wiring an amp

Hello. I recently bought an amp and need some help wiring it in. I have already hooked up the power, ground and auto on/off from the aftermarket deck in the truck. I do have a couple of questions though:

- There are (2) input (out) from the back of the deck. Those have the "y" adapters plugged in, and are running to the back of the amp. The diagram on the directions from the amp show those (2) lines to be split and plugged into the (4) channels in the back of the amp. I assume those manage Front Left/Right and Back Left/Right speakers?

- As I connect my speaker lines from the amp, do I run those straight to the speakers, or can I run up to the deck, and splice onto the associated speaker wire?

- When the amp is hooked up, will I notice a difference in audio quality/sound from the truck speakers?

I would appreciate any help.

Helps to know what equipment you are installing.

I will assume you are installing a 4-channel amp and your head unit only has one pair (L/R)of pre-outs? You would need the Y-Adapters to give you 4-channels correct, just be sure your pre-out is full range with no built in crossovers from the deck if that is the case. Keep in mind you lose the ability to FADE Front/Back with this setup.

You can run your speaker outputs from the AMP back up to the deck, then splice into the stock speaker wiring. This will save you from trying to fish wire into the doors. As long as your stock wiring is adequate this usually does the trick fine.

What have you changed? Did you keep the same head unit and speakers and are just adding an amp to the existing equipment? That is a tough one, quick answer is hook it all up and let us know how it sounds.

so I have everything hooked up from the radio to the amp, and when I run my speaker wires from the amp, I have them hooked up to the truck speaker wires behind the radio (but the wires from the radio for those associated speakers are not hooked up). When I try the radio, I get no sound from those speakers. Amp is powered up and working. Any ideas why no sound?

Ok, so still having problems, so I thought I would explain step by step how the amp is hooked up, and maybe you guys can help me find my problem? (I have had the amp bench tested, and it does work).

1. My 12V line is hooked up at the battery, through my firewall and installed on the amp.
2. I have grounded the amp to a bolt on the frame.
3. I have installed the REM wire to the back of the amp, and the amp turns on when the truck and cd player are started.
4. The back of my cd player has 4 RCA connections (for front L/R and back L/R) and a RED / white RCA connection for the subwoofer. I have connected the Front L/R RCA plugins and the subwoofer only (because my amp is a 4 channel, and I am looking to amplify the front two speakers on two separate channels, and bridge the subwoofer on the other two).
5. The RCA cables are plugged into the amp to the appropriate channels that correspond with the speaker wire channels on the opposite side. Below is a picture of the RCA cables being hooked up to the amp.



6. From there, the directions from the amp tell me to hook my Front Left speaker to channel 1, the Front Right speaker to channel 2, and to bridge the subwoofer to channel 3 & 4. For my speaker wires, I have wired the speaker wire to the appropriate channel on the amp, and have wired that directly to the speaker wires (I have not wired the appropriate L/R wires from the back of the cd player to the speakers). For bridging the subwoofer, I have the speaker wire wired from the amp to the back of the sub. See picture below.



Can anyone spot a mistake somewhere? The problem I have is no sound from the Front L/R speakers or the subwoofer. Very frustrating. I was sure everything was wired and installed correctly, but nothing is working. Can anyone help?? The picture below are the speaker wires from the amp ran to the back of the cd player at the dash.

Your images are not loading. On the face of things it sounds like you've done the hookup correctly, although I would have advised to run new wire all the way to the front speakers rather then splice into the factory wiring. What is your head unit? Are the line level outputs active? How did you set the gain on the amplifier?

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My head unit is a Panasonic, maybe 8 years old. I'm not sure if the outputs are active or not, I assumed they were when you plug them in. Maybe there are some settings on the head unit itself that need to be activated? There are some dials on the amp itself to set the gain.

What model Panasonic? I don't know if the preamp outs can be switched on Panasonic heads but if you give me the model number I might be able to look it up. Have you used the pre-outs on this head before? It is also possible in an old head unit that they are simply defective.

Also, of course there are "dials" on the amp to set the gain. These are very important. Do you know how to use them? Where are they set now? What other "dials" are on your amp?

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Panasonic Model #CQ-C7301U. I have used this head before in a separate car, and it had operated sub woofers.