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Full Sound System Installation - DIY or Pro Install?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:21 pm
by brickie94
Hi there! Im new here and a novice with cars. A week ago, I bought my second car (on my red Ps) - the glorious 2000 SUBARU LIBERTY 3GEN MY00 GX. I love the car so much, but it is missing a crucial, fundamental P plater characteristic -
a badass sound system.

The generous guy who I bought the car off gave me this headunit and a pair of these speakers. But I want more.

I'm looking to DIY a sub, amp and speaker install - so ive written up what I think I need

- A power wire with fuse + same gauge ground wire (what gauge??)
- Speaker Wire
- Remote turn on wire
- Sub & Amp
- Another set of two ways (probably the same as the guy has given me)

I am worried about piercing the firewall and blowing the battery because I literally have little to no idea what im doing.

tl;dr = should I DIY or get someone else to do it for me?

Re: Full Sound System Installation - DIY or Pro Install?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:42 pm
by rooby
If you are wanting a decent install that will sound good at higher volumes, I'm sorry to say but you are probably best off selling the stuff you were given and using the money to buy new stuff.

Reason being is that the speakers are bottom of the line and the head unit only has 1 RCA preout.
If you want to run your speakers & sub through an amp you will want minimum 2 pre-outs, one for the fronts and one for the sub.
If you are on a budget the rear speakers don't really matter.

For an affordable (making assumptions on how much money you want to spend :)):
You could get a head unit with 2 pre-outs, a 4 channel amp, some entry level splits for the front, a sub.
2x RCA leads for head unit to amp
+ wiring and fuses as mentioned

I would recommend not using those wire joining crimp things to join any wires. Solder them for best connection and less chance of disconnection later.

Try to get a wiring harness for the head unit, so you join the wires to the harness and then just plug it into the car. That way you aren't cutting the car wires and joining them directly, which will be crap for later. You should be able to pick one up at your nearest car audio place or on line pretty cheap.

If you want to give it a go yourself it isn't that hard, but the result may not be 100% (I know my first playing around with audio was sub-par).
If you mess anything up you can always go get a car audio place to fix it. They do that kind of thing all the time.

Or if you want no fuss and don't mind paying just get someone to do it for you.

Re: Full Sound System Installation - DIY or Pro Install?

PostPosted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 8:29 pm
by techst
If you want basic , you could just get a decent enough 4 channel amp and get an rca splitter for the amp , you'd only need 1 se of rcas then , just wire up fronts n sub , rears u could just run off head unit