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24K views 22 replies 6 participants last post by  mikeharris0592 
#1 · (Edited)
I am a complete noob when it comes to car audio. I've never added anything to a car before but the BRZ is my first "fun" car, meaning I don't use it for getting to work, it is purely for pleasure. So far I fitted a new exhaust and cold air intake which were real easy. But the audio thing has me scratching my head and spending hours on the internet trying to understand what the terms are and how things work.

What I decided to do was buy a "all in one" sub, box and amp (Kicker 11PT10) from Bestbuy. This seems to be the easiest upgrade because it's idiot proof (almost!) and I can remove it real easy for extra trunk space.
The Kicker 11PT10 comes with a pre-wired plug for easy removal. The plug has the main power to the car battery, a ground wire, a remote wire and Left+, Left-, Right+, Right- speaker inputs ( online PDF is here http://www.kicker.com/sites/default/files/2011 PH-PT RevI.pdf ) I want to keep this installation as easy and tidy as possible, so I wanted to use the factory amp as my source of audio signal. Now my big questions are this, can I just splice into the 4 speaker wires coming out of the factory amp or do I need to somehow get my signal from the left and right signal wires going into the amp. Now remember I'm a noob, but I'm thinking that splicing into the 4 speaker output wires from the factory amp could mess with the feed/power going to those front door speakers but I'm confused as to how I'm going to hook the 2, left and right, signal input wires to my Kicker 11PT10, seeing it only has the 4 speaker wires. I have done a little research on LOC's but they seem to take four speaker wires and turn it into RCA's, is there anything that can take the left- and Right- signal input wires and hook them to 4 speaker wires..........I guess ass backwards!

Here is a picture of the plug going into the factory sub and what the wires are (info taken from FRS forum)

Electronics Cable Finger Technology Electronic device


The wires going into this connector are:
(1 is at the bottom left of the connector in the photo, 10 is the top right)
1 - Pink (looks orange?) - Left speaker +
2 - Blue - Right speaker +
3 - Light Green - Left signal +
4 - White - Right signal +
5 - Violet - Left speaker -
6 - Red - Right speaker -
8 - Green - remote signal
9 - Yellow - Left Signal -
10 - Sky Blue - Right signal -


Just remember that I'm a car audio idiot and keep the help clear without too many acronyms.....................I appreciate your help

Chris C.
 
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#2 ·
Yeah, I wouldn't connect the speaker wires coming out of the amp. Use the speaker wires going into the input of the amp. Run a battery cable from your battery to your amp on your kicker box make sure you have a fuse in between the battery and your amp on the kicker box, usually as close to the battery. Run a remote wire to pin 8 (Green) to remote on your amp and find the ground that the factory amp is using or find another ground near by in the trunk to ground your kicker amp.
 
#4 ·
Hi ya
There are many convertor boxes that will convert your wires to RCA ,if you want to do it that way ,
if you go online you will find drawings of how to connect speakers ect .
i dont understand why you need 4 pairs of wires into AMP ?
DO you have any RCA plugs on the head unit ?or the hole for them .
 
#5 ·
There are no RCA plugs on the sub or the car's head unit. The sub is made to be easily installed and therefor just has 4 speaker wires to either hook to a speaker or to the head unit. I could just go that route but I'd like to get everything I can from the factory sub to make the install easier and have less wires to route around the car.
 
#6 ·
You don't splice into the input single wires. Just take the fours wires positive and negative and splice into the left rear speaker wire and then the right rear speaker wire, that's why you have four wires. You don't need a converter box either. That's only if the amp you bought doesn't have speaker level inputs.
 
#7 ·
I'm an idiot! I just realized that there is 4 signal wires going in to the factory amp. For some reason I thought there was only 2, and these were somehow special.
Anyway, I hooked it up to the post amp wires before I realized my mistake. The sub is working fine but would it be clearer / better to change the wiring to the pre-amp wires, like everyone told me to in the first place?
 
#8 · (Edited)
I have it fully installed and working properly now. I tapped into the pre-amp speaker wires and the sub sounds a lot better. One thing I did notice is that the remote wire passes a signal when the car turned on, not when the radio is turned on. No big problem but I thought I would point it out.
The Kicker 11PT10 that I installed seems to be a perfect match for the BRZ's factory system. It gives a very good deep base without over powering the factory speakers.

