aftermarket head unit question

[JiveMasterT]

Ok, so for shits and giggles, i just removed the plugs going into the stock inifinity amp in my car and turned on my car. Wow. It sounds so much better without that thing plugged in and my Alpine head unit doing all of the work. There is a problem though... the damn thing flickers quite a bit at higher volumes and if i turn it up too high it just shuts itself off i guess because it runs out of juice. my question is... how can i run a better wire to it? what kind of wire should i run and how big should it be? also, where should i run it from? im assuming the battery is the place to run it from and then i would just run that directly to the wiring harness of the head unit. Thanks in advance.

 

[spatulahunter1]

do you have the stock speakers? if so the reason it is flickering is most likely that its trying to save itself from dying. If i remember correctly the stock speakers are 2 ohm, the headunit is only setup to drive a 4 ohm load and you are overdriving it. I bet if you pull it out after it shuts off then you can probably burn yourself on the heatsinks

 

[JiveMasterT]

do you have the stock speakers? if so the reason it is flickering is most likely that its trying to save itself from dying. If i remember correctly the stock speakers are 2 ohm, the headunit is only setup to drive a 4 ohm load and you are overdriving it. I bet if you pull it out after it shuts off then you can probably burn yourself on the heatsinks

it just turns off for a second and then turns back on again. i thought i read somewhere that if you arent driving an amp that it wont have enough power to run effectively. can someone else confirm this?

the way i see it, the stock head unit uses an external amp and the alpine head unit uses a built in amp... so basically the stock infinity amp would function as a limiter to the built in alpine amp. please can someone clear this up?

 

[-silencer-]

it just turns off for a second and then turns back on again.

That's most likely the temp of the unit overheating..

i thought i read somewhere that if you arent driving an amp that it wont have enough power to run effectively. can someone else confirm this?

If you're running 2 Ohm speakers (stock?) off the head unit's built-in amp that's made for 4 Ohms, you're overworking the amp. Buy some aftermarket 4 Ohm (most are) speakers..

the way i see it, the stock head unit uses an external amp and the alpine head unit uses a built in amp... so basically the stock infinity amp would function as a limiter to the built in alpine amp. please can someone clear this up?

Look at the specs on your head unit and the Infinity amp.. the amp may actually be better - especially for powering the stock speakers if they're 2 Ohm. You definitely don't want to wire them both together.. It'd be even better to use an aftermarket amp to power some aftermarket speakers and let the head unit just supply the output signal..

 

[JiveMasterT]

That's most likely the temp of the unit overheating..

it can overheat that quickly? i only had the thing on for maybe 15 seconds while i turned up the sound to see how it sounded. hit level 16 on the reciever and boom, it turned off.

If you're running 2 Ohm speakers (stock?) off the head unit's built-in amp that's made for 4 Ohms, you're overworking the amp. Buy some aftermarket 4 Ohm (most are) speakers..

My question is though... arent the stock speakers 4 ohm? i thought they were, but i have no way to find out.

Look at the specs on your head unit and the Infinity amp.. the amp may actually be better - especially for powering the stock speakers if they're 2 Ohm. You definitely don't want to wire them both together.. It'd be even better to use an aftermarket amp to power some aftermarket speakers and let the head unit just supply the output signal.

I can't find the stock specs for the factory amp anywhere... I'm really clueless here on what is compatible since they have this convoluted crap in there from the factory. I know audio systems decently well, but this is all just weird.

thanks so much for the replies here... hopefully this will make a very informative thread. i saw some threads over on DSM talk where people said to just unplug the factory amp and let the head unit drive the stock speakers, but thats what im doing and the end result is that sound quality is greatly improved, but the head unit turns off over a certain range.

if it gets that hot in such a short period of time, could i feel that on the outside casing? if it's not getting hot, then what else could it be? not getting enough juice?

