wiring suggestion

I am new to car audio but I want to install a small system in my 2002 trailblazer.  I have new Memphis speakers for the doors an alpine head unit an alpine sub and an alpine 4 channel amp and a kicker two channel amp.  What should I hook up to what.  Also should I run speaker wire from the speaker to amp or splice the wire on the head unit? I have heard different things. If I run the speaker wire to the head unit do I still have to use rca's? Finally do most rca's have built in remote turn on or do I have to run that wire also? Thanks!!!!

P.S The 6.5 memphis speakers came with a crossover ( I think ) Do I need to use it?

RCA's come either way, with or without remote turn on.  I would suggest without because the remote and power wires tend to add in unwanted noise to signal wires like RCA's.  RCA's need to be kept as far away from power and remote wires as possible.

Definitely use RCA's from head unit to amp as opposed to speaker wires.  THis will give the amp a cleaner signal.  Music will sound better.

IN order to tell you what to connect up to what, we will need to know more about the amps and speakers.  Particularly the wattage outputs per channel of each amp.  And it is less important to know the PEAK wattage as it is to know the RMS wattages.  Peak means very little. 

But just guessing, I'd say that since you only mentioned one sub, then you will be using the Kicker amp bridged to that, and the Alpine amp to the main speakers.  And if the speakers came with a crossover, then you should most definitely use it.

Uh, yes.  What model are the speakers?

OK, I'm back.  First let me say WOW what a nice amp that Alpine is!  I'd like to have that myself. 

Here's what I found out.  You have a set of Memphis coaxial 2-way 6.5" speakers with swivel tweeters and these speakers have separate crossovers for the tweeters.  You need to use these crossovers to feed the tweeters only the correct frequencies.  Without them it will damage the tweeters.  By the way, swivel tweeter means that you can angle it so it points more towards your listening position for the best sound possible.  I could not find any information on the wattage handling of these speakers, but the Alpine amp puts out a nice amount of wattage that should not be too much for these speakers to handle.

The Alpine amp is a 4-channel amp that puts out 55 watts per channel RMS on a 4 ohm load, which is what most speakers are rated at(yours should be as well).  This is really good.  Don't know what the PEAK wattage is, but it's unimportant really.  I would recommend running the Memphis speaker on the front channels of this amp.  This amp also has a subsonic filter on the rear channels @ 15 Hz.  The amp's specs said this was for filtering noise at the sub-human-hearing level so that it doesn't eat up power output in the form of useless energy.  You wouldn't hear it but it makes it more efficient so to speak.  That's just a nice quality in the amp, but doesn't affect how you use it.  I don't know if you are using any rear speakers or not cause your post didn't mention them.  But you could run another set on this amp, or you could bridge the rear channels and run your sub on them.  The amp has a built in crossover that is variable from 30 - 400 Hz.  If you use it on the sub, then use the crossover set at LP or Low Pass so only bass goes to the sub, and no treble.  Set the crossover frequency to what sounds best to you, but I like about 60 - 80 myself.  Depends on the sub.

Speaking of sub, you didn't mention anything about it other than it's an Alpine.  Is it a 10 or 12 or what?  How many ohms?  That affects the way you hook it up, so we need to know that BEFORE you connect it to any amp.

The other amp you have is a Kicker 200.2 and it is rated at 100 watts per channel at 2 ohm, so it should be 50 per channel at 4 ohm.  You can bridge it into a 4 ohm load and get 200 watts into one subwoofer.  Kicker's website did not say if this is RMS or PEAK wattage, but I would hope that this is RMS.  If not, then this is a small little amp and not worth a whole lot to run a sub.  It can do pretty good, but there's definitely a lot better out there.  I liked the Alpine a WHOLE lot better.  Also, the Kicker amp has a variable crossover from 50 - 200 Hz.  Selectable from LP/HP/Full, which is just whether it is low bass only, or only highs like midrange and treble, or full range which is everything.  You just select the frequency you want it to cut off at.  Same with the Alpine amp's crossover.

