[Sf.001]

I haven't had a chance to pull dash apart to inspect the HU install that the previous owner of my 2002 93 hatchback installed himself. On my way to work I held my hand up to the door speaker and felt some vibration and on my lunch I put my ear to the speaker. The sound was very faint as if the signal was still being sent to the speaker and by passing the glove box amp. My main question is: is this evidence that the previous owner did this HU install the old fashion way without a wiring harness? I'll be able to take the dash apart when i get home to actually have a look but i felt like this would be a good opportunity to learn a little bit more about how this system works.

On the chance that this guy did this install without a wiring harness, is it possible that when I upgrade the HU, I might be able to just pull out the pin connection from the current pioneer head unit and plug it directly into a newer and better pioneer head unit without actually re-splicing the cables? For someone who might know a little more about Pioneer HU's specifically, are these kinds of connections relatively consistent across models / time?

I tried my best to find the model currently installed but its so old that it doesn't seem to be on their "older models" list on their website. It has CD, Radio, and Auxiliary but not BT or USB.

The goal here would be to replace the HU, front two 3.5s and the 6x9s in the back, bypass the door speakers entirely, and put a single 10 inch box in the trunk.

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading

 

[Jeremy R.]

The door speakers are an odd setup, but it is possible they were hooked up in some way. The speaker wires terminate in a 4-pin connector behind the kick panel. That plugs into the amp, and the amp hooks up to the factory head unit with an 8-pin DIN cable. It's possible that someone chopped off the speaker plug and connected the speakers directly to the head unit, but they're only 2 ohms, and would really tax a cheap head unit. It's also possible, and fairly easy to do, to make a cable to adapt the amp's DIN jack to a pair of RCA plugs so you can use the pre-amp outputs on a head unit. I've done that with several different head units in my NG900. I'd start by removing the glove compartment and the kick panel and see what's going on back there. The amp and wiring are right there in front of you once the kick panel's off, so you can easily see if something's been removed or modified.

 

[jvanabra]

Yeah... the "make a cable to adapt" bit would not indicate anything about using a wire harness adapter, since we're talking about discrete connection that is not part of any conventionally available "wire harness adapter kits." If, for example, you bought your setup from Crutchfield they would include a harness to adapt the stereo to power and the four corner speakers, but you'd need to come up with a way to drive the amp. So, you could have both.

As far as what's in the car, Pioneer has changed their wire harness many times over the years, and sometimes between lines of stereos. You'd need to know what year the current stereo was made to know if it'll work with a current Pioneer. Good news is that if you're using most any modern head unit, it'll be easy to sort out the wires no matter what.... everyone has used standard wiring colors for a decade or two.... Green/Purple/Grey/White for speakers and Red/Yellow/Black/Blue/Orange for power. NBD.

 

[Sf.001]

Yeah... the "make a cable to adapt" bit would not indicate anything about using a wire harness adapter, since we're talking about discrete connection that is not part of any conventionally available "wire harness adapter kits." If, for example, you bought your setup from Crutchfield they would include a harness to adapt the stereo to power and the four corner speakers, but you'd need to come up with a way to drive the amp. So, you could have both.

As far as what's in the car, Pioneer has changed their wire harness many times over the years, and sometimes between lines of stereos. You'd need to know what year the current stereo was made to know if it'll work with a current Pioneer. Good news is that if you're using most any modern head unit, it'll be easy to sort out the wires no matter what.... everyone has used standard wiring colors for a decade or two.... Green/Purple/Grey/White for speakers and Red/Yellow/Black/Blue/Orange for power. NBD.

I suppose what I was getting at was, (and as you mentioned) when you use a wire harness kit, it wont drive the amp. So in that scenario, would we be getting this faint sound or no sound at all? I do understand that even if you did use a crutchfield wire harness that it would require you to make additional solutions for the door speakers. But what i am trying to figure out is if you didn't make additional solutions for the door speakers, wouldn't the door speakers just be silent? I haven't done a HU in almost ten years. I installed an aftermarket HU in my NG900 but I remember the door speakers being silent as the harness i used only had wires for four speakers instead of 6.

I am just assuming that if I have any sound at all coming from the door speakers, the guy probably did some chopping and as Jeremy said, and directly connected the door speakers to the head unit (as well as everything else) making a mess back there. I should have some time to investigate today.

As for the HU, i was able to find the model -- DEH-150MP (https://www.crutchfield.com/S-9o6BQ41iQFI/p_130150MP/Pioneer-DEH-150MP.html).

From what I can see so far, it looks like there are a fair amount of models that I could just plug n play because the pin connection looks the same.

 

[jvanabra]

Yes, if you didn't explicitly make a cable to connect to the factory amp OR do some weird wire splicing (like, door speakers to dash speakers) the door speakers would be silent. No input, no output.

I think the DEH-150MP is two or three years old (based on the "series") so yeah, it should be identical to any current Pioneer single DIN, and I think many AVH series double DIN.