can you hook mp3 player to inputs of eq?

my head unit was stolen couple years ago, and have'nt had anything to be able to listen to music with in my car, i can't afford to buy a new head unit or anything else, but my friend said i might be able to use my old clarion 7-band equilizer to use, to hook a cord to the rca inputs on it, that has an 1/8" jack on the other end, that fits into an mp3 player or i-phone to play music through my speakers in the doors. i just wanted to get people's opinions on whether or not this would work ?,   or get some other ideas on what i can do. one thing i am not sure of is if the equilizer has any type of wattage inside it to power the speakers in the doors or not ?,    i went through the manual and did'nt see anything in the specifications section,   so if it does'nt have any watts in it then would i have to have some type of watts to be able to hear sound out of the speakers in the doors ?        i have an older alpine head unit tape deck / reciever that has 10 x 4 continous watts and 40 x 4 maximum watts, and works perfect except the tape mechanism, and i was wondering if i can install that and use the watts in it to power the coaxial speakers in the front doors ?,   along with using the equilizer to hook the mp3 player to the rca inputs of the eq to play music from the mp3 player to the speakers? the head unit has two rca outs coming from the back and harness clip with the colored wires to lead to the front and rear speakers and it is attached to a small white harness clip that connects into the equilizer so they are connected together (cause i used to have both of them hooked up working together back when i was using them). the equilizer has 2 rca inputs and rca outs for front speakers, rear speakers and subwoofer. but on the other hand i could just buy a used cheap head unit that has an aux input jack off craigslist or ebay and just put that in and be a little more simple plus have head unit that works with radio or cd player,   i've seen some used with aux jacks for $25-$35 around. but i was just inquiring about being able to hook an mp3 player using my old eq or head unit cause it would be a free way to do it, and i like being able to do stuff myself without having to spend any money, plus it would be good to make use out of the eq & head unit cause they are real good quality and good brands (clarion & alpine), which would be lot better than some used radio shack head unit or whatever, so i was just seeing if i could get a confirmation on if theres a way to do that or not ?,   and if so, to give a little details on how to go about doing it and hooking it up ? any help would be appreciated,    thanks

it said to put the make/model of my vehicle, so replying to put that:   my car is a 1990 honda crx si

Your plan will work fine. Depending on the EQ, you may need to supply ground to the outer connection of the RCA input of the EQ. Try it without, but if there is no audio output you may have to solder a wire to the outer RCA connection of the 1/8 inch to RCA adapter.

thanks for the quick reply, and for the info,    when you say my plan should work,   are you talking about just me using the eq only and hooking the mp3 player to the input and it can play thru the speakers ?,    or were you saying it would work if i used the eq but along with putting that head unit i was talking about to power the speakers with its built in watts ? what i don't get how the sound from the mp3 player going into the inputs of the eq can get to the speakers, cause i thought the colored wires form harness on back of head unit go to the speakers?     so the sound going in the inputs of eq would only get to speakers if i connected the rca outputs on back of eq to like an amp and then lead that to the speakers from the amp ?     or does the sound from input of the eq just go into the head unit through the connected wire that connects from the white clip on back of eq to the harness clip of back of head unit ?   or do you supposed to connect the rca outputs on back of eq to those 2 white & red rca outs on back of the head unit ??, so the sound goes from the eq into the head unit ? and then out the colored wires and into the speakers ?      or it might be that usually you connect the 2 rca outs from back of head unit into the input of the eq, so the sound from the head unit goes into the eq so it goes through the equilization and then out the outs of eq to wherever ..... any advise you can give to help clear this up for me would be appreciated.

I thought you had an EQ and an outboard amplifier. Your head unit was stolen, I thought the remainder of the system was still in tact. If you have a Pre-Amp/EQ and an amplifier you will be fine. If you have an EQ and no amplifier, not so much.

