I am about to replace my head unit and speakers and i am going to add a 4-ch amp to amplify the speakers and was wondering if it is better to run the RCA's from the head unit to the amp and then wire the speakers, or use the speaker level inputs on the amp and just run the speaker wires from the head unit to the amp and then to the speakers. Thanks.

Rob

RCAs will definitely give you a better signal to the amp. No doubt about it.

So it's not bad or anything for the head unit if the speaker wires aren't attached to anything giving the outputs no resistance? I'm just checking before i wire up my new head unit and fry it. Thanks for your help.
Rob

If it has no resistance, then there is a problem...you have a short.

I assume you mean the opposite, with nothing hooked up to the wires, they will have infinite resistance. No current flows through an open circuit. no problem.

one thing to do is not to hook any of the speaker wires out of your deck to the harness. Just cap them off (both white wires, green wires, grey wires and pruple wires.

Then you can do a trick on the harnes for the car to save time from running new wires throught out the car, u wire the front and rear wire together (white to green and white/black to green/black, grey to pruple and grey/black to pruple/black.

Then when you hook up your amp you run the front outputs to the factory rear speaker wires and run new wire to the rear speakers. This saves time and unless you are looking to have an insane compitition system and feel like trying to run wires into the doors (wich in a pain in the ass) its the way to go..

If you have any questions on this just e-mail me Flent@worldnet.att.net

benefit of using RCAs from your deck instead of the speaker wires: more current available to the preamp stage of the head unit, meaning better sound.

If you spent money on a decent amp, forget the little trick about using the factory wires to run from the back to the front. They're garbage.
If you bought a $25 amp from a guy in a white van, go ahead and do it. Those 18-22 gauge wires aren't big enough to handle decent current.

horatio I agree but if you do not feel like running wires its the easiest way around it.. and it works fine. Of course if you use 16 guage wire your sound will be much better but its just a short cut