I appreciate all of your help and I now understand a lot more about car audio. I will post some pics and a install guide so it may help others when installing their systems.

Chris C.
 
#9 ·
Good that you got it working right. Yeah pics would be nice. Before you got it fixed I was going to ask if you set your amp on low pass, didn't know if you had it on the wrong setting. Also adjust your gains would make it sound better too.
 
#11 · (Edited)
Good question and I'm glad you brought it up. The Kicker sub I have has two settings for input level Hi and Lowlevel and this is what the manual says

"Input Level: The inputs on KICKER powered enclosures are capable of receiving either Hi (speaker-level) or
Low-level (RCA) signals from your source unit. Set the Input Level switch on the side panel to match the outputs
of your source unit."

Now I took my source from the input to the amp (pre-amp) but I'm guessing it is still speaker/hi level and not low level. Or are the inputs classed as low level because they are not amplified and are high level after the amp?

As for the gain, crossover and bass boost, I've set it to what sounds good to me. I really need to set it properly but I've not had the chance and I didn't want to upset the neighbors.I'll get it tuned in this weekend.



Jack,
All the wires to and from the amp come in one loom but the power +/- wires are ran separate, I guess to eliminate electrical interference. See picture in one of my posts above of the wiring harness to the amp.
 
#12 ·
Yeah your correct the input levels are either hi or low.... I was asking if there was a switch for a low-pass filter or high pass filter. Most amps will let you select with one or both. The low pass filter will filter out all the noise and you will only get the bass sound (low sounds). If it doesn't have one then it will have a crossover adjustment.. The higher you adjust the crossover it will filter out sounds up to the frequency adjusted. Just have to adjust it to what sounds good to you unless you have a sound meter but most people don't. Usually start at .80hz and see how much noise come through and adjust up some say 90 is better.
 
#13 ·
I set the crossover and gain to my liking, plus I can change the gain on the fly with the included bass dial that I ran to the cup holder area. The door speakers were starting to annoy me because it just seems like a mess of sound coming out, no real definition and not very nice base. I picked these up early Infinity Reference X REF-6502ix 6-3/4" 2-way car speakers — also fit 6-1/2" openings at Crutchfield.com I have them wired up and had a quick listen and it sounds so much better. I'm in the middle of making the wooded spacers but my battery drill ran out of power so I quit for the night.
The next speakers are going to be the rears, I'm no audio guru but I think some mid bass speakers would go nicely in the area, maybe something with a little more punch. I think I've got the audio bug now.
I'll try and get some photos up soon.
 
#14 ·
Have any instructions on how to remove the door panels? I was thinking about replacing the door ones as well or adding some dynomate, maybe just adding that it will sound better, going to try that before I install new door speakers. I'm going to install the Kicker Hideaway here soon. Going over to bestbuy to pick one out and try it out, from the reviews it sounds pretty good and I really didn't want to add a speaker box in the trunk. I have the hatchback Subaru also, and I installed a JL 10 in the hatch with a custom box in the space on the side, so it doesn't take any trunk room space either and that thing shacks the car. Let me know if you have any instructions on removing the door panels and the rear panels before I start digging into if you're already doing it. Thanks.
 
#17 ·
SubBRZ, I have not removed the rear panels yet and don't intend to. I just bought a 4 channel amp because the factory amp didn't have the beans to power the new door speakers. Once I gave the door speakers some more juice they really came into their own............they sound amazing. I decided to use the other 2 channels on the amp to change out the dash speakers, this is a work in progress. I've removed the factory dash speakers (3.5" mid and a 1" tweet) and I'm replacing them with a pair of Kicker DS35's (two way speakers). The problem I'm faced with is once the factory tweeter is removed the 3.5" won't work. The plug to the factory tweeter has four wires and the 3.5" has a two wire plug. After playing around for a while I worked out that if you connect the two inside wires of the 4 pin plug to the two outside wires they complete the circuit and power the 3.5"'s plug. So I'm going to do just that, somehow bridge the two connection without removing the factory wiring which should make the install a little easier.
Just a side note, the factory 3.5" speaker is mounted in a little black cradle that has a bass blocker on it. I removed the bass blocker and wired it to the new speakers. We'll see how this works!

