Im going to be replacing my front door speakers on my 97gtp but I also want to keep the stock tweeters. I heard if you wire in the stock tweeters to aftermarket speakers the impendance wont be right and your headunit will eventually fail and that it must be wired in series. Is this true and how exactly would I have to wire this up.
Wire in tweeter to aftermarket speaker
- Thread starter War97gtp
- Start date
Russosaur
Moderator
Just replace the stock sweeter with an aftermarket one. It will sounds tons better and you wont have resistance issues. So you want a component speaker with separate tweeter vs a coaxial speaker with built in tweeter.
Now on my car i ran a coax speaker with a built in tweeter and didnt wire up the stock tweeter. Then iI noticed the vocals were garbage because it was at your feet so i wired in the stock tweeter. I was to say the finial load was around 6ohms which is a little lower than you want which is maybe 8 but i honestly can't remember but it ran fine on the stock HU and my aftermarket one. You might want to google it and probably find stock resistance.
Sent from BFE
Now on my car i ran a coax speaker with a built in tweeter and didnt wire up the stock tweeter. Then iI noticed the vocals were garbage because it was at your feet so i wired in the stock tweeter. I was to say the finial load was around 6ohms which is a little lower than you want which is maybe 8 but i honestly can't remember but it ran fine on the stock HU and my aftermarket one. You might want to google it and probably find stock resistance.
Sent from BFE
I see. Well its a bit too late for that i already ordered a pair of kicker 5 1/4 coaxes. I was thinking couldnt i just get the crossover boxes seperately and use those with the stock tweeters or possibly some aftermarket ones ( depending on how hard it is to install an aftermarket tweeter in the stock location) . Would that work and give me the correct impedance (4 ohm?)
Russosaur
Moderator
Actually now that I think about it more I might be running 2.6ish Ohm because I THINK most HU's call for like 4 Ohm. I want to say the stock tweeter was like 6ohm or something weird and the coax speaker was 4. When you take it all apart the back of the speakers should tell the impedance or you can throw a DMM on them to test it. I just ran the stock tweeter parallel with the coax speaker. Running fine for 3 years now, neither the stock or my Kenwood unit ever had problems with it and I'v played the system at max volume for 6+ hours.
So to answer you question, if you used the stock tweeter with the kicker 5 1/4. If the Kicker was 4 Ohm and the stock tweeter ends up being 6 Ohm, running parallel will leave you a finial load of 2.6 Ohm.
Then the stock tweeters have crossovers on them. It should he hooked to the stock 5 1/4 in the door. You should see them when you pop the door panel off. IIRC they are in covered in like a black shrink wrap.
So to answer you question, if you used the stock tweeter with the kicker 5 1/4. If the Kicker was 4 Ohm and the stock tweeter ends up being 6 Ohm, running parallel will leave you a finial load of 2.6 Ohm.
Then the stock tweeters have crossovers on them. It should he hooked to the stock 5 1/4 in the door. You should see them when you pop the door panel off. IIRC they are in covered in like a black shrink wrap.
Russosaur
Moderator
Yeah, the crossover for the tweeter should be hooked on the stock 5 1/4 it looks like its in a black plastic. Once you see it you will know what I mean.
You check the finial impedance by hooking up a DMM set to Ohm's on the 2 wires that you would connect to the stock wiring. So basiclly run the + from the tweeter to the + of he door speaker so you have 1 single + wire, which is running them in parallel. Then do the same for the - and then once you put your DMM on the 2 wires it should read about 2.6 Ohm if the speaker impedance is correct based upon what i remember.
You might need to solder in the extra wire but its not that much of a deal.
If you have questions once you get everything tore apart, post in here again and I'll try to help and guide you if you need it.
Sent from BFE
You check the finial impedance by hooking up a DMM set to Ohm's on the 2 wires that you would connect to the stock wiring. So basiclly run the + from the tweeter to the + of he door speaker so you have 1 single + wire, which is running them in parallel. Then do the same for the - and then once you put your DMM on the 2 wires it should read about 2.6 Ohm if the speaker impedance is correct based upon what i remember.
You might need to solder in the extra wire but its not that much of a deal.
If you have questions once you get everything tore apart, post in here again and I'll try to help and guide you if you need it.
Sent from BFE
Ok, I think I got this whole impedance thing figured out. After taking the door panel off and taking the stock speaker out I looked at the back of it and it says 4 ohms. It would only make sense that installing a different speaker that's also 4 ohms the final impedance should be the same. Well what determines that is the factory inline crossover. Without it the impedance is like you said but if you wire the stock in-line crossover back in (you must or else the tweeter will blow) its just like it was with the original speaker. Here are some pictures to explain
First here is how I set up the wiring to hook up the aftermarket speaker with the factory tweeter wired in (longer red and black wires go to tweeter)
Next, here is the final impedance with the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter all wired up with no inline crossover (I think my cheap meter reads about 1/2 ohm to high)
Here is the impedance of the aftermarket speaker only
Here is the impedance of the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter all wired up (measured before the in-line crossover)
Here is the impedance of the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter all wired up (measured after the in-line crossover)
As you can see without the crossover the final impedance of both the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter is most likely what you said (2.6 ohms but my meter reads about .5 ohms to high)
and with the inline crossover you have 4 ohms at the aftermarket speaker and 6 ohms at the factory tweeter (that's how it was with the stock setup)
That being said, I think you can safely hook up aftermarket front door speakers with the factory tweeters and not worry about impedance issues as long as you wire in the original crossover which is clipped in on the original door speaker in-line on the output to the tweeter (youll see the red/black tweeter output wire come out of the door speaker and go into a black "cover" about 6 inches long with a small bulge in it I almost didn't notice this and if I wouldve hooked it up without it I would've blown my tweeters real quick)
First here is how I set up the wiring to hook up the aftermarket speaker with the factory tweeter wired in (longer red and black wires go to tweeter)
Next, here is the final impedance with the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter all wired up with no inline crossover (I think my cheap meter reads about 1/2 ohm to high)
Here is the impedance of the aftermarket speaker only
Here is the impedance of the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter all wired up (measured before the in-line crossover)
Here is the impedance of the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter all wired up (measured after the in-line crossover)
As you can see without the crossover the final impedance of both the aftermarket speaker and factory tweeter is most likely what you said (2.6 ohms but my meter reads about .5 ohms to high)
and with the inline crossover you have 4 ohms at the aftermarket speaker and 6 ohms at the factory tweeter (that's how it was with the stock setup)
That being said, I think you can safely hook up aftermarket front door speakers with the factory tweeters and not worry about impedance issues as long as you wire in the original crossover which is clipped in on the original door speaker in-line on the output to the tweeter (youll see the red/black tweeter output wire come out of the door speaker and go into a black "cover" about 6 inches long with a small bulge in it I almost didn't notice this and if I wouldve hooked it up without it I would've blown my tweeters real quick)
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I installed a pioneer headunit (New 2015 model deh-X6700BS) at the same time as the speakers and I highly recommend it the colors match the dash/gauges very well. It has front usb/aux inputs, bluetooth, and has pandora app control which I use often. I even have hands free calling now! When someone calls me the name of the person comes up on the headunit and all I do is push play on the steering wheel to answer and I hear the call through the car speakers. Best of all its only around 120$ it seems like it should be a good amount more. I still have use of the steering wheel controls as well (using the metra axxess aswc-1 adapter)
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