I plan on purchasing a new head unit for my '07 Tacoma Double Cab. After a lot of searching, mostly on Crutchfield, I have decided to go with the Sony CDX-GT610Ui and would also like to add the Sony XM-4S amp. I have Polk db690s in the front and Polk db650s in the back. My question is how does the speaker level input set up work? And how do you get the speaker wire from the speakers to the amp? Does the speaker wire come from the head unit or from the actual speaker? I feel confident that I can do the other wiring involved. I hope. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Hey Memphis Taco, welcome to the CF forums! To start, we'll cover the connection from the Sony CDX-GT610Ui to the Sony XM-4S. The speaker level inputs on an amplifier are more of a "last resort" connection. These are mainly used when you are connecting a amplifier to factory receiver that does not have pre-amp outputs. This connection options provides a much lower level of sound quality versus using an actual RCA pre-amp connection. Since the Sony CDX-GT610Ui only has one set of pre-amp outputs, and you will want at least two sets to cover the connections on the XM-4S, I highly recommend spending the extra $10 (while on sale) on the CDX-GT710 to gain the added benefit of the 3 sets of pre-amp outputs and a proper connection to the 4 channel amplifier.
Next, to make the connection from the amplifier to the speakers, you will either need to tap a speaker wire run from the amplifier into the vehicles factory speaker wiring to send power to each speaker, or just a single new speaker wire run from the amplifier to each speaker. The first method will save you some time and effort, but will not yeild the best result since the factory wiring is not the best conductor to use to send a full, clean signal to the speakers. I hope this helps to make a bit more sense of it all for you.
2002 Ford Focus Sony CDX-GT410u Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Stock speakers, no amp, no subs