i am doing my cd player install today! and i need to know how i should hook the stock speakers up to the new head unit...the speakers are 10W RMS and all have individual amps. the head unit i am putting in is 45X4 watts...should i keep the wireing the same way it is with the amps? or should i lose the amps and hook the speakers right to the head unit? will that blow the speakers? by the way this is for an 86 rx-7 n/a. with a tape deck and radio if that makes a difference. THANKS

 

Wait a sec: you are saying that you are hooking up 10W speakers (where did you get such low-power speakers ? ) to a 4x45W deck ? Get ready for fireworks when you go beyond 50% on your deck's volume :o.

And how exactly do these speakers have their own amps ? Are they speakers for computers or something ? If you feed a 45W line to an amp that's not supposed to receive it (ie has a normal low-voltage input line), you are going to blow the speakers and the amps in seconds.

Maybe I'm not getting something right here, but I dont think your setup will work at all, and even if it works it will be for a very brief moment

 

im using a 4 x 40watt kenwood head unit with the stock amps and speakers hooked in.. i tried without the amps and i didnt notice a difference to tell u the truth..

the speakers are really old and small anyway.. speakers have come along quite a bit since the eighties :P

 

So by saying "10W RMS" CYAL8R actually meant the orignal stock speakers that come with the stock radio deck ? Come on, installing a brand new CD player (or any other new deck...) with the stock speakers is like buying a SB Platinum 5.1 for your computer and getting 2 1,5W speakers designed for walkmans
Since you are installing the CD player, fork out some 60-70 bucks to buy at least a pair of decent and powerful enough speakers for your new baby !!!

 

Lose the amps, and run the speakers to the deck. With the amount of cold solder joints in this car, you're much better off running with new equipment, and bypassing as much of the stock electronics as you can

When you have some cash to spare, pick up some new speakers. The REX is an easy car to swap out speakers.

 

....check my sig.

Magnat speakers kick a$$. I'm mucho happy with the new MP3 + speakers now in my Rex...

 

Here's what you need to do. I think others that responded to this post missed what's going on here.

You need to disconnect ALL the amps to all four speakers, and then you need to run NEW speaker wire directly from the deck to the speakers. If you don't disconnect the amps, you will get no sound. If you don't run new speaker cable to the speakers, the sound will be horrible and pull too much current from the amp and heat it up like a hot-plate and fry your CD's. I'm speaking from experience with my recent stereo installation... and I really wouldn't recommend turning up the volume with your amp too high on 10W speakers because you'll just blow them out. You wont start a fire or see sparks of course, but you will blow the cones if you turn the deck up too loud. It should be fine though, just rewire completely, and then don't crank the amp all the way.

 

thanks for the help guys, anyone have any idea where the original speaker wire runs through the car? when going to the rear towers is it under the carpet? and going from deck to front speakers is it just anywhere under the dash? thanks

 

I could not find out where the stock wires ran through the car. It's not under the carpet because that's where I ran my new cables... as for the front speakers, the cable runs straight to the amps, so it's not hard to trace those cables. They aren't "under" the dash, but they are behind it.

 

thanks!

 

alright guys i bought a metra kit and she fits in real nice now! but now i just gotta hook it up. does anyone know how to tell which wires are what? when i pulled out the stock tape deck an radio nothing was labeled. now i have a bunch or wires to hook up and i have NO idea which wire is which. if anyone can give me a hand...THANKS

 

Hey if you've got a power antenna then you need to flip the polarity of wiring for the blue wire off the new stereo if you dont you'll blow a solinoid or the antenna I dont remember which one I blew.

 

how the f$#k do you flip the polarity? does anyone here know what they are talking about?

 

mazda uses a negative switch to activate the power antenna not a positive switch like the rest of the world. I guess polarity was wrong wording. But it is backwards from the aftermarket stereos.

 

well that makes sense i guess...any idea how to do this?

 

Go to Radio Shack and get a relay that switches the polarity. if you go to a special stereo store they will know what you are talking about. A lot of foreign cars have that. All you need is that relay. word of advice DO NOT HOOK UP w/o the relay. It will blow your antenna. (Coming for experience)

 

So thats what happend to my antenna !! damn

Ahwel, its a lilttle oversized anyway, Time for a new one.

