Stereo install, how to amplify component speakers in the front doors

cardana24

Member
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2002 Mazda Protege5
Hey guys,
I have an 02 Protege5 with the factory tweeters. I am in the process of replacing all of the speakers and head unit, and I will also be adding sub woofers. I am using a 4 channel amp, I will amp the front component speakers and I will bridge the rear channels for the subs. I was running a bunch of the wiring yesterday and I am having an issue on what to do now. Since the factory uses hard plastic plugs at the harness going into the doors there is not an easy way to snake speaker wire into the door. Is there something I am missing here? So now I am thinking about just amping the signal in the kick panel area, but then I will be amping those tiny factory wires.... So that's where I am right now. I am also thinking about keeping the factory tweeters in the sail panel because if I install my aftermarket tweeters (I have already replace the 6x8 woofer), is this a horrible idea or do other people do this too? Does the factory system have a crossover built into the system? Is there only one set of wires going into the doors for the woofer and tweeter? I only see one set of black/white, and black/red wires in the kick panel area and that is the color of the wires that go to the woofer and tweeter. Any advice from people who have done this?
 
I would just grab the speaker wires behind the radio. it's easiest since you're already running wires from the amp to the radio anyway for remote and RCA leads.

Unless you're running MASSIVE amounts of power, the factory speaker wires will be fine. You won't notice any difference in sound between the factory wiring or running 12AWG speaker wire into the doors. Plus when you sell the car it's easier to revert back to stock. Back when i had my Jetta, I had my Boston Z6 components bi-amped. I was running almost 500 watts RMS into each front door via the factory speaker wires. I had 2 boston acoustics GT22 amps, each were bridged and running to a Boston Z6 mid in the door. Then i had a boston GT20 running stereo to the tweeters. Never had a single problem and car absolutely rocked. You could disconnect the subwoofers and it still sounded like i had a 10" sub hidden in the dash somewhere, those Z's got down in a serious way.

I know this may be a bit more extreme... I had around 8k worth of stereo stuff in that car, not counting all the custom work and fiberglass stuff that I did. gotta love employee accomodations :) But goes to show, copper is copper. bigger isn't always necessarily better. You can do the math, or there are calculators online that will do the math for you. But assuming 100 watts RMS you won't notice any difference or loss going from a 10AWG to an 18 or 20AWG wire. Mathmatically you may see a 1 or 2 watt loss. Audibily, your ears will never detect any difference. Also remember that music is dynamic, just because you have a 100 watt RMS amplifier, doesn't mean it's always putting out 100WRMS. Bass takes a lot more power to amplify than treble and most of the time unless you're running something crazy like the Z6 or compatible, you're crossing them over around 80-120hZ anyway.
 
I would just grab the speaker wires behind the radio. it's easiest since you're already running wires from the amp to the radio anyway for remote and RCA leads.

Unless you're running MASSIVE amounts of power, the factory speaker wires will be fine. You won't notice any difference in sound between the factory wiring or running 12AWG speaker wire into the doors. Plus when you sell the car it's easier to revert back to stock. Back when i had my Jetta, I had my Boston Z6 components bi-amped. I was running almost 500 watts RMS into each front door via the factory speaker wires. I had 2 boston acoustics GT22 amps, each were bridged and running to a Boston Z6 mid in the door. Then i had a boston GT20 running stereo to the tweeters. Never had a single problem and car absolutely rocked. You could disconnect the subwoofers and it still sounded like i had a 10" sub hidden in the dash somewhere, those Z's got down in a serious way.

I know this may be a bit more extreme... I had around 8k worth of stereo stuff in that car, not counting all the custom work and fiberglass stuff that I did. gotta love employee accomodations :) But goes to show, copper is copper. bigger isn't always necessarily better. You can do the math, or there are calculators online that will do the math for you. But assuming 100 watts RMS you won't notice any difference or loss going from a 10AWG to an 18 or 20AWG wire. Mathmatically you may see a 1 or 2 watt loss. Audibily, your ears will never detect any difference. Also remember that music is dynamic, just because you have a 100 watt RMS amplifier, doesn't mean it's always putting out 100WRMS. Bass takes a lot more power to amplify than treble and most of the time unless you're running something crazy like the Z6 or compatible, you're crossing them over around 80-120hZ anyway.

Thanks for your input, that make sense. So if I amp the front doors with out running speaker wire into the doors I am still wondering about the other stuff. Does the factory system have a built in crossover? Assuming I would not loose much I would like to leave the factory tweeters in place and just replace the woofer, has anyone done this?
 
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