[968bill]

I'm installing a new Alpine CD/MP3 ect audio unit nothing elaborate just a receiver, no separate amps, since the original unit had no output from either of the left side speakers. The Alpine has a wire to connect to the lights controlled by the dimmer (which is great IMO), is there an easy wire down in the console area for connecting this to? I checked the wiring/plug label from the old unit and there's no mention of lights. I really don't want to go tearing up under the dash only to find out later there's a wire right there.



Also, is there anything I need to concern myself with re: the alarm system? I've heard horror stories about Porsche alarm setups am I going to hop in my car tomorrow and find it won't start because I've removed the Porsche radio?



TIA

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[Greimann]

The clock light bulb is dimmed with the instrument lights. That is easy to get to.



There is a grey wire that needs to be grounded to keep the alarm happy.

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[968bill]

[quote name='Greimann' date='Mar 6 2006, 08:08 PM']The clock light bulb is dimmed with the instrument lights. That is easy to get to.



There is a grey wire that needs to be grounded to keep the alarm happy.

[right][post="16983"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

OK, thanks on the clock light.



Can you give me more info on "a gray wire"?

In the back of the stock plug that goes from the car's wiring to the stock stereo wiring harness there were (2) .5 brown w/ blue stripe wires that were in the plug pin location designated as Anti-theft Switch on the radio side. Since I've removed the stock plug and there's nothing on the Alpine side that needs those wires I just spliced them together (electrically the same thing as it was stock but w/o the radio connection).



TIA

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[968bill]

After reviewing the schematic of the alarm system on the Workshop Manual pdf download I see where I need to ground those 2 brown/blue wires, that's easy enough to do.



It's been quite awhile since I've read schematics on a regular basis but does anyone else find the designations on these things a little difficult?

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[flash]

the part i found oddest was that, at least on the stereo wiring, the speaker polarity orientation was reverse of what i was used to

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[968bill]

As for wiring speakers I don't believe it matters as long as they're all wired the same, isn't that correct?

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[SILVY968]

They should be the same as far as positive and negative designation, however, a positive voltage applied to the positive terminals should result in the woofer cones moving out, into the listening space.

Tweeters can not be done by inspection, just follow positive to positive.

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[flash]

NO!!!!!!



reverse wiring throws the speaker out of phase - this results in a loss of low end and it sounds noticeably "wrong" or wimpy - stereo separation is usually affected as well



wire them correctly - stripe is negative - this is reverse of japanese and american wiring - check the diagram for your deck - my pioneer was miswired by best buy when i had them stuff it in there as part of the "free installation with purtchase" - some favor they did me! - i got to go back in there are rewire the whole thing



much better now

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[968bill]

They would be out of phase together, I wired mine stripe to stripe and I got lucky it looks like.



As for the alarm I had no problem so grounding the brown/blue must have done the trick. I have yet ti check if the dimmer works the display for the radio too.



I will get to take it partially apart again since the receiver is Ipod compatible and I broke down and finally ordered an Ipod in addition to the Alpine cable to connect the Ipod to the receiver. I look at it this way, will save weight, I can now remove the CD changer in the trunk...



thanks for the help folks.

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[flash]

yes, they could be out of phase together - they would still be wrong - you'll get sound, but not the right sound - that makes all of them pulling when they should be pushing - many people don't know the difference, but i can hear it right away - german decks are wired like this car - japanese decks aren't - if you were to rewire them and listen to you would hear what it should sound like - it is not like ac currrent, where it doesn't matter



a quick check of the wiring diagram of the deck will tell you - it's positive to positive, whether striped or not

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[968bill]

For future ref. for those looking to replace their head unit, the Alpine CDA 9856 works great, is Ipod and sat. compatible (haven't hooked the Ipod up yet) and doesn't look too bling-bling to me.



My stock system has the 5.25 in mid/woof in lower front door and apx 1 in. tweeter in upper front door along with what I believe are 6 in. round in the rear panels behind the front seats. After taking it apart to see what I had to work with I decided investing in pricy speakers wasn't going to pay dividends for me w/o having to do more modifications inside the panels than I wanted to do so I ordered a set of Infinity Reference 5010cs's for the front doors and a set of Infinity Reference 6012i's for the rear. I've used Infinity's before and feel they provide a good bang for the buck.



Edit: The Infinity Ref. 6012's are a little small for the rears, it looks like the stock rears are 7" vs. the Inf 6012's 6 1/2". Kenwood makes a 7" but I haven't decided how I want to pursue this yet.

BTW, the stock speaker setup is diff. between the '93 and '94 MY cars, check your's first.



When you take off the rear panel you'll see the factory left a great deal of the cardboard panel materiel covering the speaker, they've covered apx. 2/3 rds of the rear speakers on my setup and it would take a great deal of modification to uncover them while maintaining the asthetic appearance of the interior, I don't have an answer for this yet.



As for wiring, on my car the wiring pairs were:

Left/Front - white & white w/black

Right/Front - Black & Black/Brown (?) notes jumbled

Left/Rear - Yellow & Yellow/Brown

Right/Rear - Red & Red/Brown



There is a very easy way to check which wire pair goes to which speaker, with the speakers connected on the other end take a AA (or AAA) 1.5v battery and hold one speaker wire to the neg. side and just brush the other speaker wire to the pos. side, you will hear just enough static to tell you which speaker set you're working with.



HTH

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[rxter]

WRT the reverse polarity wiring.....



If the head and the speakers are replaced with all japanese stuff then its like usual - stripes are +, right?



In my 92 325i one stock rear speaker was not wired (it blew when I hooked it up after playing for about 1 minute) and the other one was literally gone - just an empty hole with a wire dangling. The head had been replaced with a SONY something or other. I got some speakers and plugged them into the SONY head and they worked fine. I suspect that the person who replaced the head before me did not know about these wacky german car builders either...

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[flash]

you can go either way if you are changing BOTH ends AND not using the oem amplifiers - the wire doesn't know what signal it gets - just make sure you stay the same all the way through

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