Help With Amplifier Wiring Requirements Please

[jonnyalpha]

Can some expert car audio electronics expert check my findings before I order an amplifier wiring kit.

OK so I have been doing some research into wiring up an amp.
I have just ordered a Sony XPLOD N1004 4 Channel Amp. It is advertised as 1000Watt but does 70Watt RMS per Channel (280Watt RMS).
I have also ordered 2 x Pioneer 16x9 Coaxial Speakers and will initially be using these 2 x speakers,so only 2 channels will be in use (140Watt) However I have in the car 2 x 25Watt Pioneer Speakers that I will (if the fit) put under the dash or in the doors, so another 140Watt).  

I may at some stage in the future fit a Sub Woofer (although once I test the above I may have enough sound!!

When choosing a wiring kit I have read several guides like this and used several calculators like this one  and think I need 8g wiring and a 50 Amp inline fuse (as recommended by the Pioneer Amp manual).

So based on my research I think I need a wiring kit with 8g wiring and a 50Amp in line fuse.

I have singled out this KnuKonceptz Amazon £15.99

I would like the Stinger Series 8g which oddly is selling in Halfords for £39.99 also on eBay for £33.90.

[jonnyalpha]

Mmm still trying to decide on the wiring.

The power cables in the KnuKonceptz amplifier wiring kit are Copper Clad Aluminium but the ones in the Stinger 4000 Series are Oxygen Free Copper. But this relates in the ££24 price difference (£15.99 compared to £39.99). I have also sussed out that the Stinger kit does NOT come with speaker cable!!! So looking around I have found some KnuKonceptz 100% Oxygen Free Speaker cable, £22.49 for 15m of what I think is 14 Gauge.  

That would bumped up the wiring, if I opted for the Stinger kit to over £60!!

I have also considered the Vibe Slick kit from Halfords.

Looking into my power requirements I am sure I only need 8g which according to this reference is good for around 85Amp at 10ft? More than enough for fitting in my classic Mini if the Amp is in the rear or under the back seat.

Whatever kit I go for (8g or 4g) with my Sony XPLOD N1004 Amp I need a 50 Amp fuse as opposed to the 60 Amp which comes in Vibe, KnuConceptz and Stinger kits. 50 Amp AGU Fuses seem hard to come by but I have found some on eBay for £6.67 for 2.

So my choices are:

8g wiring option:

KnuConceptz Amazon @ £15.99 + Fuses @ £6.67 = £22.66
Vibe Slick from Halfords @ £19.99 + Fuses £6.67 = £26.66
Stinger 4000 from Halfords @ £39.99 + KnuConceptz Speaker Cable @ £22.49 + Fuses @ £6.67 = £69.15 (More than the cost of my Amp!!) 

[lufbramatt]

Use welding earth cable for the power leads, cheaper than branded car audio stuff. 16mm or 25mm will work really well

www.weldingtorchparts.co.uk/welding-cable-and-connectors.html

[theheap]

A £25 amp wiring kit is all you need.

Those little dash speakers may as well be wired to the head unit and to be honest most head units will be strong enough for 6x9's.
I'd have all for speakers wired to the head unit and a sub bridged to that amp.

[jonnyalpha]

Dec 21, 2016 20:52:10 GMT theheap said:

A £25 amp wiring kit is all you need.

Those little dash speakers may as well be wired to the head unit and to be honest most head units will be strong enough for 6x9's.
I'd have all for speakers wired to the head unit and a sub bridged to that amp.

I am in no way an expert but I beg to differ. The radio is capable of about 45watts RMS per channel which is fine for the existing 25Watt Speakers however the 6x9 Pioneer Speakers I have bought are rated at 60 Watt RMS which is far more than the Head Unit can supply?


 

[dickie12]

running them 60watt 6x9 of a 45watt headunit would be fine ive run higher watt 6x9 than that off headunits in the past and depending where you have got them in the car they will sound good. if there in a parcel shelf with good boot space can get a really good sound from them. If you do end up running them through that amp make sure you turn the amp down or you mite blow the 6x9 up.

[dickie12]

Also some of the new branded headunits are rubbish my mate just wired four speakers and a new kenwood bluetooth headunit 4x50watt in his car sounded terrible like he had done something wrong we tried an old school 4x35watt kenwood cd headunit on the same wiring and sounded great the new kenwood he had just felt so curse word in build quality.

[fad]

Don't get bogged down into wattages that are quoted. Unless you have verified Thiele and Small parameters quoting efficiency, dissipation etc for it all, then you can say with some certainty that what you have on the box is moo poo, because the quoted figure is what the speaker can safely dissipate, not actually use. So for a cheapy set of "60 Watt" speakers, lots of that will be lost in heat and all sorts. Which brings us on to the next bit... Matching speakers to amps. You really want your speakers to have a greater "rating" than your amp. This is because as you approach the top end of what the speaker can actually "use" rather than dissipate, the sound sill distort and sound curse word. It's better to be able to use 100% of your amps power without getting towards the absolute maximum the speaker can cope with than it is to have the speaker tap out at 75% of the amp's output. A high quality true 50W RMS amp with a very low THD at full chat blasting through some 100W true RMS speakers will sound LOADS better than the same amp at full chat through 50W speakers.

To give a real example, a while ago I built a pair of speaker cabinets for a band, using a pair of Eminence Beta 15" drivers and APT150 tweeters with a passive 3k5 crossover (so these things could use about 300W RMS each before they sounded curse word). I ran them as a demo using my little 60W RMS two channel amp, and cranked up all the way through the amps range they sounded lovely, and at the very very top end they were PROPERLY loud. Remember power and output dB is a logarithmic relationship, for every 3dB you want out of a speaker you need to double the the power (ok it's more in depth than that because impedance is a dynamic resistance so changes depending on frequencies and all sorts, and the power thing is actually more complicated, but that is it put in simple terms).

My point here (sorry about the ramble) is that if your amp is good quality with a good THD figure (this will be quoted as a percentage, and it wants to be VERY low - it is basically the amount a signal will distort when put through the amp, or "how good it sounds turned up") then you will get the best results with a speaker that is rated higher than the amp (within reason, don't strap a 25W amp to a 600W driver as it will do naff all!). Your Pioneer speakers will sound just fine through your existing head unit.

As far as amp kits go, don't get sucked in by gold plated fittings, oxygen free copper or any other toss. You want a good, thick cable to supply your amp (overkill is better, since over time if the cable gets damaged or degraded you will want some redundancy in the current carrying capability), and for your speaker wires don't go mad, you don't need to spend a fortune on it by any means for good results, you absolutely will not be able to detect the slightest difference between top end stuff and regular copper, it's marketing garbage and only necessary when you are talking about very fine instrumentation and whatnot. Remember not one connection inside your amp or speakers will be gold plated by a vestal virgin, lovingly fitted using just her inner thighs, in an oxygen free environment and blessed by the Pope so your power cable sure as sh*t doesn't need to be! :lol:

[jonnyalpha]

Thanks for all the replies - as ever lots of very helpful info.