Tonight I am planning to start the speaker upgrade in m 2004 crew cab 2500HD. I have a set of CDT 6.5" components that I will put in the front doors. I will be purchasing a second set of CDT components for the rear doors later on. I am upgrading to two Elemental Design 10" subs that are going in a custom box I built under the rear seat. I am planning to mount the amps behind the seat back of the rear seat.

My question is about where to run the wiring for the door speakers. I currently have the power wire running on the passenger side under the plastics. I have the RCA's running under the driver side plastics.

My thought is I should run the speaker wire from the amp and then along the passenger side to the doors so that I don't induce noise into the RCA's. But if I do this, then I need to run the driver side door speakers across the cab to the passenger side and then back to the amps.

Is there any harm in running the powered speaker cable from the amps along side the RCA's for the speakers in the driver side doors? I know you can induce noise if you run the RCA's along side the power cable from the battery to the amp.

Thanks for the help :)

Are you still powering any speakers with the head unit? If not, cut the wires from the head unit to the vehicle connector, splice in the amplified speaker feeds there to power the door speakers.

I had originally thought about doing that, but want the ability to revert back to stock. I am planning to remove the stock speakers and unplug the factory connector to the speaker. I will just leave the plug in the door (taped to prevent rattles).

Hence, I am curious if anyone has had problems running the powered speaker wire along side RCA's or if I should just go the long way around and have all the wires run along side the power wire and then fan to the doors. I have enough wire to do it either way....

I'm not an expert, but I would think that a well-shielded RCA cable wouldn't be too bothered by the low-voltage speaker wire... I am curious to see the responses from the experts, though, as I have a set of CDT 3-ways for my front doors (not exactly sure how I'm going to do that yet) and a set of CDT 2-ways for the rears. I also have a pair of 10" Eclipse Aluminums I'm going to put under my rear seat... Dave, what made you decide to custom-build a box vs. buy one? (I'm assuming you found the pre-fabbed ones were too cheap?)

-Chris

I had originally thought about doing that, but want the ability to revert back to stock.
I'm sorry, I didn't say it clearly; I meant to cut the wires in between the connector on the back of your receiver and the connector that connects to the stock radio connector (assuming you got the harness to splice to the aftermarket radio connectors that plugs into the factory radio conn.)
As for the RCA cables, mine are a crazy twisted/braided style, and run beside the power and remote cables to the amp, no noise problems at all. I do have the RCA's in 1/2" conduit, inside of the 1" conduit that carries the power feeds.

Your speaker wire should not induce any noise into your RCA cables, as long as they are quality sheilded cables. I ran my RCA's down the middle of the truck to avoid the extra length needed to run across to one side, down to the back and back across to the amp. And I do sugest taping down the factory speaker harness, it will rattle. Nothing like having to take the door back apart to find out what is rattling. Give me a hollar when you get ready to do the back doors. GM put a little suprise in the door boots that you will have to deal with. I could not run my speaker wires without doing some modifications. I can send you the pics of the mod I did to get it to work.

You could run a set of kick panels for your seperates. Put the mid-bass driver in the factory door location and the mid-range and tweeter in the kick panel. This will give you better imaging than all the drivers in the doors, plus you don't have to modify the door panels. Check out the pics in my garage. The kicks were purchased from Crutchfield.
John

Thanks guys for all the help...really good info here. ):h

Benjammin...thanks for the clarification. I understand what you mean now. For the time being, I am still using the stock HU. I have a PAC adapter that is used to get the signal sent back to the sub I had. I'll continue to use it for the front components and subs now. The stock HU will power the rear door speaker until I change them later and add another amp for them.

6Appeal...I will definitely hit you up when I get ready to do the rear doors later. I am going to run the speaker wires for the rear doors and leave them under the plastics along the door sills for now. I am curious about the "GM surprise" that awaits. :rolleyes: Good idea about using the kick panels to get better imaging and going three way.

