Mach460 preouts

[xneox]

Has anyone ever identified the wires in a factory Mach460 system that carry the signal from the head to the amp?

Provided voltage & impedance were favorable, it seems to me that if these were identified it would be relatively easy to replace the factory amps w/aftermarket ones using the factory wiring and head unit. All you'd have to do once you found the correct leads is fit an RCA jack onto the end.

I would think a turn-on lead would be easy to find within the factory wiring as well.

You could use the factory speaker wires as well, once identified....just buy components & mount the crossover in the trunk....factory tweet wires connect to crossover tweet output, follow suit w/factory woofer wires.

Of course, you'd still want to run power from the battery, as with any amp installation.

 

[james51381]

You really dont want to just splice the output wires from the head unit, and plug it into an amp. My buddy fried is Rockford amp doing that

Circuit city has an adapter to install an aftermarket amp while using the OEM head unit. They will probably tell you, that you have to bypass the stock stuff and power the stock speakers with the new amp you putting in

You dont have to disconnect the OEM amps, just splice into the inputs from the head unit. The reason why you need the inverter is because the out put coming from the OEM head unit is way to high.

also, the factory speakers are either 2ohms or 8 ohms, i dont remember. so you should match the ohms from the speakers to the amp. Thats why alot of times, people who just swap decks, and use the new deck to power the oem stuff, complain it sounds like sheet.

Just curious, what are you planning on doing?

james

 

[mwolson]

Flemworld

Check out http://www.flemworld.com/ for the wiring diagrams. Ckick through to the "Sound System Wire Diagrams" link, and check out the file named "SSAmps1.pdf" for the signals and names.

Of course, there is no pin description for the connector. If you are serious about this project, I can take my spare radio apart to see if the circuit board can tell us what the connector pins are. Let me know.

The output of the CD deck is clearly higher than line level, based on the MP3 player integration work I've done for my car. I could scope the voltage levels of my MP3 player driving my system, which you could use as an estimate of what the radio output might be. Again, let me know if you are serious, as this will be a bit of a project for me.

Also the warning in the previous message is a good one. The reason I have a spare radio is I burned out the left radio channel learning about the interface between the CD deck and the radio. Thank God for Ebay, although the '98 replacement now means I have two clocks in my '96.

Mark

 

[xneox]

I'm not doing this myself---in fact, I don't even have Mach460....which is looking like a good thing.

The problem with installing JUST aftermarket speakers has come up on other boards, so I was trying to gather some info.

The Mach460 is 8 ohm, so when people try to install aftermarket (4ohm) speakers the amps can't handle the load & the speakers cut out.

Even if impedance weren't an issue there's still the fact that you are forced to install components w/o the use of their crossovers, or bi-amp capable components/coaxials, because the mach460 seperates frequencies at the amp.

I was thinking that if the signal leads that go from the factory head to the factory amp could be identified, whether line-level or driver-level voltage, you could connect an aftermarket amp using them, and use the factory speaker wires by mounting your component crossover in the trunk.

If the signal is driver-level coming from the factory head, which is what it sounds like, you'd need to use that input on an amp.

Sounds like it would be a lot less of a PITA to just replace the head unit as well.

 

[mwolson]

Preouts

Is "driver-level" a standard, like "line-level" is? Just curous.

The Mach 460 system is a PITA. But I like the stock look, and wanted a built-in HD-based MP3 player, which is why I dissected my system. I'm still researching wired remotes for MP3 players to find one I can cannibalize to install in the old CD Deck case.