All in all, you have the makings of a modestly nice system.  You could just use the Alpine amp to power the front speakers, and your subwoofer, and run the rear speakers(if you have any) on the Alpine deck's speaker outputs.  Or use all 4 speakers on the Alpine amp, and use the Kicker amp to run the sub.  If you use two amps with all channels used, then you will need at least 3 pairs of RCA outputs on your deck.  If the deck doesn't have that many, then you can use a RCA splitter to turn one RCA into two.  You'd need two of these so as to make a pair of RCA outs into two pairs.  I wouldn't recommend splitting the signal more than one time though(so I hope your deck has at least two pairs of these RCA outputs).  If it doesn't you may want to think about just using only the Alpine amp and forgetting the Kicker.  Or getting a line driver to help with the voltage output on the RCA's coming from the deck.  You could split one pair up into three pairs(I don't recommend), but splitting it up too many times degrades the signal the deck sends to the amps.  That's why I don't like to do it.  What model of deck do you have??  That may make a difference here.  I'd like to check that out too.

Yes, you can use whatever type of wire for remote turn on.  It's just a signal wire.  I would use an 18 gauge stranded though.  Solid wire like house wiring is hard to work with in a car and some say it affects how well the current flows through it, but I don't think so on that.  I myself just used one side of a speaker wire(not connected to a speaker of course) that I peeled off of the other side and ran it to my amp.  It worked fine and that's all I had handy at the time, but I would have preferred buying one instead. You can usually get this wire sold by the foot for about $0.08 per foot so you would only have about $2.00 in it if you just go to Lowes or a hardware store.   Also you don't want to use the one on the harness.  That would only be for if you had a power antenna that needs activated or a factory amp built into the car.  You need to just run one from the deck's remote lead to your amps.  You can just splice it to go to both amps since you only have two.  That's not bad.  If both amps are pretty close together then it will be easy to splice without running two runs of long wire all the way from the deck. 

3 sets of RCA outs is excellent.  You can use both amps without using splitters if you want. 

Yeah, you will have to run speaker wires from the amp to the crossover and then from there to the speaker.  Should be one crossover per speaker.  Is that what you have??  Information I found on these speakers was limited or I would give more details on how to do this.   I didn't even get to see a picture of the crossover. 

And yes 16 gauge wire is a good choice for what you are doing.  Very good.  You will be pleased with this.  For the record, so you don't get confused, wire gauges are in reverse of what the numbers might suggest.  16 gauge is larger than 18 gauge(just like shotguns, a 12 gauge is larger than a 20 gauge.  If it wasn't, then a 410 would be huge!!).  I wanted to say that so you would understand why you use 16 on speakers with lots of power, and 18 which might have seemed bigger on only a remote wire.

Finally, what ohm load are your sub's voice coils??  If you wire them in series, you have twice what one is by itself.  If they are in parallel, then it's only 1/2 of what one is by itself.  I put up a post on this site entitled:  "Look!  Parallel ohm formula for subs in parallel" or something like that.  Search for it and it will explain more about this so you know what's going on.  It was about a week ago so it might be on page 3 or 4 by now.

I'll get back to you on the rear speakers if there is anything special you have to do with them after I check them out.  Did they come with crossovers or anything?? 

Also, did you get an antenna wire adapter with your wiring harness you bought.  The antenna wire lead will be smaller than your receiver needs.  After about 1988, GM changed over to that smaller size, and sometimes the wiring harness comes with the adapter and sometimes not.  Depends on where you bought it at.

One other suggestion.  Since you are new to car audio you should go to www.crutchfield.com and request one of their free catalogs.  It has tons of gear in it and usually lots of information about what all the specs like frequency response and signal-to-noise ratio is and all that.  Then once you get the catalog, you can go through it and find where they offer a free guide to car audio installation.  Call and order it, it's free, and it will teach you a ton more than the catalog did.  I learned a HUGE amount when I first got started by doing this. 

It's been several years back that I did this, so I'm not sure they still offer it, but if they do, it's well worth it since it's free.  It will by no means teach you everything you would need to know, but it's a great starting place so you have references and can get a good idea of what's going on.  However, the prices on the gear in their catalog are what I would call "high retail".  This is as much as I would ever expect to pay for any new gear.  You can get stuff a lot cheaper on the internet, so I say don't buy from them unless you just want all the extras that they give you like instruction sheets for your particular vehicle, and free harnesses and kits and all that.