2012 Non-JBL Audio FYI - speaker upgrades

So yesterday, I turned an under 1 hour front door speaker upgrade with amp to a 8 hour job.

List of things to install:
Scosche SLC-4
Crutchfield 6x9 adapter for 6.5" speaker
Crutchfield Toyota speaker harness
Infinity 6.5" 6020cs components
Alpine V12 amp (old 2 channel T-707), ended up switching to my MB Quart 2-channel

1. So I took the stock speakers out (which is made in Mexico, 4 ohms, 20W).
2. Installed the front speakers, tweeters, and crossover all correctly.
3. Wired up my amp as well using a small hole in the passenger side firewall. Ground can be connected to a common ground by the door where a bunch of white-black wires connects to a signal ground point.
3A. My amp is hidden underneath the passenger carpet.
4. Power up the stereo and no signals to the front speakers.
5. Spent 6 hours trying to figure out if it was my amp not getting a remote signal.
6. Checked all my wiring.
7. Plugged the stock speaker back to find out that it got no signal even straight off the deck.
8. ANSWER: The 6x9 speaker harness is piggy backed off the stock tweeter = no signal to my Scosche LOC. Needs stock tweeter to feed signal to speaker harness at 6x9 location.
9. I ended up plugging the stock tweeter back in to finish the connection to feed the signal to my Scosche.
10. Power everything up and I had sound. Good to go. Tuned amp and good now.

All this was because my original idea was to not cut into any stock wires and keeping the entire installation clean. I ended up ripping my stock stereo out halfway through the installation to feed my amp remote wire to the gray 12v wire for the stereo. I originally did not want to hack into the wiring harness behind the stock stereo.

Everything is good, sounds cleaner and louder than what everyone and myself complained about. Good for now until I find a subwoofer solution.

 

This is not only extremely dangerous, but very very bad for your amp!!
Highly recommend installing your amp in an open and well ventilated area no matter what that requires of you. If you cant find a place, then dont install it. PERIOD!

Im speaking from experience FYI.

 

It's a $60 amp. I did not completely cover it. I made sure it had air circulation. I know this from building computers. It is not the greatest circulation. LOL. Where the carpet ends on the passenger floor board under the dash is where the amp is.

As long as it doesn't catch on fire. The heat that my older Alpine V12 was producing scared me. This one, I've been checking and it is fine. I am using a MB Quart FX-Series 240W 2-channel Car Amplifier (FX2.60). It has DC, thermal, overload, and speaker short protection.

Thank you for the heads up though! As long as it doesn't catch on fire (fingers crossed).

 

This is what I was concerned about! Just cause its a cheap amp and your not afraid of the loss by frying it doesnt mean its safe. Hopefully since its a speaker amp and not a sub amp you may be ok, but just know that eventually that carpet WILL cause its ultimate failure. If the outside isnt getting too hot then one would assume it is ok, but the internals will still get scorching.

Good amps use the casing as a heat dispersal (similar to a heat sink) and some even have heat sinks as part of the casing (like my JL 350/5 and 500/1) which makes it easy to actually feel the heat coming off of the amp. If those types of amps feel hot, its because they are doing their job correctly and should be hot on the outside. But as you stated since this is a el cheapo amp, it may not have heat dispersal methods as efficient and rely strictly on air flow coming through the tiny vent holes around the amp casing. These types of amps may not appear hot on the outside, but will burn up on the inside. This is good for you because with the heat being on the inside, a fire is less likely to spark on your carpet from heat, but, your amp insides will literally melt. Even best case scenario at the minimum, an internal solder joint (commonly the rca signal inputs ) will become loose (similar to what happens on the old xbox's when the thermal paste melts and the gpu breaks loose from the board and the result is a wasted xbox... Same idea. It may not catch fire, but this is almost guaranteed to damage the internals of your amp. And thermal protection does not prevent this from happening either. by the time thermal protect kicks in, its too late.

Just a friendly heads up though. Take it for what its worth.

 

ok, that makes more sense.

I'll relocate it.

*thanks for your time*

 

Good call on moving the amp. The cheap amp would make me worry about it catching fire with it being properly ventilated.

 

I'm kind of lost on why you didnt have signal still, but i've always just wired my line out converters at the factor amp or headunit.

 

the signal from the head unit passed through the stock tweeter to the stock 6x9. When I removed the tweeter, that left a whole where the signal used to pass through to where I now have my 6.5" Infinity speaker.

This is because I did not tap into the signal further up in the line closer to the head unit.