GMCfourx4... I am anxious to hear these CDT's. I found out about them on the Corvetteforum.com site I frequent. They speak highly of CDT...a good speaker at a very reasonable price. I like value :D As for making my own box, I enjoy doing carpentry and don't get to do it much. So I figured I could do this project to get the itch scratched. Plus it is WAY cheaper than buying one. Granted, you have to put a value on your time, but I am guessing I spent about 15 hours (I could go so much faster now that I know what I need to do) and only $20 in supplies. So, if you don't worry about the cost of your time, the box only costs $20.

I thought about doing the 3 way CDT's, but I found these CDT CL-61's used for dirt. I figure I'll buy a second set for the rear doors. If I want to go three way, I can just buy the CDT 4" mid and a crossover for their 3 ways. Or I might go all active crossover and use seperate amp channels to each speaker. I got one door partially finished. I mounted the 6.5 in the stock location and hung the crossover below it. Plenty of room. I am going to put the tweeter in the angle mount and mount it to a board in the stock tweeter location. You could make a 3 way system fit, but it would be tight and require modifying some stuff.

I think I may go the "modifying some stuff" route, simply b/c I don't want anything to look aftermarket if I can possibly avoid it. The kick-panels are very nice, and would simply things a lot, but they scream "I spent money on my stereo" when parked in the city (mostly Boston, in my case). I also thought about adding the A-pillar tweeter locations, and adding one of CDT's imaging setups (I forget exactly what they call it when you add another set of tweets...). Anyone know anything about getting the stock A-pillar moldings for a truck that didn't come with them?

-Chris

GMCfourx4....you pretty much hit the nail on the head. The paperwork with my CDT's call them "Image Tweeters". I don't have them, but have thought about adding them like you are thinking...in the A pillars.

I'm with you on trying to keep a low profile with a lot of stereo equipment. That is part of the reason for keeping the stock HU in my truck so far. But I really want to do a double DIN DVD/NAV unit. I need to save a few dollars up...but foresee doing it later this year.

Dave;
Keeping the "stock" appearance is a large part of the reason I'm going with the GM TNR Nav system.... That and the fact that I don't like the way the aftermarket adapters integrate the On-Star and other functions. I really like the Alpine W-200, but I don't want to lose the exact functionality of my steering wheel controls (I have heard the adapters make them work slightly differently) and I don't want to lose the built-in phone features. I think the GM touchscreen NAV with an iPod adapter and aftermarket speakers/amps will be the best balance of features, functionality, and price for me.

-Chris

Chris,

Sounds like a good plan! I don't have any XM, onstar or even steering wheel controls. My truck came with the plain jane stereo and options list...so I'm hoping it's easy to adapter an aftermarket HU.

Everyone,

I finished installing the components today. Since not many people had issues running speaker wire near RCA's (especially well shielded ones), I ran my speaker wire for the driver side doors along the same route as my RCA's. Fortunately, the driver side has a "divider" underneath the plastic sills plates and such. I have my RCA's on one side of the divider and the speaker wiring on the other. This keeps them about 1/2" or more apart for the most part.

I still have to fab my amp mount behind the rear seat and then hook up everything. I got the RCA's all run as well as the speaker wires for all 4 doors (even though I only upgraded the front doors for now). Should be ready to rock here shortly.

Ended up finishing the system installation last night. I haven't gotten much tuning done yet since it was raining and the truck was stuck outside.

So far there hasn't been any problems or noise that I have found. I do have the driver's side speaker wires running along side the RCA's.

Sounding pretty good so far.. :ro)

To daves dd2500hd you can get 3 ways for the front. I put the tweeter on the A pillar by the windshield and a 5.25 and an 8" in thge door of my ext cab, it does require some mods though.. the wires i fished through the same chase as the factory wires 1-12ga wire and 1- 14 ga the crossover for the(pair of infinty's) I put in the side of the dash. the rear I put 4x6" in the stock spot w/ 8" below them Also in the door. goood luck w/ your mods PS. most good cables that anyone uses shouldn't have any noise but it's a good refrence to keep cables apart from each other by at least 6".