Questions about CD deck installation

[RX7_FC3S]

Ok, I have an alpine CD player and I wanna get it installed in my car ASAP. FYI, I know nothing about car audio.

I went to A&b Sound on 32nd (near sunridge mall)
and they said that my car has 3 factory amps... and that this is a complicated install, and that it would take 3 hours to do. They said I could take it somewhere else, but if someone else did it wrong it wouldnt sound good.

Is this true???

And I didnt ask how much it would cost, but im assuming it will be alot. Should I do this?

[spike98]

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I could do it in my garage in about an hour! It is pretty straight forward. It is just the same as any other one. Now if you are planning on adding speakers, amps, and subs then i could be tricky.


Just go get a wire harness, match the wires to the harness for your deck (colors are pretty) plug in, install in dash, put in some celtic rock and dance a jig!

[R-Audi]

Its not always that easy. I know for my car you have to by-pass the stock amps, and run other wires for it to sound good. You're best bet is to search around on other boards that have the same car as you do, and ask there. (not sure what kind of car it is)
you can always ask around at other repuatable shops as well (ex. Audio Concepts)

[spike98]

Most of them run off a high level output from a factory amp on the deck. Thats so they don't have to make 20,000,000 different factory decks. When you get the premium sound system they just add amps and better speakers. If you deck has a higher power than factory (don't be surprised many don't) then you have to do some minor stuff or you can fry your factory amps.

If you bypass the factory amps that would be the scenerio where it would sound like crap. Which is the easy way out.

[RX7_FC3S]

Originally posted by R-Audi
Its not always that easy. I know for my car you have to by-pass the stock amps, and run other wires for it to sound good.

Thats what they said to me, that they had to bypass my 3 stock amps. If not it would fry the amps and make everything sound like crap.

[Akagi Redsuns]

Originally posted by RX7_FC3S
.......snip

I went to A&b Sound on 32nd (near sunridge mall)
and they said that my car has 3 factory amps... and that this is a complicated install, and that it would take 3 hours to do. They said I could take it somewhere else, but if someone else did it wrong it wouldnt sound good.

Is this true???

.......snip

The older style Mazda's are wierd that way. The stock radio/cassete/CD player uses low level inputs to more than 1 amp. The easy way to deal with it is to bypass the amp, basically connect the input wire to the output wire, or run all new wires...that would get costly.

The FC3S has 3 amps. One under the dash on the passenger side near the glove box, and 1 amp in each shock tower for the rear speakers.

I would get it done and any competent shop will not have a hard time with it. I did it the easy way and had my CD player installed a way way while back for $25, but I did the labour of taking apart the interior pieces to easily have access to the amps.

[Gonthro]

i imagine it couldn't be too difficult, find the factor amps, cur the wires on either side of them, and [patch a wire straight through, thus bypassing the amps.

[Akagi Redsuns]

Originally posted by Gonthro
i imagine it couldn't be too difficult, find the factor amps, cur the wires on either side of them, and [patch a wire straight through, thus bypassing the amps.

Exactly....and in the case of my car there was more than enough slack to connect them.

[SAiamNE]

Let me know how it turns out and where you go, cause im looking at doing the same thing to my RX-7 soon.

[JC522]

I got mine done at A&B sound and they did it alright. Russ did my install. The only problems I experienced was that FC's use a negative relay for the antena to get it up ad down or something like that instead of a positive relay like most other cars. They just disconnected the motor from my antena since they didn't know and to prevent it from burning out.

[davidI]

Originally posted by Gonthro
i imagine it couldn't be too difficult, find the factor amps, cur the wires on either side of them, and [patch a wire straight through, thus bypassing the amps.

My 92' Celica was a pain in the ass because power flowed from the amp to the deck so the aftermarket deck wouldn't get power without the factory amp there. That was easy enough because I could just run a 12v constant myself. I also couldn't use the power from the head unit (not that I'd want to) because the leads going to the amp were small, probably 20 guage or something so I ended up running RCA's to my trunk for my aftermarket amps and then running speaker wire to the passenger seat (where the factory amp was) so I could patch it into the stock wiring. Basically I'm just saying it was a royal pain in the ass.