 

[timm98gst]

i'm curious how you wired the headunit to the amp - the correct way to do it is to use the mitah adapter: http://www.installer.com/cars/mitsubishi.html - if you wired it any other way, there will be problems

 

[JiveMasterT]

i'm curious how you wired the headunit to the amp - the correct way to do it is to use the mitah adapter: http://www.installer.com/cars/mitsubishi.html - if you wired it any other way, there will be problems

i unplugged the factory head unit, then i took the wiring harness that comes with the alpine unit and mated it with a circuit city harness. i plugged it in, stuck it into the harness coming out of the dash, and bam it worked. i did loose the tweeters in the dash, but i dont really care as i never noticed a difference in sound.

it has always worked great and sounded fine. only recently (tonight) i wanted to take out the amp because i didn't think it was doing anything anymore, and also because i want to mount a hard drive under there for my new omnifi dmp1 (20 gig mp3 player). there isnt enough clearance to have the amp and the hard drive under there so i really want it gone if possible.

 

[-silencer-]

My question is though... arent the stock speakers 4 ohm? i thought they were, but i have no way to find out.

if it gets that hot in such a short period of time, could i feel that on the outside casing? if it's not getting hot, then what else could it be? not getting enough juice?

If you're using the stock wiring harness in the GSX, I believe the front and dash speakers are wired in parallel for a total of 2 Ohms. The previous owner of my GSX did some mods to the stereo system but that's how it was wired in my car using the Infinity amp. Try unplugging the dash speakers and see if you still have problems with it shutting off.

 

[JiveMasterT]

If you're using the stock wiring harness in the GSX, I believe the front and dash speakers are wired in parallel for a total of 2 Ohms. The previous owner of my GSX did some mods to the stereo system but that's how it was wired in my car using the Infinity amp. Try unplugging the dash speakers and see if you still have problems with it shutting off.

if that's true, wouldnt i get some sound out of the tweeters in the dash with my new head unit? i dont think that applies in my car... the tweeters in my car are wired to the infinity amp and as such, they no longer function without the factory head unit.

edit...
just noticed you had a 95. as far as i know they had the option to wire them to the amp with the premium system or in parallel with the door speakers... the wires are down there you just gotta yank out the speaker and look. i have a 97 so that option was not available to me... they didnt leave the extra wires in there for me i will try to unplug them tomorrow though to see if that helps.

so does anyone know the actual ohm rating of the speakers in the gsx with the infinity system?

 

[JiveMasterT]

ok ok ok, so i started freaking out, went out to the car and decided to do some testing. i ripped apart the console and turned on the car, put weezer - beverly hills (has lots of bass and trebal) on loop and here's what i found...

it only flickers when the bass hits. if i put on another song with a lot of piano music, i can crank it all the way up to like 20 before i get any flickering

it does not get hot to the touch after 5 minutes of running at level 16.

i also could not get it to shut off, so im wondering whats up. my guess is that it's not getting enough power and when it has to do some bass work that it has problems. im going to run a 10 guage wire to the yellow wire of the harness tomorrow and see if that helps... if it does, then that answers lots of questions... and that infinity amp is coming out, my mp3 player is going in, and jivey here will be very happy.

please reply if something doesnt sound right to you. im no electrical engineer, but i do work at a computer help desk, and as such, troubleshooting is my thing.

 

[-silencer-]

10g is overkill.. I bet the head unit has a 10A fuse.. 16g would be fine for that. Try turning down the bass to stop the flickering, or buy an external amp & subwoofer.

 

[JiveMasterT]

10g is overkill.. I bet the head unit has a 10A fuse.. 16g would be fine for that. Try turning down the bass to stop the flickering, or buy an external amp & subwoofer.

ok, so I ran a 12g wire directly to the head unit since the head unit's wiring harness also had a 12g wire. I also ripped out that stupid amp and stuck it in the garage. It sounds good and my flickering is gone, so I'm happy. Also installed my Omnifi DMP1 mp3 player... sounds so excellent... now all I need are some half decent speakers and ill be all set, but thats for another time. thanks for all of the replies.