Nissan Altima installation problems

I bought a Jensen CM720K to replace the OEM radio in my daughter’s 95 Nissan Altima. I got the wiring adapter and antenna adapter at the same time. I wired it up and powered it up and everything works EXCEPT… no sound. The equalizer shows output signals, the power antenna works, it holds memory, etc..

I by-passed the harness and used my (6 ohm) stereo speakers to test the radio. I got good sound from my house speakers. I can’t get anything from my car speakers.

The car speakers are clarion (2 ohm) connected to clarion (model EN961I-63) amps in the rear deck. I didn’t take the doors apart, but assume a similar setup there, too. This is all OEM for this 95 Altima GLE.

My question is, is the stereo I bought incompatible with the OEM setup, or am I missing something? Is there a way to salvage this, or am I going to have to change out speakers and bypass the amps altogether? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure the wiring harness adapter's blue/white wire is hooked up to either a blue wire of the jensen, or if present, a blue/white wire.  Also, there's a wire that's BLACK/ white in the wiring harness adapter and that must be hooked up to a grounding point somewhere behind the dash opening.

If you have a power antenna you'll want that hooked up to the blue wire of the jensen.  Depending on how the jensen is wired up--in particular whether or not it has separate remote turn-ons for the antenna and for amplifiers, or if it just uses a single remote wire--you might end up having both wiring harness adapter wires hooking up to a single jensen wire.   But there's nothing wrong with that and it will not hurt anything.

Just thought I'd expand a lil bit on some of your other questions.  as long as this is not a bose system, you should be just fine using all the factory equipment with an aftermarket head unit.  All you will need is what you've already purchased--the wiring harness and the antenna adapter.

The symptoms you are describing are usually indicative of a factory amplifier not turning on.  There are a few different possible reasons for that to happen, but usually it';s because it's not hooked up properly to a remote turn on wire.

Now that I think about it, your wiring harness might not have a BLACK/ white wire and if that's the case, it just makes everything easier.  If it is present, however, you should know that it's actually a factory amp grounding wire, and if it's not hooked up to a ground connection then that could also cause the factory amp to not turn on.

Finally, be sure to not get the WHITE/ black (front left negative speaker) wire confused with a BLACK/ white wire, as they may look similar but perform different functions.  Just FYI when I say "WHITE/ black" that usually means the wire is white with a black stripe.  "blue/white" is a blue wire with a white stripe, etc.

Thanks for the input. I have the harness in front of me, and I don't have a BLACK/ white wire in my harness (the WHITE/ black is connected to L.F./ neg). The only unused wire in the harness is the orange (labeled: dash light illumination). 

I do have two pair of RCA's that are unused (labeled:line out front, and L.O. rear). Each pair of RCA's terminates in the radio harness with three wires (black, white,and red). I had thought that these could go unused as they are for vehicles without an OEM amp. Do I need to use any/all of these wires to turn on the OEM amp? What about the orange wire?

By the way, my installation guide refers me to Amplifier instructions (which are nowhere to be found). The phone number for technical assistance that I called is "no longer in service". Same thing with the numbers I found on their web site. Doesn't speak well of Jensen, does it?

Thanks for your help.

The orange wire does not need to be hooked up for the head unit to function properly, and actually if it's hooked up to the wrong wire you can damage your vehicle's electronics, so just tape it off and leave it disconnected.

The preouts also do not have to be used for the deck to work properly.

The wiring harness you purchased...it has a solid blue wire as well as a blue/white wire, right?  If so, first off make sure you connect both these wires to the single blue wire of the jensen.  Then, when you plug the connectors in to the factoy plugs, look at the factory plugs and see if there is even a wire at the pin locations that correspond to the blue/white wire and the blue wire of the wiring harness you got.

They make the harnesses so that they can be used in many vehicles, and so not all of the wires are always used.  For example, if the vehicle did not have a power antenna, the spot on the factory harness that corresponds to the pin running to the harness adapter's blue wire, would be blank.

If there's no wire on the factory side for the blue/white wire then let me know and I'll try and figure something else out.

There is no Blue/White wire to hook up to anything.

I did a continuity check with my DMM through the entire harness to check the pinout against the instructions, it checks out.

Everybody seems to agree that there SHOULD be a Blue/White wire to turn the amp on, but there isn't one (see earlier posts, above).