Will 16' RCA wires reach from head unit to trunk?

Getting ready to do my install and I'm ordering the RCAs... Will a 16' rca reach and how did you route it? How much 'spare' did you have in the trunk?

Thanks.
-brady

It should be enough, depending on where the amp is mounted. I routed mine through the center console, then out under the driver seat. I cut a slit in the carpet under the seat near the seat belt, then snaked it to the door sill. From there I routed it to the plastic side panel in rear, then under the rear seat. You can then easily feed the wires under the seat back to the trunk.

i ran it under the door sills behind the panels under the steering wheel and back behind the head unit through a small hole. and under the back seat you can squeeze the rca's and hu turn on lead through a small slit behind the lower part of the seat back.
i think i had either the 16' kit from Rockford fosgate and it reaches with about 1' spare.

Ooh... 16' reaches with 1' to spare??? that's gonna be tight... I may route straight down the center console tunnel under the carpet to save some length (or just try to find some decent 18'.... 16' seems to be the most common length for streetwires and other 'higher end' makers)

I'll be facing the box forward with the amps mounted into a flush 'faux wall' behind the sub box and all the wiring will be hidden, but I don't know if 1' into the trunk is going to be enough.

Thanks for the info!

Better to buy longer than you need. The extra length won't hurt sound quality, it only costs more.

And you can always cut the extra off, or just coil it up and tie it.

i wouldnt cut RCA wires

Never mind then. Point is, always buy more than what you need.

the issue is, I can get 3 sets of 16' at 10 bucks a set shipped (streetwires). 16' seems to be about the most common "long" length. to go up in length, the price jumps to 30 bucks or more per set (gotta have 3 sets)

You'll be fine. If you hit a snag, there's always this option:

lol.. yeah, I could always do the barrel connectors in a pinch, but if I can avoid it, I'd like to... adding any 'connection' in line is a chance for signal loss.

I think you're right though. if I go straight down the console and straight back the center of the car along the hump, I should have plenty of length.

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adding any 'connection' in line is a chance for signal loss.

If you ever actually hear this "loss" from using barrel connectors, please give me a call. I will to drive down to hear it for myself. Those 20' RCAs sure are expensive, aren't they? Worth paying for, though. You don't want any signal loss!

(hint: I've never been able to tell the difference, but the salesman always can)

It's more the potential for noise induction that I'm concerned about, but you have to remember... sound degredation at low power levels isn't that noticeable.. but sound degredation amplified to 500-1000 watts can be more noticeable.

I'm an audiophile. I own a recording studio. My JOB is to listen... to make musical recordings and make them sound good. The downside of that is I NOTICE things in recordings now and I notice lesser quality sound... It sucks because it drives me nuts.

I want a system in my car that will play anything from Beethoven's concerto to SRV's "The Sky Is Crying" to T-Flo's "Get Low" and I want it to all sound rich, crisp and clean... *chuckle* Unfortunately, my champagne tastes have to be metered by my beer budget, so I'm nitpicking and trying to make those $20 cables reach.

Your keen hearing is even more reason to hold a listening session to know if you can actually tell the difference between a solid cable and one using connectors. I too am an audiophile... who believes our stock head is a quality source unit, and that barrel connectors can sound transparent. It took a lot of listening and unbias to convince myself that I don't need a Nak head in the Riviera, that I can't hear the difference between silver-soldered wire and quick-disconnect terminals, that GE RCAs from Target will do, etc., etc.

Once upon a time, a man named Tom Nuisane published a report called the ABX double blind tests that proved all of the "experts" wrong.

in the test, mr. nuisane assembled a panel of listeners who had "magic ears" supposedly capable of hearing subtle differences in cables. without allowing them to see what wires were connected, he asked the panel to try and distinguish between $990 speaker cables and your basic 16 ga. lamp cord. guess what? the panel on average could identify the better cables only 50% of the time. four different tests were performed, including rca cables. the results were the same - 50/50 every time.

it's my opinion that tom nuisane knows what he's talking about. he's written product reviews for stereo review and car stereo review magazines for more than 15 years, and is considered a foremost authority on the subject of hi-fi audio reproduction.

The whole point of this is, measured differences are not always audible differences. We've been fed a lot of "facts" by cable manufacturers over the years, when we ought to be listening to our ears instead... with the engine running and the car rolling. You'd be surprised what is acceptable when you clear your mind and open up your ears.

I agree with most everything you're saying. The differences are almost imperceptible, but you're also talking about a test where the ONLY difference was RCA cable quality. There's a compounded improvement when increasing quality of all the other hardware involved.

