Hey guys - need some advice here. I'm getting round to installing my empeg into my car for the first time since buying it 2 years back.

I have my 4ch amp (Kenwood KAC-6401) and tonight I have managed to find space in the car to run a power cable and 2xRCAs to the boot.

My question is this... space is very limited and I don't think I will find room to run another length of cables for the other 2 RCAs. Do I need to run another set of cables? Or am I ok with only the existing 2 RCAs? Looking at the linked pdf, I'm none the wiser with what I need to do next. Help is appreciated.

Cheers,

Phil (still not green ) hehe

Before we talk about the RCA's, remember that you also need to run an Amp Remote wire, and unless you do the loopback trick with the factory speaker wires, you also need to run some speaker wires to that amp. It might be a good idea to run a heavy-gauge ground wire as well just in case you need to troubleshoot ground loops later (although with just a single amp, that's unlikely to happen as long as you ground it well).

Now, on to the RCA's...

You will need to run two sets of RCA cables if you want your front/rear fader to work.

If you intend for the rear and front speakers to always be equally balanced and not adjustable (in other words, the front/rear fader does not work at all), then you only need the single pair of RCA cables.

How it's done:

Run only the empeg's front outputs to the trunk. In the trunk, you split or daisy-chain the two RCA outputs into the amp's four inputs, similarly to what's pictured here.

Then, you set the empeg's fader to center, and use the gain control settings on the amplifier itself to set the level of the front speakers and the rear speakers. It may take a few road trips before you're happy with the settings.

Space in my car was also tight so I ended up getting a 4 channel RCA like this one. In the picture on that site, it only shows the 4 cables coming together into 2. Those 2 also then come together into 1 single cable that is probably about the same size as an 8ag power wire. This is much smaller than buying 2 sets of RCA's and is easy to run. Those cables are shielded and I have had no problems with them ever since I installed them about 3 years ago.

Thanks for the info, Tony.

One thing... whats the loopback trick with regards to speakers?

I knew you were going to ask me that. Sigh. I'll do a drawing and post it in a minute...

Nah, forget the drawing. I'll just explain.

Okay, you need wires that go from the amplifier (in the trunk) to the front speakers (in the dash or the doors).

Well you could run your own speaker wires. And an audiophile will tell you that you should run your own super-expensive wires because they'll give you better soundstaging or something like that, but let's ignore that BS for a moment and assume that just any old wires will do.

Let's also assume that your car has an ordinary stereo system where the head unit supplies the power (i.e., it's not a Bose or Infinity system with an extra amp hidden somewhere).

Let's also assume that your car is an ordinary sedan, with four speakers: One each in the driver and passenger side front doors, and two in the rear "deck" behind the back seat passengers' heads.

Well, the car itself has four sets of perfectly good wires that run to those speaker locations. They run from the radio connection harness in the dash, out to the front doors and also back to the rear speakers, connecting in the trunk space.

Since your amplifier is now in the trunk, what you do is run one set of speaker wires from the amp directly to the rear-deck speakers. Now suddenly the factory wires that run from the dash to the rear speakers aren't used any more...

So, plug your front-outputs from the trunk amplifier into the now-unused rear speaker wires. And up inside the dash, right there on the factory wiring connector, run short wire loops from the rear speaker connections to the front speaker connections, and now you've got a wire run to the front speakers from the trunk.

If you're particularly slick, you can do this all with nicely-made adapter connectors instead of splicing into the wires directly. So if you ever sell your car, you simply unplug everything and plug the speaker wire connectors back to the way they were from the factory.

Make sense?

Hell, that is a VERY good idea. I bet my local installers would never think of that. Or, they wouldn't do it because it's not expensive enough. Hm, maybe I *can* install my own stereo stuff with tricks like that... Thanks.

Most people don't bother to do it because they've gotta run RCA cables to the trunk anyway, so they just run speaker wires at the same time.

I came up with the idea once, not because I'm clever, but because I'm an utter moron. I'd just gotten done running all the power and RCA wires in a car once, put everything back together, and was installing the amp when I realized that I'd forgotten to run speaker wires. So I had a rather sudden need for a clever solution. Necessity is a mother. (Or something like that.)

It also occurs to me that many cars come pre-wired for trunk-mounted CD changers. Such devices need audio, power, and communication lines with the dash. With the right adapter connections and knowledge of the wiring harness pinouts, one could even avoid the power and RCA runs to the trunk. The power line might not be up to the task of a high-wattage amp, but might be enough for a low power amp. Of course you'd only have L/R audio lines to the trunk and therefore wouldn't get fader control. But it's a thought anyway.

