Aftermarket head unit with Alpine speaker system

[Hirst]

I have just bought an aftermarket head unit, and went to install it. Long story short, because I have the Alpine system I only have rear speaker wires. I then have the white connector that has audi and video wires.

Can anyone help with how I go about connecting things up. I've spent all day tryying to find out how.

Any help appreciated.

 

[TomT]

You are going to have a bad time trying to make an aftermarket head unit work with the factory Alpine amp.

 

[canadiankodiak700]

I have just bought an aftermarket head unit, and went to install it. Long story short, because I have the Alpine system I only have rear speaker wires. I then have the white connector that has audi and video wires.

Can anyone help with how I go about connecting things up. I've spent all day tryying to find out how.

Any help appreciated.

Yeah it's not going to work like that.
You have all your speaker wires, they are just on the output side of the Alpine amp.
You can't just simply feed a signal to the Alpine amp from an aftermarket head unit. You are going to have to replace the amp with a good aftermarket one. Age to be honest, while your at it, you are better off to replace the crappy Alpine speakers too.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[Hirst]

Thanks for the comments guys.

After hours of searching I found some "instructions" on how to do it. So today I pressed ahead and connected everything up. Microphone, GPS, Reverse feed and digital radio all connected and working. But you've guessed it, no sound!!

You can't just simply feed a signal to the Alpine amp from an aftermarket head unit.

How does the factory head unit communicate with the amp?

I'm happy with how it looks though

View media item 29291

 

[TomT]

The factory head unit sends digital control signals to the Alpine DSP/Amp. The actual changes happen within the amp. NO aftermarket head unit will communicate with it.

At this point, you need to just go full bore with a new system. You kind of painted yourself into a corner by doing the head unit without really knowing how this system works.

The easiest way to get sound again is going to be an aftermarket DSP/Amp unit. JL, Helix, Zapco, and Audio Control make them (among others). The good ones are not cheap, and the cheap ones are not very good.

 

[emjohn4]

Wow, there is lots of bad info in this thread!

1.) If you want to keep your factory amp, keep the steering wheel controls, and keep your factory reverse camera; you'll need the following:
a.) iDatalink Maestro RR Interface Module
b.) iDatalink HRN-RR-CH1 Factory Integration Adapter
c.) iDatalink HRN-AV-CH1 Factory Integration Adapter
Source: This is what I did for about two years before replacing the factory amp - see picture.

2.) If you want to bypass your factory amp, and use only head unit power for the speakers:
a.) Find the OEM amp in the LHS footwell. In the US, this is above the drivers feet, but I think in the UK you have RHS drivers. The amp should be in the LHS footwell, by the a-piller.
b.) Extend the speaker wires from the head unit to the amp outputs. The wire colors are on the google...I would suggest cutting the wires from the output of the amp and making the connection there.

3.) If you want to bypass your factory amp, and use and aftermarket amp for the speakers:
a.) Same as 2a.
b.) I connected the aftermarket amp output to the output on the factory amp speaker wires to avoid running new wire through the doors to the speakers.

I used the factory amp for about 2 years with my aftermarket setup, then went to an aftermarket amp too just a few months ago.

 

[Hirst]

I have kind of backed myself in to a corner, but the factory head unit was beginning to get on my nerves. I had the 430 REN so no NAV, USB port only to add media to the hard drive and no streaming by Bluetooth. The raido stations I listen to are on even frequencies like 102.0 so the radio doesn't tune to them. It became a very large (with small capacity) iPod, and it is painfully slow to copy media. After a couple of years I decided I needed to get it changed.

I'll speak with some car audio businesses tomorrow and see what products they recommend.

Something I didn't connect up was the parking break signal (ran out of time), where woudl be best to tap in to this?

 

[Hirst]

Thanks @emjohn4, i'll have a look at the iData kit you have mentioned. Looks like we went for similar head units.

The amp is in the drivers footwell, I was trying to work out the connections to it earlier when I found I had no sound. My truck is an American import, so LHD.