Pre Install Question

This weekend, I'm installing a new system:

Pioneer AVH-P2400BT DVD Receiver
Boston Acoustics SC55 5.25" Coaxial Speaker
Pioneer GEX-P920XM XM Satellite Radio

$220 Kicker 11HS8 8” 150 Watt Hideaway Compact Car Audio Powered Subwoofer Sub HS8

Kicker 11HS8 8" Compact Powered Subwoofer

The Bostons go in the doors, the Kicker under the driver's seat. I'll pull the factory 6x9s out of the doors, but leave the tweeters and the craptastic ceiling "speakers" in place, just not use them. What's the best way of shutting those speakers off? I can pull the wires off the tweeter, but is that the bast way? And for the ceiling speakers, I assume I'll have to snip some wires; which ones? TIA.

 

Looks like no amp so all I'd do is run the front speaker wires from the Pioneer directly over to your door Bostons with some good quality speaker wire.

Leave the factory speaker wire harness unplugged at the hu area so nothing will be going to them. That way none of your factory speakers will be getting power.

 

Well, that's easy enough. There isn't an amp because the Kicker sub has an internal amp. I'm crossing my fingers that everything is going to sound good. Thanks!

 

Should sound good if you balance the levels. A good step until you add (as we all seem to do lol).

Opinion wise, if it were me I'd be looking at putting a decent quality amp to the Bostons. Set the gain structure for a clean system and enjoy.

Of course, all takes money lol.

Let us know how all works out for you.

Sounds like you have some nice audio equipment that should work well together. I was not a fan of the Pioneers for a long while and now I'm running two of them! A avhp4200dvd and the 4300 of the same series. Like them both. Running Bostons in one of my vehicles also. Component set. Really like them. Wish I'd sprung for a set for the Tacoma instead of the ones I did. Maybe later down the road.

Cheers

 

I think it'll work fine for me. I'm old enough, (51), that my first car stereo was a pair of DLK 1/4s, (store brand of speakers pushed by Shaak Electronics in Twin Cities in the 70s), hooked up to a Pioneer Supertuner cassette deck, with a 40 watt power booster in between. The DLKs were actually bookshelf house speakers, but everyone ran them in their cars back then, and they were great!

This new HU has a bass cutover setting, so I will just set it to play the midrange and higher out of the Bostons, and let the Kicker handle the bass. I have some some Boston towers that I have had on my home theater for years, along with some 10" units in the ceiling, and it's good stuff. My wife always tells folks she can tell when the Jack Daniel's bottle is in for a tussle, as I'm up in the theater room, cranking the music! Wives....

 

When you splice the wires together for the new wiring harness in the back of the headunit just dont attatch the rear speakers if you dont want the headliner speakers working. And when you open up the door there is a seperate wire harness for the tweeters just unplug it.

Edit
And by the way ive got boston acoustic sr-60s in my access cab powered off of an amp and just faded to the front so the headliner speakers dont pop. I love the sr-60 they sound great

 

I think I may be fine with Hillingdoner's advice; just running speaker wire to the Boston's, and leaving the factory speaker harness unhooked. That seems pretty simple. My Kicker sub has it's own amp:

http://www.kicker.com/hideaway

and I bought the RCA connector for it:

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_20609ZISL/Kicker-09ZISL.html?tp=2802#overview-tab

so I think I'm good, and won't need to wire up a new harness. I'll run speaker wire to the Boston's, and a short section to this connector for the Kicker, and I should be good.

Glad to hear your good experience with the Bostons. They make some nice product.

 

Ah, someone else same sort of vintage.

I remember people running the shelf speakers sitting on the rear deck. I went crazy and saved up for the my first set which was the lastest incarantion for then, boxes you could put 6x9's in and mount to the rear deck. Not forgetting the infamous Jensen Quadrax of the era, under dash 8 track and push button 40 what booster that was later upgraded to one with "reverb" on it.

Humble beginnings. Went a bit OTT from there. Huge systems, did some competing for a while etc. Calmed down a lot now. Still change the system in every vehicle we've ever owned, but no more walls of 15's etc. lol Now focus on sound quality, but still build in the ability to thump when I get nostalgic. Still love to design and build boxes so the bug never goes away.

