when hooking up an amp to the front speakers,..or components, dont you run wire from the amp to the speakers?????.....some guy told me today that you splice into the harness for the deck,.......now i'm all confused.

 

Most places run the speaker wire up to the deck and use the factorys wires to run the rest. In most cases this works fine, unless you are looking for the full quailty of your amp and components.
If thats the case I ussually run 16 gauge speaker wire to each speaker.

 

I think if you're upgrading to an external amp and aftermarket component speakers, you want to bypass the factory wirinig and use new speaker cable (16ga should be fine) from the amp to the new speakers (typically the passive crossover that comes with the components, unless you're running an active system).

 

You have to get the sound from the amp to the speakers, so wires need to connect the two.

A cheap way can be to run the speaker outputs from the amp to / through the factory wiring harness. This is done so you don't have to run any wires through the door grommets / etc. If you do this, you're stuck with the rather small factory wiring, but it can be done.

I prefer to replace the wiring like you were thinking; that's what I did.

 

sillyboy,

You can do it either way as others mentioned. The reason why many installers choose to run the speaker wiring from amp -> speaker wires behind headunit, is that it's much easier. On some cars, it's a royal pita feeding new speaker wire through the door (especially through the oem grommet), so installers try to avoid it. Of course, to get the best SQ, you're best off running new speaker wire from amp -> speakers directly.

 

thanks, i didnt think i was that much of a noob. :-)

 

I agree with everybody. Anything else I can do for you?