I have a 1989 RX7 GTU, came with the 6-speaker AE system (2 dash 2 door 2 rear). The two door speakers are amplified via the amplifier in the passenger-side dash.

I'm wondering what it would take to wire that amplifier up to an aftermarket unit as the front speakers (rears are aftermarket amplified). I found that it has lots of wires and one plug-in harness and one pigtail harness. I'm not sure if I HAVE to have the AE system in place, or if I can use it with the aftermarket headunit.

If I can't use it, then what wires from the amp would output to the speakers so I can just cut and run wires to the headunit?

I'll take pictures tomorrow.

 

the trick is to get the new deck to turn on the door woofer amp which btw only does low frequency bass sound. the door amp has a relay that is triggered when you turn on the factory deck. you can hear it click when you turn on the deck with no volume. the trigger wire to the door amp from the factory deck is blue/black on the connector that goes into the back of the factory deck.. the ground wire back to the deck from the amp is brown/red. try using the ant. output from the new aftermarket deck to trigger the door amp and listen for the click... be sure you use an inline low amp fuse, usually attached to the ant. wire on the new deck. first try hooking it up to the blue/black and ground the brown/red wire. if that dont work reverse the wires. the ae system will not work at all with an aftermarket deck. youll need to run the rear speaker wires directly to the deck. if you want to bypass the door amp undo the harness connector from the door woofer amp and splice into the harness. light green/yellow right door woofer -. light green r.d.w +.
lg/red l.d.w. +. lg/white l.d.w. -.
i would like to buy your old factory deck if it still works. pm me.

 

Everything on my old deck works, cassette, cd player, but the LED screen has no back light, and the 3 and 4 buttons don't work, but even down to the door amp, everything works on it. I really like the look and dash-fit of it, but its far too weak to be using with any kind of aftermarket speakers.

So basically, to use the amp, I just have to splice the wires on it to get it to turn on, and then wire up the speakers to my deck, but seeing as how this would be completely and utterly pointless (discovered they only amplify low notes today, in which, I don't think they make a shallow speaker that is even worthy of being a bass speaker that fits), I think I will break down, and buy a 4-channel and a pair of shallow Infinity speakers.

 

Also given the size and year of the small amplifier, I would guess it put out around 50 watts peak /2 so 25 per channel maybe? About how much would it put out?

Also that tells me how to bypass and turn on the amp, but how does the amp get the sound signal from the headunit? Which wires are used, and what color codes are they. Also does it just take 1 channel and split it into two, or does it actually run 2 channels off the head-unit.

I was thinking that if I could make the amp physically work and make sound with an aftermarket headunit, that I could switch it to the rear to power a small low-wattage pair of 8" speakers and wire the fronts to the deck and use them as components with tweeters. I'm not looking for dynamite sound here, just something decent without having a massive amplifier to power it.

How does the AE system work exactly, I understand it has an internal amplifier it seems, because it gets quite warm when used. What set of speakers does it control (seems like the rear?) and I presume the actual radio itself amplifies the dash speakers.

Sorry for the questions, I worked in car audio for a year or so, I like to make things overly complex.

Also, how did the factory sound actually sound in these when they we're new, was it alright for its time or actually decent sounding?

 

I had a '90 GTU with the cassette deck 6-speaker system since almost new (bought it with 8300 miles in 1995). The system sounded mediocre at best. The cheap paper cone drivers were certainly one of the limitations. Weak, muddy bass, rolled off highs... kind of below average for the time period. Unless you're going for period originality or are short on cash, I'd just remove all of it and start with something new and better sounding. Incidentally, I thought the "AE" system was the higher-end system found on the Convertibles that came with a built-in CD player, equalizer, and headrest speakers. The system on the S5 GTU cars was the base system, as was appropriate in the base line car. If you have the AE system with CD, it may have been a dealer-installed upgrade or added by the previous owner at some point.

 

the cd player ae system was available on coupe and vert. the ae system is diffrent with the coupe having a passenger selector and the vert having a mute button. in the coupe it acts to increase the spatial acoustics via a time delay on the rear speakers. the deck powers the dash speakers, the door woofer amp is simply spliced into the leads for the dash speakers with separate signals for left and right +&- . if you look at the wire colors of the dash speakers at the speaker terminals you will see the same color going into the door amp. i like your idea of switching things up and using the door amp to power the rear speakers.
I like the originality of the factory components. with upgraded speakers it sounds great. the door amp probably is probably no more then 15 watts rms

 

Without the wiring diagram in front of me, I would think that the amps take both a left and right input. I would find a wiring diagram and start from there. You would want to use the output from your unamplified RCA jacks on your aftermarket deck. Just buy some RCA connectors, and wire them into the factory wiring.

 

I connect the output of the new radio to the input of the 2 amps and I use a small relay connected to the antenna up-down signal to control the power of the amps.
So when i turn on the radio cd the antenna goes up and the factory amps turns on,the controls on the console all work(surround,volume ).

 

So basically, scrap the amp, bypass it, wire an aftermarket deck, and be done with it. Got it.

The amp splices into the front dash speakers on the diagram, so all I would have to do is clip the wires off the amp to bypass and just hook them up to the front channels of the deck.

I guess I'll do that today and pull the amp and my old deck out and set it on a shelf. It all works, cd player and cassette, and the amplifier works, and they work great... I like the fit of the factory unit, but it just doesn't seem to have enough power for me, and with the funky wiring, I doubt I could get it to work with high-level inputs of aftermarket 4ch amps. Oh well, I do give it +1 for amazing radio reception.

 

To bypass the amps just unplug them and throw them out, then plug the input and output connectors together. Done.

 

Done, works great, thankyou all.