I see you are using an adaptor to rca for the amp in the sub. You could just run an rca off the output on the hu. Not looked at exact specs or manual on your model, but assume similar to mine so should have a sub output rca connection. Might want to just double check how the internal xover on the hu works too if you are going to use it. The amp on the sub has a built in so guess really does not matter as you can set the xover point there, but if you want to do so at the hu then have a look to see if it works on the rear speaker wire outputs (I'm guessing that is what you are running to the sub) or just the rca subwoofer output. Does that make sense?

Would be nice to have the xover adjustment at the hu though. You could then set the amp one to the highest point (120 I think) and then use the hu to change on the fly to get the best balance. Not a "have to" though. Simple enough to turn the adjustment on the amp.

Let us know how it works out and sounds.

Cheers

 

Yeah, the DLKs were actually too large to put on the rear deck of my first car, ('66 2 door Chevelle), so they rode in the back seat. My next set of car speakers, a long ago forgotten brand, small metal boxes, did sit on the deck. Well, except for the one time when I was distracted by the gorgeous tatas owned by the woman riding in the passenger seat, causing me to rear end the car in front of me, and one of the speakers to go flying out the open driver's door window. The Chevelle was replaced with a '69 Super Sport Impala, one of less than 3K made that year, and my version of the much lamented "Cars Every Guy Wished They Hadn't Sold". And that chick got fat, but I digress...

Now I see that the HU does have RCA outputs for the sub, and the Kicker ZISL's RCA plugs go into the HU, and the stripped leads of the supplied amp wiring go into the other end of the ZISL. That will be easy. I won't be running anything out of the rear speaker outputs on the HU; it will be the front speaker outputs for the Bostons, with just speaker wire, as you recommended, and off the HU's RCA sub outputs for the Kicker.

As far as the crossover, straight from the 2400 manual, these are the settings available at the HU:

The output level of the subwoofer, from +6 to -24.
Cutoff frequency (only frequencies LOWER than this level are pushed to the sub) at the following levels (Hz): 50, 63, 80, 100, 125
High Pass Filter (which only passes frequencies ABOVE this level to the front/rear speakers, also measured in Hz): 50, 63, 80, 100, 125

The Kicker has a crossover frequency range from 50-120Hz.

So this is how I think all of this should work, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it's all new to me. Everything I need to set can be done at the head unit. The output level is something I will have to play with. The cutoff frequency and high pass filter should both be set at 125, which will allow the Kicker amp to use its full range, and will allow the Bostons to only push midrange and higher.

Does that sound right, or do I need to go to eBay to find some DLK 1/4 speakers, and that push button power booster?

 

Okay, easy then. If you are rca from sub out to the Kicker then here is what I'd do.

At the hu set the sub level to flat (no boost or cut). Set the xover on the sub output to 125. Set your high pass for the Bostons to 125.

Then on the sub's internal amp set the xover to 120hz. Set your gain to get the desired output. I'd leave the boost alone on the amp at zero for now.

Once gain all set for desired output then you can use the hu to control and balance the sound.

As the amp is set at 120hz (its max point) then you can play with the xover points right from the hu to get the most balanced sound and front stage. You may like the 125 on the hu for the sub and Bostons or you may find you get better staging by dropping it down to 100 or even 80. Just play with the settings and see what sounds best to you.

You can play with the boost or cut setting on the hu as well to get the desired output. Everything controlled from the hu which it nice.

 

That's what I thought, with a side benefit that I don't have to crawl under the seat to fiddle with it. I do have a remote boost switch for the Kicker, but I may just leave it unhooked, you think that would be okay?

 

Won't hurt. I'm one of those weird ones that typically don't use any wired bass boost. I set it and leave it. If I feel I want a bit more bass for a song or want that basshead nostalgia then I just bump up the eq (my model hu's have a built in eq) a bit for a while.

Up to you. You could always run the wire for it while you are installing. That way you can hook it up, see if it is something you like or want and if so then you are set. If not then no biggie as you either just don't use it or just unplug it if you like.

 

My HU has an 8 band EQ as well, so I think I'm going to leave it off. I like a clean cab, which is one of the reasons I went for the underseat Kicker. Thanks for the help!

 

Sounds like the hu's are all the same family with same sort of options then. Really like ours!

One tip and then I'll let you get to installing it lol. The Pioneers did/do have an issue with an internal PICO fuse blowing. When the fuse does blow out you end up getting noise in the system. Simple to avoid. Just be sure whenever working with the RCAs (disconnecting, connecting or if you are connecting up leads to scope the system) that you have the power off while doing so.

 

Yep, I saw that mentioned somewhere, and I'll keep it in mind. Thanks!