New Hu

[phathaway]

Reading through the forums i have been slightly confused, I read in one post about Crutchfield wanting to sell something because aftermarket HU's put out too much power for the stock amp to handle, but I have heard in multiple places that nothing is needed but the standard wiring harness. It would be a great help if this was clarified for me.

[phathaway]

it might also help if i told you its a 94 325i with the 8 speaker system with amp in it

[CiscoKid]

no... just run it straight into the amp. The PAC OEM device, doesnt really do much.

[wulley1]

i noticed that the metra wiring harness I just bought for my 97 328is with HK only has inputs for L/R Front/Rear. If I hook the outputs from my HU into just those 4 connections on the wiring harness will all ten speakers work?

[jllphan]

phathaway: Yeah, you shouldn't need that thing from cruthcfield. There's no way for me to be able to tell you for sure (depends on your specific brand head unit), so you should just try it and see.

Basically the the oem head unit just works as a preamp. It takes whatever source (AM, FM, CD, etc.) breaks it up into four chanels, and send it to the oem amp to be amplified and sent out the 8 or 10 channels. SO when you replace the deck with an aftermarket unit, it does precisely the same thing.

The only thing you have to worry about, is that the voltage on the aftermarket deck's speaker outputs is similar to that of the oem amp. If it's not, then you will need that thingy-ma-bob that was talked about from crutchfield.

wulley: does that answer your question too?

[wulley1]

yes it does. I thoughts the factory amp distributed the signals but wasn't sure.