Upgraded factory stereo wire?

[boostjunkie]

Now that I've gotten the headlights done, I'm curious if I'd see any benefit to upgrading the stock stereo wiring, mainly the power and ground. The radio uses an external amplifier, if that makes any difference. Would a wiring upgrade make any difference in sound?

[Brat4by4]

To get better sound, the difference would be in high-power wiring. That would be the ones carrying the amplified signal to the speakers. Power wire should be fine. Improving the ground never hurts. The signal wires like the ones carrying the sound to the amplifier shouldn't make that much difference as long as the wire itself is good.

It is a matter of the weakest link when it comes to sound systems. You aren't going to get much gains if the wiring inside the unit (radio, amp, or speakers) isn't up to snuff. So rerunning all the wiring going to the speakers from the external amp is where you can make the most difference. Run all 16g to the speakers. I think that is the right size, Josh could chime in if I say something wrong. Eliminating all the factory plugs and wiring running to the speakers and replacing with nice gauge wire will get you cleaner sound. I did this in my wagon and it made a big difference. Now if your speakers can't handle high power or if the amp doesn't put out high power then the gains are greatly diminished. It's like a domino effect, you just need to identify which link is weakest at first though.

Ok, hopefully that doesn't all sound like babble...

[boostjunkie]

Thanks for the info, Brat4by4. That's what I thought, which is why I was thinking about upgrading the power and ground to the amplifier rather than the source unit. Upgrading the wiring to the speakers is gonna be a chore, since it's an 8-speaker system with dedicated outputs from the amplifier to each of the speakers! I'm not liking the sound of all of that wiring

[Brat4by4]

Well you just need to check the gauges to all the speakers and such and see if it is up to snuff. Don't fix it if it ain't broke. Or just fix it until it is

I assume 4 of those speakers are larger and those are the ones that will draw the most current and would benefit from less impedance or resistance or whatever it is that the larger wire improves. So those are the ones you would focus on improving first. And I'm pretty sure that you want clean power and nice grounds to your signal processor AND the amplifier. If anything gets dirty in the radio's sound processing then you only amplify that distortion.