I agree that stock stereo systems sound great in comparison to the factory stereos of yesteryear BUT, the speakers are very limited in dB and frequency reproduction. But for what they do, they sound great.

addendum.. the benefits of soldering wires is more for maximum power capability.. sure, you can twist wires together and it'll be okay, but you're limiting the amount of power that can be pushed across that connection. Soldering guarantees that every 'edge' of every strand is connected, giving you the maximum "flow" of the wire. You're not running into a bottleneck at that point. Sure, the twist job will pass signal, but at some point, it's going to be limited.
ALSO... soldering a wire means you never have to worry about it coming detached when pulling it through.

Agreed, soldering has its advantages, at user inconvenience. There are guys out there who will actually solder things temporarily because they believe there is an audible difference. Most likely, we will never use the power levels required to detect any measurable difference. I prefer screw connectors. They allow easy connectivity with near 100% signal transfer.

As for our stock speakers, they're bottom of the barrel, but I didn't know that until I replaced them with high-end coaxials and listened to the stock head. Furthermore, I couldn't hear the stock head's full potential until I gave it outboard amplification and a little EQ. It's not a competition-ready head, but it does what most people want for far less $ than an aftermarket head. If you need a certain type of head for a reason, I say go for it, but too many people just assume the stocker is junk because the salesman says so. There goes $500.

My feeling about car audio is, there are two types of listeners: the competitor and the driver. If you sit there for hours with the car off trying to enjoy every nuance and layer of sound, then you probably need every little thing to be perfect. But if you're like 95% of listeners, you want to do quality listening while driving, sometimes with the windows down. In this case, the noise floor is too high to justify spending what is required for a perfect sound system.

I want it to sound amazing at speed with the windows down. Which requires lots of amplification.

I'm going with the aftermarket HU because of the ability to make fine tuning adjustments. The eclipse headunit I'm getting has an 11 band parametric EQ which will allow me to pink the car and adjust for peaks/valleys due to system quirks as well as in car acoustics.

Honestly, soldering isn't a big inconvenience to me... I do it all the time, so it's not a big deal, but that's kind of a moot point. I don't want breaks in the RCAs (which wouldn't be soldered anyway, as said before, it's not good to cut RCAs).

I've never been a competitor and I've never been one of those that wanted everyone else to hear the big boom coming down the street. I want to keep it in the car and I want it to sound impeccable for me.
The beauty of the Rivi is it's built in acoustic dampening. I won't really have to treat the car much at all to prevent road noise and extraneous sound from hindering my listening experience... sure, it's not going to be whisper quiet, but I'll be able to enjoy the music much better while traveling than I've been able to in my last 4 hondas. (all the trunk, door and roof treatment doesn't help wheel well and underbody roar.. ugh)

You and I both have similar theories in audio quality but different expectations from our vehicular listening experience (LOL.. did I get enough big words in there??) I'm enjoying the banter though! Educated conversation is hard to come by here in the great state of Ky.

Yes, always good to talk about audio. The Riviera is a perfect foundation for a quality system. It has it all: insulation, quality construction, a trunk (lol), battery in back, and high-output alternator. Feel free to peruse my system (less than a grand invested): http://www.cardomain.com/ride/657082/7

Beautiful install. The faux trunk wall is very similar to what I'm planning as well... If I had an amp with better damping, I'd contemplate a ported box with the port directly into the car through the rear deck but that type of amp costs a mint and w/out that damping, I find ported boxes to be a little muddy.

I like what you did with your kicker controller. I'm contemplating pulling the cd storage and ashtray and putting in a display (possibly with gps).. but that's a future project with more funds.

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I find ported boxes to be a little muddy.

The reason they sound muddy, imo is the uneven response of a vented box, which plays very flat (anechoic response) to its tuning frequency, then unloads into freeair. In a big car like the riv, this flat curve is amplified by cabin gain below 60 Hz or so, peaking about 40 Hz. This is exactly where many ported enclosures are making their max output. You end up with a huge spike between 35-65Hz. Good for an 808... not good for cannons from the 1812.

2nd order (sealed) boxes are perfect for cars. They roll off at nearly the same rate as the cabin gains, often right around the same frequency, too. The end result is true flatness. With a quality 10" woofer and some power, you can have perfect bass down to 25 Hz or even lower, which is perfect transient response. You won't get this with most ported designs in a car.

Ported designs do work well in homes, because the room gain is focused much lower, below 30Hz. This makes a ported sub perfect for home theater or hi-fi stereo.

: I know, but thanks for the dissertation.

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Ported designs do work well in homes, because the room gain is focused much lower, below 30Hz. This makes a ported sub perfect for home theater or hi-fi stereo.

This has more to do with the fact that home theater systems only need to reproduce LFE, shaking of buildings, the sounds of helicopter blades rumbling, etc etc. Perfect for a vibrant 40hz box.