Hey all,
I had some problems with my headunit, and its being sent into Alpine for a new parts swap, but my question is, in the process of the diagnosis, I gave up, and let a car audio shop rewire the harness (dumbass before me cut the factory connection off). On Crutchfield, and Alpine's website, they recommend running a separate power wire directly to the battery for this head unit (I think 14 ga). The shop said that wasnt needed, and wired it into the factory wiring harness.

Is this a bunch of bull****, or are they right?

Could it have caused an internal failure which makes me have to send it back?

Thanks in advance!

 

i have always been told & personally recommend to always power an aftermarket hu straight from the battery.

it will also give your speakers a little more power (if theyre not powered by an external amp).

if they are it wont do much, may notice a little extra volume, but that depends on your setup.

im not sure about the headunit being underpowered & that causing problems,
unless it could of strained it.
did your display seem dull at times or take a lil while to load cds?
usually have problems with over powering the hu

hope all this helps
-Sean

also, nice choice in going with an alpine hu.
with all the headunits ive seen, installed, & used i havent found one better than an alpine
especially when it comes to ipod integration

 

Does your stereo have an inline fuse already in the power wire? If so you really don't need to go straight to the battery. If not then yes I would go straight to the battery especially if you are running amps. My alpine doesn't have one so it went straight to the battery. My eclipse that I have now has one so all I did was use the plug adapter. But when I put big amps in then I will go to the battery.

 

Thanks all, Im waiting for a reply back from Alpine.

 

I've had several Alpine HU's, and I have always used the factory power lead to power the Alpine - never an issue.

The factory power wire and ground is 16 gauge, which is good for more amperage than the head unit will draw if it is working properly.

If the head unit failed, it had something wrong with it - the power wire source did not cause the issue...

 

The reason his headunit has to be hooked up to the battery is because it has 27wx4 RMS (60wx4 peak) which is 10-15 watts more that the rest of alpines products. There's a reason we don't use 16 gauge power wire on 1000w amps. So if you want your stereos to work I'd suggest following the instructions for installation.

 

Who said anything about a 1,000 watt amp ?? The HU in question can produce ~ 100 watts at best, for any reasonable amount of time. Peak ratings are meaningless in the real world.....

16 gauge wire is good for 15 amps of CONTINUOUS power draw - that would equate to ~ 200 watts of power being drawn CONTINUOUS by the HU.

I guess if you play it at full power for a LONG time you might have an issue, but I'd be willing to bet the speakers (or your ears) would have issues before the power wire or HU did.

lblair04 - As I stated before, the factory power wire DID NOT cause your HU to fail. The stereo shop was not lying to you...

 

Alpine thinks that most vehicles power line are inefficient for this application. There's is a chance this was the problem. A small chance, but still a chance.

Anyways it's all good. lblair when you get that new unit in just err on the side of caution and run a fused wire direct from the battery. It'll take maybe 30 minutes to do.

 

Yeah, I had already installed a separate power wire directly from the battery and fused. But the stereo shop said they dont use them, and just disconnected it.