alpine head unit install questions

[JiveMasterT]

i just got an alpine 9827 head unit from circuit city and i now realize why alpine is the only company they charge you $50 for to install.

anyhow, they gave me a wiring harness for it, but it has a connector that is similar to that of a connector for a motherboard, but the other end looks like the eclipse factory harness connector. my question here is, can i just merge the harness that came with the alpine unit with the one they gave me a circuit city? there are extra wires coming off the alpine harness, but i could match all of the wires from the harness they gave me at circuit city.

here is a list of the wire colors:

circuit city harness:
black
purple
purple/black
green
green/black
yellow
orange
red
blue
white
white/black
grey
grey/black

alpine harness:
black
yellow
green
green/black
white
white/black
purple
purple/black
grey
grey/black
orange
pink/black
red
blue
blue/white

and so the extra wires on the alpine are:
blue/white
pink/black

and im thinking those are because the headunit has support for XM radio. any feedback would be appriciated. thanks.

 

[DSMRevolution]

Yeah when you buy a harness that is what your suppose to do is solder the harness (one you bought) to the wires coming out from the Alpine deck. Its pretty easy and defiantly not worth paying somebody for it in my opinion. If you have a DSM you should be able to do it anyways (DSMs build up skill pretty quick ). I hope that helps. Not sure about the extra wires, but like you said it could be for some sort of XM setup. The blue/white may be another power antenna or auto on. I think I have seen some decks with seperate wires (one for power antenna auto on and another auto on for a external amplifiar).

 

[JiveMasterT]

Originally posted by DSMRevolution
Yeah when you buy a harness that is what your suppose to do is solder the harness (one you bought) to the wires coming out from the Alpine deck. Its pretty easy and defiantly not worth paying somebody for it in my opinion. If you have a DSM you should be able to do it anyways (DSMs build up skill pretty quick ). I hope that helps. Not sure about the extra wires, but like you said it could be for some sort of XM setup. The blue/white may be another power antenna or auto on. I think I have seen some decks with seperate wires (one for power antenna auto on and another auto on for a external amplifiar).

ok, gotcha. i just checked crutchfield and their harness looks like the circuit city one, minus the connector on the end, so im just going to lop it off and solder the wires together.

also, if anyone knows about those extra wires, id appriciate it! thanks!

 

[TheTSiGuy]

Originally posted by JiveMasterT
ok, gotcha. i just checked crutchfield and their harness looks like the circuit city one, minus the connector on the end, so im just going to lop it off and solder the wires together.

also, if anyone knows about those extra wires, id appriciate it! thanks!

Premium Sound harness perhaps?

 

[JiveMasterT]

Originally posted by TheTSiGuy
Premium Sound harness perhaps?

what is a premium sound harness? i dunno what it is... it came with the head unit.

 

[Attack Eagle]

Dumb question, but what does your Headunits installation manual say it is?
YOu can always check alpines website under support and type in your model number.


All heads come with a little paper that lists the various color wires on the harness and what they are for, in addition to the owners manual itself. Circus Circus probably does like we did at best buy and remove that paper when they install something so you won't tamper with it yourself.

I am going to Guess
blue/white= amp remote turn on lead

pink/black may be a phone/ nav mute. Ground on that wire equals mute equals MUTE.

 

[Attack Eagle]

Guess what... I guessed right

blue white is rem amp turn on (thats a pretty standard color)

blue only is powerr ant.


pink black is audio interrupt in lead.

found in owners manual page 39 is a listing of every color and what it does.

 

[JiveMasterT]

Guess what... I guessed right

blue white is rem amp turn on (thats a pretty standard color)

blue only is powerr ant.


pink black is audio interrupt in lead.

found in owners manual page 39 is a listing of every color and what it does.

yes yes very true, i used that thing to make the wiring harness before i put it in, but the infinity amp doesnt have a "turn on" wire.

 

[Attack Eagle]

Actually somwhere in that din plug there is a turn on wire, or it gets its 12v and ground from the radio's ON button.

It's not a "real" amp.
It only has about as much power as a good aftermarket head, consider it an outboard power section for the factory head, not an amp and you will understand why you dont need the amp turn on lead yet. You don't have an amp yet!


Anyway you dont need either wire until you add more goodies

 

[JiveMasterT]

ok, so is my problem because the amp is not getting any power or because it is not turning on? is there a simple way to make my tweets work?

 

[Attack Eagle]

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119435

I drew a very rough diagram showing how I bypassed the factory infinity amp completely to get the door and tweeters to work off the head. Since my car never had the stock head I never tried to use any adapter to get the factory amp to come on. I don't know but would guess it is powered by the factory H/U either thru the Din plug or the white plug. W/o a factory head I don't know how to tell it to power on myself.

To do what I did, you are going to need to have a friend in the industry, or at a shop order you a set of passive crossovers for a 6.5 set, ppick some up as part of a damaged set or at a pawn shop or something, or if you are going to upgrade the front speakers and amplify them later, use the crossover from your "new" 6.5 component set for now until you are ready to install the whole shebang.

I had a set of Fosgate crossovers left over from a job I did for a customer, who had an Alfa Romeo Spider and did not have room in the doors for them. He traded me my smaller sized Fosgate crossovers for his larger ones, and I used them in the Talon.

