this is gonna sound dumb, but I know very little about running active set ups. I'm not planning on it anytime soon, but just trying to be better informed. Google has been no help. My question is how are the rca's ran in a situation like this:

any old HU with front, rear, and sub preouts

a good 4 channel like a SAX100.4 or similar

standard 2 way com set with mid and tweeter.

A diagram would help. Thanks

Also same thing but with an active 3-way set up

I'm just very curious about the signal

ttt

Sounds like a good question to me

you'd run the front (tweeters) on chan 1 and 2

you'd run the rear (woofer for 2way) on chan 3 and 4

For 3 way, you'd run your tweeters again on front channel.

For the other woofer and mid in the door, you would have to Y-split the rear channel

So you'd have 2 lefts and 2 rights.

If using the 100.4 for both woofers..

You'd run 1 left and 1 right from rear to chan 1 and 2

You'd run the other left and right from rear to chan 3 and 4

You could also daisy chain the rear channel amps(if using 2 amps instead of 1 for the woofer and mid)

You'd need 6 channels of amplification for a 3-way, or two hot chicks.

tirefryr-

Why not just Y split the rear channel or daisy chain 2 amps off 1 output(rear out)

User could then bandpass EACH of the two amps for the 2nd and 3rd component.

To run active, you need separate processing and discrete amplification for each channel. If you have a 3-way, you have a total of 6 drivers, therefore, you need 6 channels of amplification or two hot chicks. You could run the splitter with the same signal to another amp, but you'd still need 6 total channels of amplification and you'd have to process that signal actively again. If it's running the same signal, you're only running a 2-way.

Ok so in a 2 it's tweets on 1and 2 mids on 3 and 4. What gets what signal if it's like some 3 ways like where someone is running a 125.2 or similar for tweets and and 100.4 for mids and midbass

Maybe I'm missing something but most HUs I see only have the front rear and sub. I get that mid signal can come from the rear preout, but where does the signal come from when you do an active 3

The front and rear are full range signals. If your HU doesn't have processing for an active setup you'll need processing after the headunit to send the proper signal to each driver.

Edited October 19, 201113 yr by ricksi30