Audio Systems: bench test connection, bench test, power antenna

Question
I recently replaced a car stereo and want to bench test the old one that had an intermittent problem with the CD player - I have a 12 V, 3A power supply but not sure what to connect it to on the head unit to power it up. Can you advise? The unit has a labeled diagram of the pins.

Thanks,
Rodney

Answer
You should upgrade to a 10Amp power supply, or add a 12V battery in parrallel to allow more current for testing. 3Amps will barely turn it on, and may damage the headunit if it "browns out" or drops the voltage level during testing. A small motorcycle battery would work fine, and the power supply would keep it charged up.
Back to the wiring, EIA standard colors for power wires are;
Yellow = Memory
Red = Accessory
Black = ground
Orange = illumination
Blue = Power antenna or amp turn on
just hook memory and accessory wires to +12VDC, and ground the case of the radio. This gives you the most reliable test, and then once you have it working, you can try hooking the ground lead to the black instead to test if the ground wire for the stereo is working. If you don't have the harness, they can be purchased on ebay or your local car audio dealer.