Basically you cut off the infinity amps white speaker plug, test out which wires go where and hook them up to the crossovers. You will have I think 3-4 extra wires left over. Disconnect the front speaker H.U leads from your adapting harness and extend them under the carpet to the underseat location where you have installed the crossovers using 16-18 ga wire, and pull those up next to the factory installed plugs.

Nice thing about using a passive crossover is that most of the good ones have a tweeter output adjustment of -3 0 or +3 db that you can use to adjust the tweeter level to better match the door speakers too... but you don't absolutely need it if you find a set of bad components and can score the crossovers for 20 -25 bucks.

ANyway best of luck... hope you are very happy with your new head.

Feel Free to email me any questions you might have and I will try to promptly respond with any help I can offer.


I did find this link where they mention that you may need to use that REM (turn on ) lead to the Infinity adapter(not the harness adapter THERE IS ANOTHER as Yoda said!) as well. This I do not know anything about however. This other adaper takes the 4 RCAs (FL FR LR RR) from the head and turns them into the DIN plug that goes to the factory amp. TO use It (& the infinity amp) you must disconnect ALL the speaker leads from the head unit to the adapter wiring harness, as the speakers are connected to the head AND the amp if you don't.

That is why I just bypassed the D@mned thing. Did not want to buy another adapter to use a 20w amp, when the head puts out 18 W and I was planning on changing all the speakers out too

 

[JiveMasterT]

oh, another question... what is the light greyish wire that used to be plugged into my stock head unit? i have a disk changer in the back and i was thinking that this is the wire that it went to that, but it looks like a mini antennae wire, so i dunno.

as for the rewiring to a crossover method, i think thats what im going to have to do ultimately, seeing as how the other ways seem to be risky and unclear. thanks.

btw, the car is all back together as i no longer care about investing any more money into this sound system at this point in time. later when i have more money, a clean engine, a bigger turbo, and a few other things, i will pursue a greater sound system, ripping everything out of the car, sound deadening everything and rewiring everything from scratch, since that seems to be the best way to do it.

btw, thanks for the help attack eagle, i may email you later on down the road with some questions. thanks.

 

[Attack Eagle]

Names Richard BTW

Don't know about the grey wire you are describing, no changer in mine and it had a Pioneer 4000 and alpine rears in it when i Got it, and the dash speakers did not work.

4 hours after I bought it I was at sonic where they guy I sold my MBG to worked, rewirring to bypass the amp and installing my Clarion H/U and Changer in the talon and xfering the Pioneer to the MGB.

Did it at night at Sonic, so I never got any pics (over 3 years ago) and since talons dont have changers and I immediately rewired and pullled the amp and stuff out I never saw that wire.
SOrry for not being able to help you on that one.

 

[Attack Eagle]

Jive andthe rest of the forum.

If you want to ditch the stupid infinity amp, but keep your factory speakers, or maybe just dumpo the amp b/c you are going to be replacing the door speakers with a regular 4 ohm speaker but want to keep the factory tweeters you can use a set of passive x overs

I found some in the home audio section of parts express.
even better the Daytons are only about $20 each crossover and can be switched to work with either 8 ohm or 4 ohm drivers (tweeter is set at 8 ohms). So you are not locked into always using the factory infinity door speakers

I would recommend something in the 3000 to 3500 range.

http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?webpage_id=3&SO=2&&DID=7&CATID=48&ObjectGroup_ID=193


Of course you could always get a set of Blaupunkts for 100 and just use the xovers and mids until you got around to installing the tweeters too.

 

[JiveMasterT]

Jive andthe rest of the forum.

If you want to ditch the stupid infinity amp, but keep your factory speakers, or maybe just dumpo the amp b/c you are going to be replacing the door speakers with a regular 4 ohm speaker but want to keep the factory tweeters you can use a set of passive x overs

I found some in the home audio section of parts express.
even better the Daytons are only about $20 each crossover and can be switched to work with either 8 ohm or 4 ohm drivers (tweeter is set at 8 ohms). So you are not locked into always using the factory infinity door speakers

I would recommend something in the 3000 to 3500 range.

http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?webpage_id=3&SO=2&&DID=7&CATID=48&ObjectGroup_ID=193


Of course you could always get a set of Blaupunkts for 100 and just use the xovers and mids until you got around to installing the tweeters too.

wow, thanks for the link. i almost forgot... do i have to hook up the door speakers and the dash speakers to the cross over for it to work?

 

[Attack Eagle]

exactly, both go to the crossover.

Cut the adapter harnesses front speaker connections from the head unit first. Then the amp plug.

I usually cut off the amp plug leaving about 3/4 of wire so it can be reinstalled later (though I ended up throwing mine away)

Use a multimeter to test wires that came off the amp plug for continuity so you know which wires got together

Then use a drill battery to pop the speakers so you know what they are and which wire is negative (I think it is either black stripe, or black wire wiuth same colored strpe as the other paired wire.) Easiest if you pull or both door panels so you can make surethat the speakers are popping the same way when the battery is connected. (if not they will be out of phase with poor midbass response.

ONce you know what your wires are hook them up to the crossover, run new leads from the head and you are almost done.

Before buttoning everything back up, play some of your favorite music fading left to right, seeing if the speakers sound better faded or together. If they sound better faded you may have something wire backwards.

You can try flipping the tweeters to see if they sound better one way or another if you like.

ONce satisfied, mount the xovers (i used velcro "buttons") under the passenger seat, replace the door panel etc.

Have fun!


It does sound like a lot of work but this is how I did it. I don't like to do things twice!