Re: e30 Radio Search - The Saga Continues

[Chris Baisley <cbaisley@xxxxxxxx>]

At 12:15 AM 17/11/00 -0500, Henry H Kim wrote:
>1) BY-PASS THE FACTORY AMP?
>The Kenwood comes with normal speaker outs and RCA pre-outs.  Do I use the
>normal speaker outs and by-pass the factory amp?  Or do I use the pre-outs
>to go directly to the amp?  What have listers tried?

Bypass the booster amp, it's a piece of crap.  Your Kenwood likely is a 
high power unit that will sound much better than the stock booster 
amp.  Plus, the booster amp is designed to take line-level inputs, not 
low-level input as what you'll get from the pre-outs on your head unit.


>2) SOUNDGATE PWR1 ADAPTER?
>When I go to Crutchfield, they want me to buy a Soundgate PWR1 adapter.  To
>quote Crutchfield, "The Soundgate PWR1 adapter is designed to match the 
>output level (speaker
>outputs) of most high-power aftermarket receivers to the input levels of 
>many factory amplifiers."
>Can I assume that if I use my pre-outs, I don't need the PWR1?

No.  See above.  They are probably right that you DO need the adaptor if 
you're going to run your speaker outputs into the booster amp - but that 
pretty much defeats the purpose of buying a high power head unit.

>3) FLOATING GROUND ADAPTER?
>Crutchfield also recommends a the Soundgate FLT1 floating ground adapter.
>"This adapter lets you connect most high-power (8-wire) aftermarket
>receivers to most common ground (5-wire) car harnesses, keeping the
>high-power output from the receiver. This adapter maintains a full 20-20k Hz
>frequency range. You also get a 3 dB bass boost below 85 Hz for beefier
>bass. It does not work with Bose systems or in cars with speakers that
>ground to the chassis."

I avoided the problem by running new wires from the head unit to the trunk, 
avoiding the common ground issue (it is true that the factory wiring uses a 
common ground between the head unit and the booster amp - after the booster 
amp, all channels are separately grounded). So if you run new wires, you 
don' t need this thing.  Plus the factory wires between head unit and trunk 
are pretty puny and crappy, so you'd do better with beefier wires.

I too found the install to be more complex than I expected, but it's not 
rocket science - perservere!

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