Wire Cable Auto part Technology Electrical wiring
Wire Electronics Technology Auto part Electronic device
 
#19 · (Edited)
Okay I've b finished my sound installation this is what I went with in the end.

Infinity reference series 6.5 in the doors.
Kicker KS35's in the dash. (not ds35 as i said above). Factory tweeters removed and wiring adapted to fit and installed factory bass blocker on the new KS35 speakers.
Changed kicker powered sub to a Rockford 300 rms powered sub
Installed a Memphis 4 channel amplifier and Memphis active 3 way crossover.
Ran 1 set of RCAs from the head unit to the 3 way crossover and set it to parallel. Ran front and rear RCA's from the crossover to the amp and sub out to the powered sub.
Set crossover for high tweets and bandpass on the mids (door speakers). I guess I could have left the bass blocker off the KS35's and let the crossover handle it but I already had them wired before I bought the crossover.
I then turned the gains on everything all the way down and put a 50hz and 1000hz 0db test tones on the usb thumb drive and tuned all the gains.

A lot of work but it was worth it, the system sounds awesome.

1 other thing I placed the amp inside the spare wheel in the trunk using heavy duty Velcro and then Velcro'ed the crossover to the amp. Nice clean install and room for the amp to breath, I just need to get a bolt for the spare wheel because I had to remove the stock one for the amp to fit.
2nd other thing, there is a good ground behind the plastic piece under the truck latch. I didn't find this until after I had installed my own with a self tapping bolt under where the Jack goes. I ended up grounding the app to the factory ground and the power sub to my new ground. I did take the factory ground off and sand papered the paint off to be on the safe side.

I guess I'm no longer a noob, rather an enthusiastic amateur.
 
#20 ·
I started the sound proofing tonight in the trunk.
I should have taken the photos after I tidied up the wires, but you get the general idea.

Engine Automotive design Auto part Automotive lighting Photography
Engine Auto part Vehicle Car Wire



I ended up ordering the Image Dynamics mid bass drivers for the doors and I'm gonna move the 6.5 2-ways that are in there now to the rear, the new drivers should be here on Friday. I plan sound proofing the doors and rear panels this weekend when I install the speakers.
 
#21 ·
Everything is now finished. I did remove the rear panels and sound proofed them but the 6.5" speakers wont fit in the rear without some major surgery. There is a huge space behind the rear panels but it's not possible to put anything over 5" in there because of where the original speaker covers are located.
For anyone wanting to remove the rear panels, here is how I did it.
Fold down rear seat backs, then from the trunk remove the 4 tabs that hold down the little flap at the bottom of the seat backs, then remove 2 x 12mm bolts from either corner and remove the seat back from the car. Then remove the rear seats by taking out the two 10mm bolts located below the front of the rear seats, then firmly push down on the very rear of the seat and push towards the front of the car to unhook the seat, then remove them from the car. Now you have good access to the rear panels. There are 3 black plastic push pins (I don't know what the real name of them is!) One is located near the bracket where you took out the 12mm bolts and the other two are halfway up the panel on the fabric part that lines the truck. Once you have them removed I would start at the bottom of the driver's door and pull up on the strip that holds the carpet down, there is a thicker piece right in the corner that clips the rear panel in place too. Once you have it freed up you can use the same strategy as the front door panels, nice firm pulls to release the panel. Once it's all free you will have to manipulate it a little to get it past the rear seat back bracket and the top corner above it.

I ended up leaving the original speakers in place in the rear but I may change them out for better 3.5's or maybe 4's if they'll fit. I also gave myself an internet education on crossover slopes and how to set the active crossover properly. Now I have a kicking system and crystal clear vocals. Setting up the crossover properly is the best thing I've done so far, no more muddy bass and no more fuzzy vocals.

Thank you for all the help you guys gave me here, without it i wouldn't have come this far.

Chris C.
 
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