[Stizuner]

Hey folks!

I have a 2015 Buick LaCrosse without the Bode premium. I’m a car audio lover all my life. The Lacrosse doesn’t have the option of a head unit upgrade so that limits me a bit.

Wanting a nice upgrade a couple years back I had a shop install a Audio Control LC6i, JL XD600/1v2 and a JL bass-wedge. After the install with the nice bass upgrade the mids and highs were lacking.

A couple weeks ago I decided it was time to remedy this and this time I was doing it myself.

All of my parts are here so I ripped my car apart today. All speakers have been removed and panels are gone! The Crutchfield guide I used for disassembly left me puzzled in where to intercept the speaker channels to get them onto the new four channel amp.

I’ve now disassembled a good chunk of the dash and located where the shop patched in to the head unit to pull the line levels into the lc6i.

This brings me to why I am posting here. I would prefer to not use the stock wires and upgrade them to better wire. While I haven’t picked up the best gear so far I do like to lay solid ground work for upgrading later.

Looking at the grommets in the doors I am confident I can rerun the rear doors, however the front door grommets enter the car pretty deep behind the dash. To make it more challenging I purchased components so will also need to fish down the pillar tweeters.

here are my questions.
1) if I abandon running new wires can I cut after where the shop grabbed the signal and splice in new wire from there to the amp?
2) if I do that would the stock wire be too weak for 100w RMS? If I had to guess I would say it’s 20 gauge.
3) For high level input does there have to be a speaker attached to the line? Would I be ok for the line to go from head unit to lc6i and from the lc6i to the amp, to the speakers?
4) is there an easier way for me to get it done? I figure it prolly wouldn’t work to just patch over from the lc6i high levels from the new amp?

Couple of notes: my car doesn’t appear to have a stock amp I can intercept signal from.

I would love to get this done and my car back together tomorrow as me and the wife have a 6 hour drive Sunday to pickup our new puppy.

thanks so much for reading all this and any knowledge you can send my way!!

 

[Holmz]

I doubt "better wire" is really sonically any better.

Maybe a mid bass would like a larger wire, but that 100W amp will only really be pushing 1-10W for the tweeter and mid range.

And if you did not already have amps and speakers, then the 8 ohm stuff would halve the amperes... but 8 ohm amps are more rare these days.

3)... a resistor is often used

 

[Truthunter]

here are my questions.
1) if I abandon running new wires can I cut after where the shop grabbed the signal and splice in new wire from there to the amp?
2) if I do that would the stock wire be too weak for 100w RMS? If I had to guess I would say it’s 20 gauge.
3) For high level input does there have to be a speaker attached to the line? Would I be ok for the line to go from head unit to lc6i and from the lc6i to the amp, to the speakers?
4) is there an easier way for me to get it done? I figure it prolly wouldn’t work to just patch over from the lc6i high levels from the new amp?

1 - Yes
2 - No, music is dynamic and the circuit will only dissipate 100w very rarely at maximum volume and only for split seconds at a time. If the speakers are 4ohm then current at 100w will be 5 amps and remember that is just for split seconds at a time at maximum volume. 90% of the time it will be a fraction of that. Factory wiring is perfectly capable of handling that.
3 - No speaker is required to be attached to the line.
4 - If your amp has "high-level" inputs then there is no need for the lc6i. Removing it may provide lower system noise.
5 - Post pics of the new puppy

 

[Stizuner]

Thanks for the guidance! I got everything installed and it sounds so much better.

Now I just need to get a handle on tuning everything.

Here is a pic of the puppy.