub option off the radio and got serious scary noise.

C- rod or anybody. ?I feel like I'm doing some little thing wrong. ?Any help? ?
Click to expand...

uh....your RCA got me confused...let's focus on that.... your HU has only one set of pre-amp outputs? should have two pairs....1 female RCA for each channel (4).....can you confirm please?
 
and Goo just pointed something to me in your note....from your amplifier speaker outputs, you need to go directly to the speakers, not to the speaker wires after the HU like you did, these wires actually go through the factory amp. this could be your problem also.

good catch Goo! :cool:
 
The DEH 470DH has only one set of RCA outputs. I was surprised myself.

My theory on the speaker wires was to tap on so I wouldn't have to run wires through the doors and duplicate effort (since both are 16 ga.)
 
Maverick said:
My theory on the speaker wires was to tap on so I wouldn't have to run wires through the doors and duplicate effort (since both are 16 ga.)
Click to expand...

You need to bypass the factory amp. and the only way to do this is to run the wire directly to the speakers. that's why we all went through that pain... sorry buddy....wish it was that easy!

:cool:
 
I don't think your theory is valid. Your already sending a signal from your HU through that wire. I assume your still running through the factory amp. So since you tapped back into those lines, you are sending a powerful amped signal back into a line going into your factory amp. That's probably not a good thing.

Bypass the factory amp altogether, and run wires from your amp directly to each door speaker. Yes, it will take some work, but that will sound the best and you will actually be able to use your system. There's nothing that complicated, just takes some time. Let us know what happends.
 
Maverick said:
The factory amp was already bypassed when the deck was put in
Click to expand...

uh...not sure i agree. if you grabbed the speaker wires from behind the HU, chances are you are going through the factory amp. there really isnt an easy way to avoid running new wire to the speakers.
 
OK, so I guess my theory was not too good.

So if I tap on anywherein the speaker line, it's not good?

I realize the signal may be cleaner with new wire, but I'm only running 50wRMS to each channel.

Much much better to run wire all the way to the speaker?
 
Maverick said:
So if I tap on anywherein the speaker line, it's not good?
Click to expand...

I guess you could always tap in right before it goes into each door. I could try to locate the speaker wires in the pillars for the rear door speakers. You could probably also locate the wires under dash right before they go through the grommets....

you can tap in as long as its after the factory amp which is behind the glovebox.

 
OK. How does the pillar cover from between the front and rear door come out?

Are the speaker wire colors the same?
 
Maverick said:
OK. ?How does the pillar cover from between the front and rear door come out?

Are the speaker wire colors the same?
Click to expand...

pull on it (pillar) starting from the top (roof) and work your way down. It is just snapped in. Make sure the plastic pieces covering the rocker panel area for each door is removed. This plastic piece overlaps the pillar cover. also make sure the front seat if pushed all the way forward to give you room.

with these trucks, i dont assume nothing with the wire colors but if you look at the colors attached to the speakers you should be fine. I do think most of the wires are insulated or tapped so you may have to do some digging to find the wires.

Good Luck!
 
carrerarod said:
You need to bypass the factory amp. and the only way to do this is to run the wire directly to the speakers. that's why we all went through that pain... sorry buddy....wish it was that easy!
Click to expand...
I experienced that very pain this afternoon when I installed new speakers in the front doors. Running new wire was the easy part, but I'm under the impression that fishing wire through the rear doors is a lot tougher.
 
It is a little trickier. It just involves working around or through the "boot" that connects to the door. Check my pics for visuals, and a search would probably yield the various ways other members have choosen to run their wires.
 
Got the right front door wire run through. What an absolute pain.

That door is probably the easiest too, right?

What did anybody use to fish the wire through?
 
Maverick said:
Got the right front door wire run through. ?What an absolute pain.

That door is probably the easiest too, right?

What did anybody use to fish the wire through?
Click to expand...
I used a product called "wire aide" that is a wire soap that will not deteriorate rubber. Then I first put a coat hanger through, attatched the wires taking care to tape down any sharp edges, and pulled gently through while applying the "wire aide soap". You can get this stuff at Lowes in the electrical dept. or Home Depot.

Hope this helps.

MOD ON

Wiki
 
OK, I got it done tonite.

Was missing line output converters hooked up behind HU to plug in RCA units.

Cut each speaker wire. Connected end closest to HU to the line output converter. Other half was joined with speaker wire coming from aftermarket amp. The factory amp was already bypassed from my Pioneer HU install.

Works good now but I can see some new door speakers coming within 24-48 hours.

Decisions, Decisions
 
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