# Question: 1998 rear speaker wires



## zakezuke (Mar 22, 2003)

I think i've established I have the base model. The lack of rear speakers sorta tipped my off.

I'm installing speakers in the back presently. The prior owner got a professional install and it looks like there are rear speaker wires already installed into this auto.

Great! If i'm correct... here the heck are they? I can find only one major wiring bundle, and I don't want to tweek with it too much as I have this fear of accidently tweeking


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## WRteam200sx (Mar 15, 2003)

most likely they ran them in the door sile cavity which runs under the footplate of the door... just trace them back from the radio to where they are....

the most you'd need is like a screw driver , everything else pops off for the most part!


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## zakezuke (Mar 22, 2003)

Hmmm, that would make little sence to me... having mounting in the rear truck area for speakers but having the wires go to the doors? 

I'm not saying that you are not right, i'm just saying it sounds silly right off the bat. besides... there clearly is no wire to the inside rear doors.


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## zakezuke (Mar 22, 2003)

Ok, I gave up! I know I could have possibly found the rear speaker wires.. they are color coated and dotted somewhere, but it was in theory less hassle routing a new wire. Well, it would have been less trouble if my spool had a few more inches left on it. To make matters worse.... I thought I could jack into the kenwood's rca jacks marked "rear speaker out" but no sound same out of it, so I pig tailed RCA jacks to hook up to the RCA jacks to hook up to the wire and soldered on one more segment as I had only enough wire, exactly enough, to make a run from the Kenwood to the driver's side speaker. 

Memo to self, get new spool!

To make life more fun, i'm using the speakers from my old car. I don't know the exact size but there was a clear 1 inch diffrence, so I dremmled some wooden disks to adapt the large hole to the small speaker. Good the fact that I don't have to cut more garbage, and there seems to be an added quality mounting the speekers in wood. 

Still would like to know where those factory wires are, if anyone knows where they are located in the harrnes please let me know, I could get rid of my gay wireing solution in that event.


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## sr20dem0n (Mar 19, 2003)

wait now what did you do with the speaker wire and rca's? if you aren't using an external amp you shouldn't be touching those rca's at all....


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## zakezuke (Mar 22, 2003)

sr20dem0n said:


> *wait now what did you do with the speaker wire and rca's? if you aren't using an external amp you shouldn't be touching those rca's at all.... *


The RCAs on this unit are clearly marked "rear speaker out". If this is incorrect well blame the markings not my self. It seemed to make perfect sence to plug in the rear speakers to either the jacks marked "rear speaker out" or the wires marked "rear speaker out".

I'll double check with the manual and see what it says, but needless to say the RCA is pigtailed into the factory wires in the event I can find them I can just disconnect hookup to the neat bundle.


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## sr20dem0n (Mar 19, 2003)

well the rca's are low level outputs, meaning they just carry a signal, they aren't powered so they can't drive a speaker. There should be many normal wires coming out of the headunit (power, ground, switched power, + and - for all 4 speakers, etc), you need to look in the manual and find out which wires go to which speaker, then splice into those ones.


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## zakezuke (Mar 22, 2003)

sr20dem0n said:


> *well the rca's are low level outputs, meaning they just carry a signal, they aren't powered so they can't drive a speaker. There should be many normal wires coming out of the headunit (power, ground, switched power, + and - for all 4 speakers, etc), you need to look in the manual and find out which wires go to which speaker, then splice into those ones. *


I did actually, I spliced some female rca jacks onto what you describe as those wires. That are presently working, though I still need to physicaly mount them. I checked with the manual, and all my wires are already marked very clearly from a prior install.

And I did consult a manual actually, the nice thing about there being a pdf edition. It clearly showed that the RCA jacks, these RCA jacks are for speakers if I am to believe the diagrams.

But if what you say is correct, and these rca jacks are that were marked clearly "rear speaker out" are indeed line level output, then I should have been able to measure some form of voltage from them, and I would have heard something from a small speaker. 

I'm more inclined to believe that this is just a base model Kenwood, that just doesn't have the jacks in the back hooked up to anything, speaker / pre-amp out or otherwise.


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