Car Stereos: Amplifer speaker hook up., cadillac seville, crossover filter

Question
Hey Brian, im doing an at home installation of my new amplifier and woofer. The type of setup will be a set of speakers and then my woofer hooked up to the amplifier. Now what i need to know is, is there a difference between hooking up the front speakers or the rear speakers to the amp? It will be much easier to hook the rear speakers to the amp, as my vehicle is a 1994 cadillac seville. So i just need to know is there much of a difference? Thanks for your time.

Answer
Hi Matt,

I'm assuming that you're using a 4-channel amp to power your speakers and subwoofer.

In general, if I'm only going to amplify one pair of speakers, I prefer to amplify the front speakers (especially if a subwoofer is used).  There are two reasons for this:

1.  In most cars, the front speakers are smaller than the rear, which means they can't play bass as effectively.  Using the amp with the front speakers allows you to take advantage of the amplifier's built-in high-pass crossover filter.  You can use this to cut the deep bass out of the front speakers, so they can play louder without distorting.

2.  In any car, the front speakers are the most important component for the overall sound quality.  Most of the detailed sound and imaging will be produced by the front speakers; the rears just provide a filling effect and bass reinforcement (which becomes less important when you add a subwoofer).

The interesting thing in your car is that, assuming the front speakers are still connected to the factory speaker wiring, it should be just as easy to connect the front speakers to the amplifier as it would be to connect the rears.  This is because the Seville uses a factory amp/tuner pack under the liner on the right side of the trunk.  Even if the factory amp has been bypassed (as would be necessary with the installation of a new head unit) all the speaker wires should still be easily accessible at this location.  Again, this only works if your front speakers are connected to the factory wiring.  Also, if your vehicle was originally equipped with a Bose system, you'll probably need to replace the front speakers before you can amplify them (if you haven't already done so).

Hope this helps!

Brian