Thanks for all the info, Tony. Very useful. Tonight I installed the amp and connected speakers, RCAs etc.

Just one last question: My car (2000 Civic Coupe) came from the factory with a Pioneer head unit. On removing this, I find it has a standard iso connector that plugs right into the empeg sled. Can I assume that the wires line up correctly? The FAQ says it should be ok unless I have an Audi or VW (I think).

Also on the amp I have a wire that says P. Con (ignition). Now I have run a cable that will connect to this, but where do I connect the other end?

Cheers,

Phil

Ah, ok... on the civic, the only wires I have say this:

Black - earth
Orange - illumination
Yellow - memory
Blue - antenna remote
Pink (salmon?) - +12v ignition

Do you happen to know which wires these should correspond to on the sled? And also where the P. Con Ignition wire from the amp should go?

Thanks again,

Philip

Normally the wiring harnesses on cars are not labled with their functions like you just described. They are also not normally color coded in the way you are describing. So I assume what you're describing is a third party harness adapter that's already installed in there. Which is fine. The wire connections should be as follows:

Black - earth
Connect to black ground wire on empeg

Orange - illumination
Connect to the headlight sense wire on empeg (I forget the color but it should be labeled)

Yellow - memory
Connect to the yellow permanent power wire on empeg

Blue - antenna remote
If you have a tuner module, it will have an antenna remote wire that comes off of the extension cable, use that. If you do not have a tuner module, do not connect this wire to anything.

Pink (salmon?) - +12v ignition
Connect to the orange ignition-sense wire on empeg.

Quote:
And also where the P. Con Ignition wire from the amp should go

I do not know what you are describing with that wire. Is it on the amplifier or is it in the dash harness?

The amplifier should have its own power line going directly to the car battery through a weatherproof fuse block in the engine compartment. The blue amp-remote wire from the amplifier should connect to the blue amp-remote wire on the empeg.

Hold on - I'm gonna plug them together and see what lines up with what and you guys can tell me if it sounds right lol

Ok, let me see if I have this straight. I connected the sled to the iso connector in the dash and got this:

Sled Car

Black (Earth) Earth

White (unlabelled) Illumination

Yellow (Memory) +12v Memory

Green (Tel Mute) NA

Orange (Ign Sense) +12v Ign

Blue (Amp remote) Antenna / Remote

So... it would appear that they line up correctly. I do indeed have a tuner module (from PCA), so I should cut the antenna/remote wire on the iso dash and connect to the blue wire of the tuner?

As for the "P. Con Ignition" this is a connector on the amp itself - so I should connect this to the blue wire on the iso connector that I just cut? Edit ... I mean connect to the space where the blue wire was before I cut it off.

I hope this is all correct Thanks for all your help

Phil

I believe most of that is correct. Make sure that you're using the extension cable from the PCA tuner, because it will have the extra wire for the antenna remote.

Quote:
As for the "P. Con Ignition" this is a connector on the amp itself - so I should connect this to the blue wire on the iso connector that I just cut?

I do not know the answer to this question because I do not know what this wire does. I don't know what "P.Con Ignition" means, it has no relevance to an amplifier. If it is the main permanent power wire of the amplifier, then no, it should not be connected to the amp remote on the empeg, and you might blow a fuse on the empeg if it tries to draw too much current. But if it *is* the amp remote wire, then yes. So you're going to have to figure that out for yourself.

Sorry Tony I'm an idiot. It says "P.Con (Remote)"!

So a wire goes from this into the Blue "Amp Remote" wire on the sled?

Ok, this now leaves my "Antenna Remote Wire" on the dash (from the iso of the old head unit). This connects to the only blue wire I can see on PCAs tuner?

On PCA's tuner all I see is an antenn connector (fits fine) and the harness for connecting to the sled. Then a single blue wire on its own and a 3.5mm jack socket.

Oh, PCA's tuner! Yeah, the blue wire on its own is what you need. It was the factory tuner that needed the extension cable for the antenna wire. PCA's tuner had it separate, yeah, all sounds right.

Cheers Tony. Thats loads of Futurama sound bites I owe you

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention when talking about speaker wires earlier... Make sure you're really careful about making sure the plus and minus speaker connections are all correct. If not, you'll get one or more speakers out of phase with the others, and that will make them sound funny, as if they have no bass response.

Yes, I have my wires pre-labelled to avoid this problem. The annoying thing is that I won't get time to finish the install until Saturday afternoon. Grrrr. Oh well, it'll be worth it!