Stock Subwoofer Amplifier

[Hokie.Fans]

OK -my second OEM subwoofer amplifier has burned out in my 1997 Mountaineer and I'm tired of replacing it. It also seems in reading posts I am not the only person to experience this.

So I want to get an after-market amp to replace it. I went to Crutchfield to get some info and learned there are mono, 2-channel, 4-channel, and 5-channel amps. My first question is, which type is the stock amp?

Next, when I get the new amp, the current one has three 'plugs' of wires. I assume I cut the plugs off, strip the wires that remain and hook them into the new amp at the right place? The reason I ask this is the new amps I am looking at online all have pix where the inputs are screw-hooks.

Thanks.

 

[jrowe6]

well, i dont know what you mean by 3 plugs of wires. my x didnt have that stereo in it. cant help you there.

as for the amps, if your sub is a 4 ohm sub a 2 channel amp will be the way to go, you will bridge the two channels for a single high powered channel. this gets you more power for less money.

if the sub is 2 ohms a mono amp will be best, again best power:money ratio.

someone should know how many watts that sub can handle, i suspect about 75 watts rms. that should be a fairly cheap amp. you can get an amp that puts out more than you need if you want to, just be sure to set the gain/volume properly so you dont destroy your sub. i would not suggested the cheapest amp you can find, get a name brand one.

back to wiring for a second, if you have an after market head unit with RCA outputs i would suggest fresh wiring for the after market amp. a wiring kit will have all you need in it to get the job done. if you dont have an after market head unit and want to use the factory wires i would think you could get away with that. a similarly powered amp should be able to run off the factory power wires. and for the signal you will likely have to use the speaker level inputs for the new amp, almost all after market amps have this option. you can either use RCA's or speaker wires. alot of times they just include a little adapter that turns speaker wires into RCAs. there might be an adapter to do all of this without splicing into the wires, but if someone knows which wires are which you could save a few $'s. you will need a positive power wire, a negative, and a remote wire. then you just need to find 2 wires that have the sound signal. if there are loads of wires going to that amp this could be a more complicated issue and i dont know what people would typically do for this. im sure someone knows the best way to go about this.

good luck. hope that answers a few ?'s

 

[nssj2]

Sucks to hear about the hassle. First, since you will be running an aftermarket amp, and your OEM one keeps frying (most likely a wiring issue), I would suggest you just hardwire in a the new amp. To do this, you will need a crossover/bypass kit, available at cruchfield or a local car audio store. This will allow you to use the factory HU harness and wiring, to splice and run to the new amp. You might not have to, as I can't remember how the factory HU was wired to the OEM amp. Back to a clean install, of course, a new positive cable, cable, remote, and ground can be purchased in a set for $20 if you're not running anything extreme. If you have an aftermarket HU, then its a straight 1 wire shot between it and the amp.


edit: Your stock amp is a Mono, IE, one output.