I'm replacing the factory radio and speakers with a Apline CDA 9830 head unit and 6000cs Infinity speakers. I see some say not to use any of the existing wiring, even the power source and ground. Why is that? Is there a hidden amp in the wiring somewhere?

 

Well there are arguments for both replacing the factory speaker wiring (not the head unit power wiring). Since you are not amplifing the speakers with anything else but the head unit, it would be just fine to leave the existing wires going to the speaker pods. You're never going to be pumping that much wattage from the head unit to warrant replacing the wires. However, it is totally an option to just buy some 16 guage wire from Radshak and go to town on re-wireing the door speakers. Drawback: none - Benefit: none, except the badge on your sleve for doing so or you plan to upgrade to a seperate amplifier for your door speakers. Even then, it wouldnt matter really unless you were competeing. So break your back if you want to, but you'll gain nothing but scraped up arms.

You can use the existing power and ground leads from the original head unit just fine. Whoever said differently must have had other problems with maybe wiring harness grounding issues, which would be his vehicle specific problem. I cant remember a head unit install in the last 15 years where I had to use a frame ground for the head unit, unless it was a really old vehicle (30's - 40's models). So you're safe to use the factory power wire.

Well, depending the options on your specific ride, YES. Evey speaker pod has its own amplifier. When you replace your head unit with an aftermarket one, you will have to bypass the built in pod amplifiers and hook up the wiring from the head unit directly to the speaker itself.

hope ive helped some. Just ask away if you have any more questions...

 

My decision process when I replaced mine:

1. Amp wiring
No question, I needed a direct wire from the battery to my 450W dual channel amp, and a dedicated ground. Easy decision.

2. Sub wiring
No question, I needed to run a dedicated wire to the rear compartment, since none existed.

3. Front speaker wiring.
I had to pull the door panels off anyway, so I decided to run my own wire. You don't want to pull those &*^ing panels more than once. Easy to run new wire - you can easily feed it from the door to the inside, and then route it within the dash to the head unit. Also, it let me avoid pulling, cutting or tapping the stock speaker wires, and maybe getting it wrong, with all the goofy HU to Bose amp wiring.

4. Rear speaker wiring
Once I had the console out, the dash pieces out, carpet pulled up/aside, and was running the subwoofer wiring, it was a piece of cake to run two more sets of wires for the rear speakers. And again, I didn't have to mess with the stock equipment.

5. HU wiring
Again, because of the complexity of the Bose/Delco HU, I wanted to connect my Sony HU as simply as possible, to switched and unswitched power, and avoid the existing harness. C5's through '03 have an open accessory plug under the passenger side footwell, with switched, unswitched and ground. I used these, splicing wire that runs directly to the HU. And while I had everything open, it was easy to run these wires. So my HU stays on with the key in ACCY, but keeps the time and settings right when I pull the key out.

Hope this helps.

 

Vate's right about if you already have the panels off anyways, go for wiring it. Just dont feel that you HAVE to do it. Its just an option either way. I replaced all of my wire to all of the speakers in my car, but I also planned to amplifiy everything at some point. So again, its still up to what you want to do and what you are wanting to do in the future. Its not to hard to fish the wires thru everything to put the new wiring it, just time consuming. Depends on how you delegate your time on what you want to get accomplished. But its good to get a couple of different viewpoints from us installer road-dogs

Hope your project works out well

snoopdan

 

Thanks for the responses. I don't mind running speaker wires but would like to keep the factory power supply and ground. The radio came with the adapter connector. I may use the factory power and ground but run my own speaker wire. From what I heard you two say that would work fine.