Hey guys - I am not too brite when it comes to Stereo installs and was wondering if I could get some help. I have the Pioneer 6 disk changer and was wanting to install a sub. Question - how do I take the signal off of the deck? I am assuming that there is no subpreout. How do you control the signal so that you get only the bass through the sub? I am sorry if this seems trivial, but i really dont know.

 

Yo Scooter,I'm sure that you need a line out converter if you want to use you oem deck. You then have to tap your speaker lines with the converter which converts to RCA which runs to your amp.

That's just the basic stuff but hope that helps.

 

I am gonna try to summarize this as much as possible. I am running my subs the same way that you want to.

What you need is called a high low convertor, you are correct there are no pre-outs on the stock unit. A high low convertor is a lil device that will give you preouts you just need to tap it into your speakers. I did mine by tapping into the rear speakers. To hook it, the hi-low convertor has four wires one for the pos/neg on the right side and the other two are for the left side. Then you plug your RCA wires into the device and then into your amp.

As far as just getting bass to your subs you will have to set up your amp to do this. All amps are different so I cant tell you specifically how to set yours but just play with it a bit and you should be able to get it. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask me I will be glad to help you out along the way.

Steve

 

btw if you do do it this way through the converter....your bass will sound like ____...well not ____ basically your playing at like 30% of what your subs and amps can do because the spearker wire isnt providing enough voltage. a nice head unit puts out 4 volts...i have a line driver to boost that up to 9 volts...thus making my sub/highs louder cleared better

 

this is "somewhat" true. You are not going to get the same sound quality as you would through a aftermarket head-unit with pre-outs however your bass will not sound like $hit. Any decent amp will be adjustable enough to get a good sound out of it. The reason this is a general misconseption about the high-low convertors is alot of people tweak the hell out of the adjustments on the convertor which can make it sound like hell.

Kinda funny story on the same note so my buddy hooks up his system with a high-low convetor and comes over today and ask me to help him figure out why there is virtually no bass. So I had a little fun and told him he burned up his amp after about 15 minutes of him freaking out I told him to switch the speaker wires on the convertor sure enough he had one backwards. Just thought I would share.

 

hehe...let me clarify what i meant was just the volume of the bass isnt going to be close to what the subs & amp can put out....i would say from experience you triple if no more the volume of bass off a good 2-4 volt out..... i run one memphis shp 15 sealed box with a memphis 1000d(1100 watts) with phoenix gold 30 band eq with Phoenix gold line driver and a JVC 4 volt output head unit....i hit a 149.6 db in Meca. which was twice as loud as my friend who ran 2 mtx 8000 15s with 900 watt phoenix gold amp using a converter. he only hit 143 db.