the amp is always on when the key is turned to ACC even when the head unit is off. turn the key to ACC, leave the head unit off. i was sittin in my car one day and i noticed you can hear hiss from the center speaker on the dash. i forgot about this note even after reading everyone's issues on various threads asking about this. I have 2 theories:

A) the amp may sense an input voltage through the audio inputs which opens a circuit to prevent pops when the head unit is turned on and off just like in home powered subwoofers.

or

B) there is a remote wire but it is only a pulse voltage that tells the amp that you are turning the head unit on and off and does the same thing as theory (A)

 

Okay, let me see if I have this straight:

I can take apart the center console running between the front seats and tap into the cigarette outlet in there for power to run my amp. This will also serve as a remote-power-control so the amp will only be on when the car is in ACC or higher.

Does anyone have any pictures of this part? Hints on taking apart the center console? I assume I want to have a fuse in the loop somewhere, too.

Once I have power to the back, will the cigarette lighter still work?

Then, I simply tap into the wiring running to the Bose amp and steal some line-level signal before it hits the amp.
How about putting in a crossover to prevent the Bose amp from trying to produce bass with its smaller speakers? It would be nice to stop it from playing anything below 100hz or so.

 

No. You cannot get your MAIN power off the cig lighter. Only the remote lead. The main power wire must run directly from the battery.

Once you tap into the cig lighter for the remote, yes, it will still work as a cig lighter.

You could always add bass blockers on the outputs of the bose amp.... (which is just a capacitor. Buy em cheaper at Radio Shack) Also, you could just turn down the bass on the headunit and turn up the gain on the amp. This will send less bass to all the speakers, but because you gain is up on the amp, the sub will still bump.

 

Is there any cons long term in doing that?

 

If you've got an amp that pulls more than 20A there are... Even for a lower powered amp, the cable for the cigarette lighter is probably 12ga or so, and you'd want 8ga or heavier for even a small amp. Voltage drop at the accessory port could muddle your sound (and cause harmonic distortion, shortening the life of your sub.)

 

why is the power hooked up to the remote??? shouldn't it be separate lines, am i missing something????? and the box looks nice a very neat clean set up...

 

We were all saying the same thing. Power wire straight to the battery and remote from the rear cig lighter outlet. The way it is shown in the pictures on page one will keep the amp on at all times. Which will drain your battery when the car is turned off.

And for those discussing running the main power wire off the cig plug, I suppose this wouldn't be a problem if you had a VERY VERY small amp. But most any amp made today will have a fuse rating of 20 amps or higher. This is too much of a load on that circuit (cig light outlet circuit). It will likely blow the OEM fuse for that circuit.....for the small percentage of people running amps below that rating and currently have it hooked up like this, there really is no "danger" in doing that provided the stock fuses are the correct size and they don't happen to fail if needed. With that said, who wants to take that chance? Risk melting wires and starting fires? Quit being lazy and run an 8g through the firewall.

 

im getting the autoexe tower brace set... and im thinking about trying to glass the rear brace into a box... does this sound doable to anyone? or am i crazy

 

Anything is doable. The question is..... are your skills up to it?

 

I have a Phoenix Gold 2300 XS amp that I am connecting to a single 10" JL sub. I am planning on using the HI Level (speaker level) connection on the amp, but there are only 3 connections there ( L+, -, R+). Do I just tap into the 4 pre-Bose speaker wires as shown in the pictures and then run those 4 wires to the 3 connector Hi Level connection on the amp....combining the two negative lines into one??

Hope that made sense.

Thanks!

 

how is this thing secured in the trunk exactly?

you just pushed it in there and !!! it fits! There aren't any attachment points or anything?

What if I'm in reverse and I slam on my brakes?!?!?!

 

Hi Eveyrone,

there is alot of information here that I found very useful.

What i find confusing is most of the other threads say to use a LOC to get line-level inputs for the amp/powered sub. But in this thread you are saying that the "pre bose amp" wired would supply a line level output. So you dont need any LOC crap at all? That sounds almost too good to be true. An answer would be appreciated thank you

 

hmmm, that's a worrying question. I want to put sound in my boot. Just one Rockford 10" P2.

 

Does anyone have the pdf file that Abbid had posted. I tried the link and it is dead. The gif is really small and unreadable.

Thanks in advance
James

dirtybirk@hotmail.com

 

Hi all... I'm the author of this thread... my apologies for not being in touch for a while. I changed servers where I had the plans hosted... so I'm posting them here for download. Let me know if you guys have any questions...

PS- the box is still kicking, and my setup is untouched in the last 5 years since I installed and documented it. Still love this car : )

 

your the man, thanks!

 

Im wanting to wire my power wire to my battery. what would the easiest way to do that without ripping my entire car apart. thanks

 

search the forum first before asking.

 

See FAQ thread at the top of forum. And my sig.

 

i know this thread is old. just a quick question. i noticed you have your subs facing the back seats rather then the trunk lid for people to see. why is that? is there a difference in sound when you point them either way? or is it just choice of looks? sorry dont really know much about car aduio so wanted to ask.

 

Generally, you actually get more gain by facing the subs backwards, possibly with the loss of a little punch, but that may vary from car to car. Generally if the sub can be moved it's easiest to try all the different ways of placing it to find which sounds best.
One advantage of facing the subs forward is that they won't get damaged by crap in your trunk.

 

oh ok gotcha. thanks for the input

 

Not stealing anyones thunder...

Adding to the last comment...
Yes some boxes on some cars need the trunk air space to make the subs pound really hard.
If the sub is against the seat there is a lot less air flow to have the sub push and respond to.
If the sub is facing the rear of the car the box itself and the trunk air is sometimes calculated for best results with the rights subs and size box... It gets all tricky but there are programs to figure each car out at a pro shop...

With the set up i have, mine will need to face the rear...
And at least my amp will be cool in the back seat with the AC on in the car in the summer.
I had too many amps stop and wait for 20 minutes before turning back on from the heat in the trunk...

 

i have a similar setup to you, but i have 2 JL Audio 12w3 v2's on a JL Audio 500/1 and had to squeeze them in there. so i built a custom box and they fit pretty well. i'll upload the pic of my schematics here in a min and pictures of the box later. feel free to use my design.

 

Another way to look at pointing the subs backwards, especially when using sealed boxes is as a (poor) band pass box. The sub box is the sealed part of the bp box, and the trunk is the vented part.
That's why it's tricky to tell whether they'll work better forwards or backwards. If your trunk ends up as a bp box tuned for a bad frequency, they'll probably work better pointed forwards. I think the trunk's got a pretty low Q though (no tuned ports, odd shape, etc,) so it ends up having less gain, but usually tuned over a wide range.