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Subject:Re: How do you hook up a stereo in a Vanagon?
From:David Beierl
Date:Thu, 15 Apr 1999 13:53:17 -0400

At 09:56 4/15/99 -0700, John-Reed Maffeo wrote:
>I have a four speaker stereo and there are four stock speakers
>in the van. My problem is that there are only three wires
>running to the rear speakers and I have four wires comming
>out of my stereo.
>
>The guess I made at hooking them up sounds horrible. As I turn
>up the volume distortion becomes horrible (and I think the
>amp starts to heat up).

I just bet it does!  Don't do it any more, you might fry your amp.  The
problem you have is that your speakers are wired with a common ground,
hence left-hot, right-hot, ground -- while your amp has separate "grounds"
for each channel.  What you need to do is to remove the common wire from
one of your speakers, and add a return wire to that speaker.  Now you have
four wires, proceed normally.  (Probably the return wire goes to one
speaker, then loops over to the other)

david

David Beierl - dbeierl@ibm.net