do i need an amp to make my car stereo work?

S

sammy_03

New member
here's the history. i bought a car a couple of wks ago, and the last owner had speakers and amps, and a nice deck on the car. before he sold it to me he took all his music out, but left all the wiring.

i bought a deck (sony).. and i tried to connect it myself but nothing worked, i called the dude. and he said i have to get and amp to get the stereo to work.

i want to put music on the car but i dont have the money right now..

is there anything i can do???
if i decide to get an amp.. does it need to have a lot of power?? i just found one with 80 watts on CL.. for only 10 bucks
 
First check Wal-Mart clearance aisle, you may pickup a deal on a stereo on clearance.
Next hit flea marets, yard sales, pawn shops, auctions, and Ebay.
Then look up Crutchfield.com
80 Watts you are getting jacked, you need a stereo at least pulling 200W/250W.
A good speaker pulls 100-1500W depends so you want a stereo that has at least 2 RCA outs in back 2 red 2 white.
Then an amp at least 2-5 channels at 1000W with bridgeable capabilities.
Then a nice 1 farad capacitor which will store power from the battery to give as a boost when you hit low bass.
Now the speakers, the idea is so that you do not fry them, you need a speaker matched to the amp, if it says, 2 channels at 500W buy a 500W speaker and wire it to one channel. If it says 2 channel at 1000W buy 2 1000w speakers and never try to run a 250W speaker array at 1000W.
Next learn to understand the ins and outs of the system you install. Ohms and MOSFET and all that can seem a bit overwhelming at times but once you understand how to program your stereo to emit a balanced Sin Wave you will have it good.

Need to say one thing you should ask around and see if any friends have any equip for sale too and maybe they know how the stuff works too.
Check in with your local storage place and see if they have any auctions of items like storage units, you can pick up a deal, then sell everything in the unit to make money at yard sale then buy more deals at the units and fund your little expedition in car audio.
 
the wires that go from the deck to the speakers right now arent hooked up properly, before he had it set up so that after the deck they went into the amp then out of the amp to the speakers so all you need to do is figure out which wire leads to where, and what speaker and then hook the wires straight from the deck to the speaker, or you can run all new wire but that gets kinda tedious
 
the wires that go from the deck to the speakers right now arent hooked up properly, before he had it set up so that after the deck they went into the amp then out of the amp to the speakers so all you need to do is figure out which wire leads to where, and what speaker and then hook the wires straight from the deck to the speaker, or you can run all new wire but that gets kinda tedious
 
U should rip all the old wiring out... that was for his stereo and ur requires something different. Refer to the installation manual for help I am sure ur hook up is less complicated and does not require an amp to run... Most stereos do not need them and will let u know when they require one.
 
u don't need an amp to make your system back playing. what u can do though time consuming is run your own speaker wire to speaker wires he has already ran in car from your sony deck harness speaker wires. As for your door speakers, just find his speaker wires that he ran and splice into them some where by your kick panels(so u won't have to try fishing wire through door loom which can be an pain in the azz). as for the back deck speakers, do the same thing. runenough wire to reach a point where u can splice into the wiring without having to do a complete run from deck to speaker. just make sure when u make ur connections u wire positive to positive and negative to negative. like i said, its more time consuming running your wire but it cuts out some of the guessing game plus u will have installed better wire for your deck to speakers hookup. .
 
when you install a amp , the speakers wireing all go to the amp instead of the deck, so all of your speakers are wired to the location where he had the amp. what you can do is re route those wires back to the new deck and wire them to the back of the new deck, hook up the hot [red ] and ground [black ] and you will be good to go
 
when you install a amp , the speakers wireing all go to the amp instead of the deck, so all of your speakers are wired to the location where he had the amp. what you can do is re route those wires back to the new deck and wire them to the back of the new deck, hook up the hot [red ] and ground [black ] and you will be good to go
 
when you install a amp , the speakers wireing all go to the amp instead of the deck, so all of your speakers are wired to the location where he had the amp. what you can do is re route those wires back to the new deck and wire them to the back of the new deck, hook up the hot [red ] and ground [black ] and you will be good to go
 
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