actually i had two rockford fosgate punch amps, one ran the 4 6.5 coaxials in stock locations, and other amp ran a 10" pioneer subwoofer, and had a pioneer head unit cd player, and i was up late that night, and did'nt have any tv or noise, but the thieves were good cause i did'nt hear a sound when they broke the drivers window, and came out to go to store at 6am and saw door open and all the wires dangling out in the street and glass everywhere.     they got away with both amps and the head unit, but they left the sub and all the coaxials,   i had a clifford alarm but stopped using it cause little problem it had, and the head unit had detachable faceplate but i was stupid and only put it in the glovebox, which was easy to spot, and should of took it inside, i had those amps around 14 years so i got my use out of them. so yeah, right now i have no amps,   but thats why i was seeing if there was a way to use the watts from that alpine tape deck head unit?    or something ?,    so i basically would need an amp in order to use the eq with mp3 player ?,        cause if so, then maybe its not worth doing that method, since i could just buy a used head unit with an aux input off craigslist or ebay for less money than it would be to buy an amp, and would be more simple since just got to put the head unit in and hook to the 4 coaxials using the watts built into the head unit.

no sir, if you dont have an amp then that eq wont give you any sound. the eq is meant only as a signal processor so it doesnt produce any real power. some equalizers do have a built in amp but honestly i dont think they make any like that anymore. i still have a kenwood 9 band eq sitting around and it had a built in 25x4 amplifier but that is the only one ive ever seen like that.

well, thanks for the replies and for explaining it all and letting me know what works and what won't work,        after looking around ebay and amazon and reading reviews, i have found a head unit that would be just what i'm looking for, and new for only $30 !!, which i can afford,     its a Pyle PLR16MUA, it does'nt have a cd player, but it has an aux input, plays mp3, has am/fm reciever, and usb/sd card slots, bss/trble eq, and 40 x 4 watts, and looks nice too. does'nt have detachable faceplate,   but i could just make some black plastic thing to cover the front of it so looks like i don't have a stereo so they don't break my window again and steal it like last time, but if they do at least its only a $30 radio so not a big loss, and i can get new window for $60, but hopefully does'nt happen again. and i'll just throw that old clarion eq and alpine head unit for sale on ebay for cheap and get rid of them since i won't have any use for them.

i know money is tight but i should warn you about buying dirt cheap head units. they tend to be more headache than they are worth and the vast majority of them do not work 100%, there is always something wrong with every single unit, problems ranging from completely DOA to horrible radio reception and very poor source separation. when a radio has bad source separation this means that you can hear the radio playing at very low volume even when you are using another source like the USB or AUX jack, its a hallmark of cheap head units. if you can save up maybe $80 you can buy a radio that is vastly better quality that a pyle, BTW as a shop owner pyle is among the brands that i avoid at all costs even if someone brings it to me to install, i will not install it because i know for a fact that it will break within a month and it just causes more headache for me than it is worth. other brands that i totally avoid are boss, lanzar, XO vision, brand x, SPL, etc. you can do what you want, but you have been fairly warned.

thanks for the insight,   sort of sucks hearing that,   but i take your word especially being your an owner of a shop and have experienced how bad those units are, i knew it seemed to good to be true, and only reason i felt good about it was from reading all the good reviews when you scroll below on amazon, cause lot of the other models of pyle had lot of bad things said but the particular one i was looking at had all good things and so i was going by that, but i guess you can't really just buy stuff based on what reviews random people write out on the internet,   for all i know those good reviews could be created by people who work for Pyle to make it seem like a good product when they know it is'nt, just so they can try to get some sold. thanks, i'm taking your advise,   and now on to plan B, to get one a little higher quality,   personally i like pioneer, just the way the layout is and easy to navigate for me and like the big rotary volume knob and nothing too flashy or bright and colorfull, just subtle,   the head unit i had which was stolen when broke into my car was a pioneer deh-p3900mp w/ remote and detachable faceplate (which i was stupid enough to just put in glovebox instead of inside apt), it had cd player that played cd-r, wma & files ,radio, aux in and eq modes to mess around with,   it was maybe $230 or something, can't remember, but it covered all the features i was looking for. i saw some used on ebay of same unit for like $50 or $80, but thats taking a risk kind of,    yea just makes sense to wait a little and spend $80 or over and get a good one that i won't have to worry about. in the meantime if i want to listen to music, i can just use my little earbud headphones on my i-phone, with it at a low enough volume so i can still hear stuff while driving, i have some great sennheisser studio headphones that are bigger stereo type headphones that go around the ear, and has 1/8" jack, but i would look kind of strange driving around with those big things on my head, lol, but they would sound awesome.