8 Speaker Stereo Issues...., NEED SOME HELP!! Options

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

I have a 94 GT with the double-din, 8-speaker premium audio setup that has an amp built in to it all. My stock CD-player doesnt work anymore....it doesnt read the CD correctly, so i decided to replace it.
Noww....I spent almost the entire day at Circuit City trying to get a 50w x 4 Panasonic head unit installed into it, only they said that they cant install it because of the 8 speakers and how it wires up.....the wiring harness doesnt work because of the amp. The guy i dealt with was an honest guy, but he said that for it to work, he would have to install two more amps to power the in-door subs up front and the two tweeters. Apparently the head unit could only power the front two mid speakers and the rear two without running into any problems with the ammount of OHM's each speaker was recieving.....thus, no splitting wires to power the subs and tweeters unless i wanted to blow the head unit. i was quoted almost $950 total for the head unit, installation, and amps alone.....just to get the stock speakers to work correctly!!!

So here are my questions-

1.) Does anybody else have the 8-speaker system and gotten a new head unit?? If so, how did you fix it???
2.) Is this guy right??
3.) Should i just get a new double-din unit from Toyota that i can just swap to avoid all this, or is there some way i can fix my existing head unit??

Any help will be greatly appreciated......ive had a long day, and i need some knowledgable people to set everything straight for me. Thanks.

-Corey

[Guest_Matthew_*]

sigh

you get a 4 channel amp just one not two. here are the 4 channels.

1:front left
2:front right
3:rear left
4:rear right

that guy is trying to rip you off.

and one thing that he is not telling you is that the 50 wattsX4 that the cd player is claiming to put out is at 5% distortion. it might be a little lower but look at the owners manual in the back and it will say 50 watts per channel at some much THD (total harmonic distortion). I know that pretty much all decks are above 1%. your speakers will blow at the amount. look at the size of a new 50X4 amp and look at the cd player. how do they fit a 50 watt amp inside that little ass cd player when the other ones are way bigger? hmm... cd player companies can put whatever they want on those cd players. all they do is hook up the cd player to a dummy speaker and crank it up until it puts out 50 watts or w/e.

In my opinion, you should get a 4 channel amp. if you run 3 speakers per channel it will be fine. just get one that goes down to 2 ohms. i bought a planet audio 100X4 for 200 bucks. installed it myself. you can have them do it but it costs less if you do it.

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Thanks Matt, i guess what this guy said was that all 8 speakers were 4 ohm each, and since i could only power four speakers via the head unit, i would have to get two additional amps to power the subs and tweeters seperately......then all 8 would work. So could i use a 4-channel amp and split the front channels 3 ways, or does the ohm rating on the speakers make a difference?

[Guest_Matthew_*]

i'm sure that not all the speakers in front are 4 ohms. if it was then most likely the stock head unit would screw up..

check they buying selling forum.

i have an amp for sale there. it works amazing trust me.

yea and put things like this

front right: 3 speakers
front left 3 speakers
rear right the one speaker
rear left the one speaker

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

awesome.....as long as you know it works i might consider doing that. Its either that or i try to get my stock head unit repaired so it plays CD's again......thats the only thing im really looking to do with all this, cuz im tired of using a crappy tape adaptor with my walkman Ill have to compare prices that way i can leave enough money for other mods this summer. But once again, thanks for the advice

[Guest_Matthew_*]

depending on your head unit

i would suggest that you get a new cd player

it will sound better because of the higher voltage rca outputs.

also you can do a lot of sound equalization.

it's up to you

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

I actually found a guy near me that repairs car stereos.....i looked all over the place and apparently he does good work. So i think that i might do that. Now my question is- would i be able to send a signal out of my stock headunit to add on an amp and sub? The stereo in my car now is the stock double-din headunit (CD/cass/radio with amp unit underneath), if that makes a difference.

[Guest_Matthew_*]

you can only do that if you have the preamp (rca) out puts on the back...i don't think that the stock ones have that. but i am not sure about the double din ones...

if it does not have those outputs you have to get a new deck to run an amp.