General Questions on Installation of Amp with Aftermarket Head Unit

Hello TW. Just got a

$214 Alpine KTA 450 4-Channel Power Pack Amplifier with Dynamic Peak Power 45W RMS x 4, at 2 Or 4 Ohms

Alpine KTA 450 Power Pack Amp as a Christmas gift, and looking to install it with my existing

$280 Alpine ILX W650 Digital Multimedia Receiver with CarPlay and Android Auto Compatibility

Alpine ILX W650 head unit. I have it all plugged up (I thought) but I don't think it is even turned on or powered...And I think I am missing something. Here is what I have.

• Amp RCA Cables plugged up to the corresponding RCA cables on the head unit.
• Ground => Truck Ground (Shared with Head unit)
• Remote Trigger => Remote Trigger. After reading, I think I have this wired backwards. I think I need to wire it attaching the remote trigger of the HU to the Amp instead of the remote trigger from the truck.

That seems like it should be everything I need... I was told I wouldn't need to run a dedicated power wire since the truck has a 20A fuse for the audio, which exceeds the 15A recommended for the Amp / HU combo. I'm just not understanding where the amp gets power from then. Do I need to use the power wire on the amp?

 

The yellow power from the amp needs to tie in with the yellow from the alpine radio.
The blue/white remote turn on (on the side with the RCA connectors) needs to go to the blue/white in the alpine radio harness.

 

Okay so there is going to be one power line coming into the area behind the HU that splits into two? One power line going into amp and one to the head unit? There is no issue with splitting one power line off to two separate components? Sorry total wiring noob.

I think you just confirmed what I was thinking. The remote turn on runs between the amp and HU. So I have that wired wrong and need to correct it.

Thank you so much for the help.

 

yes, the wire your radio yellow is connected to is where the amp yellow needs to go.
and like i said, make sure to use the blue/white on the amp coming from the small connector with the RCA cables, NOT the one on the other side with the speaker output wires

 

All clear on the power wire. Still a little unsure on what you mean with the blue w/ white stripe. There is only 1 blue w/ white stripe on the amp, and it looks to match colors with the blue w/ white stripe on the HU which says "Remote wire"

 

OH my bad! I was picturing the standard alpine power pack and not the new one that mounts on the w650. So yeah, only 1 blue/white and it will go with the radio's blue/white

 

Hahah okay great. Everything else you told me is still correct though, right?

 

Yep. Yellow's still go together
And just cap off the radio's speaker wires. They will still be outputting power even though we aren't using them so you don't want any shorts to happen.

 

The head unit's speaker wires are already hooked up since I haven't had an amp wired up yet. Did you mean cap off the amp's speaker wires since I'm not hooking them up? I was under the impression that if I went the AMP RCA to HU RCA that I could keep the head unit speaker wires connected.

 

Nope. The RCA cables carry the audio signal from the radio to the amp. Then the new powerful audio signal is sent out through the amp's speaker wires. So the radio's speaker wires need to be disconnected from the existing wiring, and be replaced by the amp's speaker wires.

 

This is completely the opposite of what Crutchfield told me... I am officially confused.

 

I was looking at that same combo, isn't it just plug and play? I thought is was designed to connect easy.

 

I thought so too... but its getting more and more complicated lol.

 

Did crutchfield send you pre made harnesses?

 

post up a pic of everything you have if you can.
alpine makes a plug-and-play harness for this amp/radio combo, but it doesnt sound like you have it

 

With the head unit, not the amp. I am adding the amp after already having the head unit.

 

Good luck! Hope you get it figured out. Can always call crutchfield tech help

 

I tried. They told me I only needed to hook up the RCA cables, ground, and remote wire. Apparently that was very wrong.

 

I am at work right now so I can't take pics. Not sure that would be helpful though, its starting to look like a rat's nest of cables from trying to figure this out lol.

 

I would pull everything out and lay it out on the table. This is not going to be something you can easily do while its all still connected in the truck. Unless you have some additional wiring I'm not aware of, there is going to be cutting and crimping/splicing involved.