 

Check out http://www.installdr.com/ to find the wiring color codes
and how to wire up the relay for the antennae. I also recommend running new wires to the speakers. The ones in my 87 were shot.

 

i have an 89 t2 where are the factory amps located???

 

ummm they are the stock speakers...

you are on an RX7 forum right?? I know he said he has an 86 N/A.. pretty sure those all came with amps...

in fact it will work just fine, i ran my aftermarket head unit for a month until my new speakers came in the mail, i didn't turn it up to loud, but i didn't have to b/c the speakers are amplified, as long as you hook up the power antenna remote wire to the proper relay all the amps will power on as well, and work without a problem

like i said hook up the remote wire to the relay, you are good, perfect sound no probs, just don't crank it up to loud, won't need to anyway, great speakers unless someone allready blew them...

if you look for the Factory Service Manual you can find any wire you want to trace, but you are pretty much right about the front speakers, they go from radio to passenger side into amp, from there they go to the speakers,

the rear speakers go into a plug in the driver side kick panel area, then come out with the rear wire harness ( ya know tail lights, brake lights, gas sender blah blah)
they run in the harness along the driver side under the carpet, the driver side speaker goes into the strut tower, the pass side keeps going all the way to the rear and along the rear past the tail lights back to the front on the passenger side, feeds right into the strut tower, pretty simple...

good diagrams there, i can't say much for running new wires, mine are fine just like new, just depends on how your car was cared for in the last 20 years...


well my 87 n/a sport has an amp under the dash on the passenger side, runs both 4" speakers in dash, i have no door speakers, the rear amps are in the rear strut towers, pretty easy to find...
as far as running stock speakers w/o the amp, it shouldn't be to hard, but you will have to take apart the amps and hook the input wires straight up to the speakers
(bypass the amp portion)

if you plan on using the stock wires with no factory amp for the front speakers you will have to make a jumper wire for the front driverside speaker, the jumper will go into the harness on the passenger side that hooks into the amp that you are removing, i do belive the amp has a schematic printed right on it, pretty easy to figure out and trace the wires with color...
you can PM me if you have Q's or I didn't explain well enough...

and sorry if I offended anyone by correcting them, just trying to help you all out, not trying to be a *****...

 

1)well my 87 n/a sport has an amp under the dash on the passenger side, runs both 4" speakers in dash, i have no door speakers, the rear amps are in the rear strut towers, pretty easy to find...
as far as running stock speakers w/o the amp, it shouldn't be to hard, but you will have to take apart the amps and hook the input wires straight up to the speakers
(bypass the amp portion)

2)if you plan on using the stock wires with no factory amp for the front speakers you will have to make a jumper wire for the front driverside speaker, the jumper will go into the harness on the passenger side that hooks into the amp that you are removing, i do belive the amp has a schematic printed right on it, pretty easy to figure out and trace the wires with color...
you can PM me if you have Q's or I didn't explain well enough...
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#1)If he wants to bypass the rear amps well couldn't he just run the two brown wires(driver side rear speaker) directly to the speaker itself?
#2)If he were to plan on using the existing wires for the front speakers would he not just identify which two wires which run to the driver side speaker and connect them accordingly to the new head unit w/o having to run a jumper wire as he would also run the two wires eminating from the passenger side speaker to the new unit also?

 

1.) okay I obviously didn't put that clear enough, by amp I meant the speaker assembly, looks like a big bucket with a speaker ontop, well the amp is inside, and the speaker is inside, you have to take that apart in order to access the wires that attach the speaker to the amp, then you can easily bypass the amp

2.)i have no idea what the hell you just said...
all 4 wires (2 speakers) come out of the radio.. obvious..
all 4 wires run to passenger side of car into an amp...
2 wires (passenger speaker) stay inside the amp assembly and go directly to the speaker
2 other wires(driver side) come out of the amp and run from passenger side directly to driver side speaker

So in order to use stock wires, figure out what wires you need to connect at back of radio, then unplug the amp and hook up your passenger speaker to the wires in that plug.. run a jumper from one side of the plug to the other and your driver side speaker will kick in...
now you ran about two inches of wire, instead of a whole new wire from radio to speaker...