Could this be done?

[ridged43]

I have a 2010 F150 with the stock head unit, no Nav, no Sony sytem. basically a 4 channel HU with no AMP. I have noticed if I bias to the front speakers, it's not all that bad. The rear is almost non-existant. My question is "Can I run left front, left rear off of LF channel and Right Front, Right Rear off of RF channel to drive probably new speakers all the way around, then perhaps bridge the LR and RR channels to a powered sub?"
Thanks for any inputs.

 

[Perry Babin]

Doubling the load on any single output is likely to cause the internal amplifier to fail.

 

[ween]

Hi,
If you are hooking the rear outputs to the powered sub, why would you bridge the rear channels. And if the rear speakers are "almost non-existant", why not just leave them connected and use the rear outputs as signal for the powered woofer. Then you'd be able to use the fader on the radio as a level control for the powered sub.
Mark

 

[markhauguel]

I am thinking that the non-existence of the rear speakers is probably due more to location. Driving a side from a single channel is a bad idea. You will loose the ability to fade. You could put a high to low level adapter across the rear speakers and leave the speakers there. You might check if the speakers are possibly wired out of phase or something. You could check this by going to only a left-rear vs. front and rear to see if the loudness increases. Good luck

 

[italynstylion]

I agree with Perry, though I think he meant cutting the load in half as opposed to doubling it.

A stock amp is probably not stable at a lower impedance so it's likely a bad idea. The rears are farther away from you and will naturally sound a good bit quieter.

What are your goals as far as getting what you want? Are you willing to spend any money to get there?

 

[Perry Babin]

Doubling the load --> two speakers instead of one speaker.

 

[ridged43]

I agree with Perry, though I think he meant cutting the load in half as opposed to doubling it.

A stock amp is probably not stable at a lower impedance so it's likely a bad idea. The rears are farther away from you and will naturally sound a good bit quieter.

What are your goals as far as getting what you want? Are you willing to spend any money to get there?

Goals: Better quality sound and a little more bass. I don't need 5.1 Surround, just some decent sound without having to kick the volume up to half way or more on the HU.

Spend Money: Yes. maybe a $600.00 budget. Trying to decide where to spend it. New HU and speakers? OEM HU, speakers and AMP with sub? I just noticed that the fronts aren't all that bad and thought new speakers would make it much better. Then I thought if the rears would perform as well as the fronts I'd just throw in a small sub for more bass. With the HU having 4 channels, I thought if I could run all 4 speakers on 2 channels then I could combine the other two channels for the sub. Any and all suggestions are welcome. I'm not spending until I know where I'm going.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Perry Babin]

If none of the installers here know whether the rear speakers are the same as the front speakers, you should temporarily connect the rear speakers to the front outputs of the head unit to confirm that they will sound the same as the front speakers if you drive them with the front channel signal.

If they do, you could use a small amp to drive the rear speakers. The amp would tap off of the front speaker wires. This wouldn't significantly load the head unit's internal amp and you'd have the same signal driving the rear speakers. There's a cheap ($20) jensen 120w amp with high level inputs that you can find on ebay and elsewhere that would produce as much power as the OEM head units output (~20w/ch).

If the rear speakers sound the same as they did previously when driven by the front speaker signal, the speakers would have to be replaced with something that produces the sound you're looking for.