Speaker Wiring For New Stereo

[j54mark]

The old in-dash style car stereo supplied with my '85 Sovereign is past due for an update. Initial investigation has turned up a serious problem: The old unit is wired to use a common ground for all speakers. The speakers themselves carry only a single wire up to the unit. And, apparently, common ground car stereos are a thing of the past.

I do NOT want to rewire the speakers.

I there another solution? My radio guy is working on an idea. If it works, I'll post it here. If it doesn't, we figure about 10 minutes with the fan on will clear out the smoke.

Mark

[j54mark]

Never mind.

I found the common speaker wires, neatly tied and connected together. So I have a pair of speaker wires for each speaker.

Mark

[Safari Tim]

Glad you found what you needed.

Just some info for the next guy who is not so lucky. What you need is a Floating Ground Adaptor. I thought for sure Radio Shack sold them but I cannot find them on their website.

I did a quick google and came up with this place, but I cannot vouch for the company. It cost around $8.

http://www.davidnavone.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=N-FGA

[j54mark]

Originally Posted by Safari Tim

Glad you found what you needed.

Just some info for the next guy who is not so lucky. What you need is a Floating Ground Adaptor.
http://www.davidnavone.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=N-FGA

I spoke to an installer about those devices (an installer, mind you, not a tech). He said they never did work too well for him. We were going to try a largish bipolar capacitor to filter out the DC. We may never know if it would work....

Thanks for looking for me.


Mark

[R&SZinser]

When you say you "found the common speaker wires" do you mean they were already wired correctly or will you have to pull the new wires to the speakers?

Roy

[j54mark]

The + leads were wired to a harness, and are color coded to make it easy to tell which one goes to which speaker. The black common wires were wire nutted together, with a single lead coming to the wiring harness. So no rewiring will be necessary.

For which I am grateful.

Mark

[Cracker]

In another post I've been struggling with possible broken wire(s) going to my left rear speaker in the bedroom. I'm sure that, in the worst case, only one of the pair of wires leading to the speaker is broken or faulty. If there is, indeed, a common wire for all of the speakers, I could tie the common wire from the good speaker in the bedroom across to the common post on the other speaker. That way I could abandon the bad wire in the pair leading to the rear speaker and substitute the remaining wire for the other lead. What's wrong with that scenario? I've already tested the tuner and I'm reasonably convinced that there's nothing wrong with the left rear speaker - since the wires are obviously dead at the speaker.

[j54mark]

Cracker, I doubt very seriously that your stereo is of the common ground type. They quit making those many years ago.

It would be extraordinary to have a speaker wire break anywhere but at the connectors at either end. But if your really think that is the case, I'd suggest you wire nut a wire to the ends of the speaker wires at the speaker long enough to come back to the receiver. That way you can put a volt/ohm tester on it to check for continuity.

Good luck,

Mark

[Cracker]

Mark:

Take a look at my other entries under "Speaker Grille removal---" presently active on the forum list. You can see what stage I'm at in checking out the wiring. You burst my bubble when you said that they no longer use a common ground! I thought that I had a quick solution.