stock radio/amp questions

stock radio/amp questions

Hi everyone,

I currently have an '03 corolla s with the stock CD only(no tape) player & i'm pretty sure that it's the 6 speaker system.

1. Does the stock deck itself send out the amplified signal? or is there a stock amp further down in the wiring?

2. There are 2 connectors that plug into the back of the stock deck. I'm thinking that I could get the PIE head replacement converter, plug 1 of the those 2 connectors into the HRC, and have an RCA input play directly into the stock speaker system. Am I losing it, or is that how that would work?

The reason I'm asking this is because I would like to put in a car computer to replace any head unit. I guess the easiest way to jump at this would be to get a head unit with available aux inputs, and put that somewhere else. ('cause i was hoping to put the lcd screen where the current stock deck sits) but i really don't want a buy a head unit, just to route my pc audio signal. Any help would be much appreciated, thanx~!

Re: stock radio/amp questions

The stock unit is self contained and has a built in amp

You could, but you'll be getting rid of the stock head unit anyway.

hey oxy, thanx for the reply.

so basically, if i were to only have a computer with RCA outs hooked up to my stock speaker system (ie, no head unit - stock or oem)... i would need to hook an amp up to my stock speakers, and run my comp's RCA outs to that amp?

if that is the case, is there an SINGLE amp out there that could hook up to all six stock speakers in my car?

Yes

Depends what you mean by single amp. A four channel amp will do it. The front tweeters and door speakers use a passive crossover - the stock head unit has four speaker outputs. There are two problems with this 1) Most aftermarket amps have enough power to destroy the stock speakers and 2) your PC probably has a stereo output, not 4 channel. You won't have any control over front/rear fade. You could use the amplifier gains to set up the front/rear fade balance though.

hmm... what are the stock speakers rated at? I don't suppose you could buy an amp and set it to output less than its max power? (buying a higher wattage amp, for future expandability)

As for the second problem, I suppose I could add 4-channel output capability to the pc via the extigy or something like that.

Fronts are 17.5 W, 4 ohms, rears are 17.5 W, 6 ohms. You could use a more powerful amp and turn the gains way down. If you have access to an oscilloscope, setting up the gains would be pretty easy.

You could, or you could just use splitters at the input to the amp and adjust the amp gains to get an even balance.