little lazy at researching these kinda things...

So is it possible to wire the car's stock headunit cables to a single ipod/iphone. So that music can be played from a ipod/iphone without the need for a headunit?

I traded off my ok setup of pioneer f700bt head unit/amp/sub=30lbs. I don't want to rip out my pioneer door speakers cause they hardly weight anything, and I still would like to hear some music however loud the car gets.

I imagine it's simply getting the audio wire from the stock cable going to the stock unit and pair it to an audio jack to plug in a device?

tech savy audio guys where are you

 

Yes and no. If you had a fully amp'd (IE no power coming from head unit) system then you could delete the head unit, mount something like an equalizer with an AUX in port and then run a 3.5mm cable to your music player.

If you just wanted to rip out the head unit and try to run your speakers from an ipod, I guess you probably COULD figure out the wiring, but the problem is that you're essentially sending your speakers an amount of power designed for headphones.

 

Ah...I see what you saying Collin...

what's the work around in parts and how expensive would it get?

thanks

 

After some thinking this is what I got: Basically the one piece of equipment you need is an amp. You're worried about weight and price, so I would recommend finding the cheapest and smallest amp you can find.

If you want sound coming from both rear and front (overrated) find a 4 channel, if you don't mind it just coming from the front, you just need 2. For cheap sound just find one of the low brands, BOSS, Pyle, Soundstorm. A 2 channel amp should run you like 40 bucks?

Then the issue is getting sound to the amp from the ipod. I know pyle has some amps with an Aux in. This would be a really easy solution. Your other option if you don't find an amp you like with 3.5mm in would be a 3.5mm->RCA cable, which is like 5 bucks online. I have no idea if this would work or not (might test it for you tomorrow or something, ive got a cable somewhere) but you would just run the cable to the normal rca jacks on the amp.

The problem with the RCA>3.5mm cord is there might be CRAZY distortion, as the ipod is putting out "high voltage" signal and the amp is reupping it to your speakers. Essentially trying to double amplify the signal. One way to fix this is with a FIIO L11, which plugs into the bottom of you ipod, then you run a 3.5mm>RCA cable out of that and its supposed to send a "line level" (low voltage) signal to whatever. I ordered one of these today actually, give me a week and I'll let you know how well it works. They're like 9 bucks a pop.

TLDR:
What you need:
1. Amp for speakers. either with 3.5mm in or not. (40 bucks ish)
2 (w/aux in). A high quality 3.5mm cable (5 bucks)
2 (w/o aux in). 3.5mm to RCA cable (7 bucks?)
3. amp kit to install it. Might just reuse the one in your car since it sounds like you had an amp in there before. (20 bucks, knukonceptz)
4. FIIO L11 if crazy distortion from 3.5mm>RCA cable (9 bucks)
This is the cheapest way I could think of to do what you want and have your car make noise.

 

Thanks for the time putting this together. I'm sure others would ditch the headinit if a DIY was done, I'll be the guinea pig. I only have the two front speakers. One in each door like stock, but Pioneer and cheap tweeters since the stock started blowing.

Again thanks and I'll start looking for what you recommend her tomorrow!

 

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http://www.amazon.com/TDA7850-Intern.../dp/B005TX3QEK

This is what you need to replace the quad bridge amplifier normally soldered into most, if not all, head units. The RCA plugs are inputs for 4 channels, and the chip offers 4 speaker level outputs, which can be wired straight into the stock harness.

The upside to this, is that the TDA7850 IC is just about the best quad bridge amplifier available, so it will achieve performance parity with high end head units(assuming this is what they are using).

If you use the line out method, you might need a separate attenuator. The principle behind line out is to retain constant peak voltage regardless of input volume settings. If you want volume control, you might have to use the headphone jack, as the amplitude of that is proportional to the volume setting.