Aydu

I just sent Sound Domain's "technical support" an e-mail asking for the correct wire harness for my Prodigy. I indicated in the e-mail that I was also looking for an amp, that being the reason for the wire harness.

They have a page on their site for the Scosche MA03B harness that expressly says it is intended for use when attaching an amp to the factory headunit. Here is the page reference for the part:

http://www.sounddomain.com/sku/SCOMA03B

I quickly received an automated e-mail reply giving me links to their discussion forums, chat site, etc. and telling me how important my question was to them. It promised a personalized e-mail within 1-2 days from one of their "customer care" agents.

Well, I got this "personalized" response today from Forrest Marshall, one the agents. There was no text to the response, just the same list of links provided in the automated response.

I know many of the participants on this board have member pages at Sound Domain. I suspect some have bought items from them. Is this the service level they typically provide?

I plan to give their 800# a call to see if things get any better (they certainly can't get much worse).

From their website, I guess I was expecting top notch professional service. Are they really this bad?

By the way, has anybody used this harness from Scosche? The description page says that it is a speaker only harness, with no provision for power, ground etc. If this is correct, I'm not clear how this would be used, thus the question.

Any help here??

hihoslva

All I can say is that if you are connecting an amp to the factory HU, the speaker wiring harness is probably what you need - it'll allow you to tap the speaker wires for a signal to the amp, I would think.

Other than that, I have no experience with SoundDomain, other than surfing the boards and member pages. I've never bought anything from them.

~HH

Aydu

I'm probably just not seeing something here. As I recall, the factory wiring harness connects directly to the factory radio. If the wiring harness just has speaker wire connectors coming out of one side of the connector, the other side would have to connect to either the radio end or the factory wire harness connector.

If it connects to the factory wires, where and how do the speaker leads get their signal? If it connects to the factory radio, I can see it getting the sound signal of the radio, but without power, ground, memory, etc. wires, the radio would not be getting any power to produce the signal.

I understand that if you use both a reverse wiring harness - connected to the radio; and a standard harness, connecting to the factory wiring, everything will have a place to pass through. The speaker outputs from the reverse harness would go to your amp, and the amp outputs connected to the standard harness, feeding the amplified sound signal to the speaker through the factory wiring.

The power, ground, memory, dimmer, etc. would be routed straight through from one harness to the other.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the wire harness shown on Sound Domain is just 1/2 of the connetors needed, but their sight is slim on information.

If anyone has actually used purchased harnesses to connect an amp to the factory head unit would you be kind enough to publish the part numbers, manufacturers of these harnesses, and where you bought them?

Thanks!!

JDMstuff

You are correct that the picture shown is not complete. You are also correct about the wiring, you have the right idea. You will need to get the one that connects to the HU itself and the one that connects to the car. Metra makes both harnesses, but I'm not sure if the factory male HU plug is available yet, as the car is still fairly new. The car side harness for Metra starts with a 70 and the deck side harness starts with a 71. The exact part numbers escape me right now, but just make sure that the 2 plugs mate when you plug them together. You should be able to buy them from any large-chain car audio/electronics store. I don't suggest that you buy them online, as you can't see exactly what they look like.

DaleK

Scosche makes the 'other side' of that harness too. I bought both pieces for my car (although I haven't had a chance to do the install yet). I am adding an amp to the factory headunit too. I don't recall the p/n offhand, but I think it is the same number (MA03) with a different letter behind. I checked the scosche web site and they STILL don't have these parts posted yet, but they are available, along with the Metra ones that were mentioned. I believe others have mentioned a kit by Best, but I have never seen those up here.

As for power and ground, I believe the harnesses will pass all deck power and ground through, but you will need to run a separate power and ground for your amp.

Hope that helps a little.

Good Luck!

1st MP3 in NH

Your all making this way more diffucult than it has to be.

njaremka

if your amp has speaker level inputs, and you want to run a subwoofer off your amp, all you need to do is tap off the rear speaker wires and run them into your amp. no need to wire up to the head unit.

if you have a four channel amp that you want to power all your speaker in the factory locations, that might be a little more involved, but i don't see it being much differnt than the scenario i typed above. just a little more wires involved.

Aydu

I have a sub and amp wired up now. It is easy to tap into the rear speaker leads. I found that using my amp's speaker level inputs gave me lower than desired volume. Even with the amp gain kicked up, the signal was "ok" at best. I attributed this to the weak head unit.

I added an adjustable line level converter to the tapped rear speaker leads and I got good boom. Much more powerful bass.

I am now looking to go with components to replace my fronts, and a matching manufacturer's 6x9s in the rears (this is a 2002 sedan).

I can't see even trying to run upgraded speakers off the power of the head unit, so I want to add a 4 channel amp, yet still retain the factory headunit to maintain the consistent factory appearance.

As you stated, this involved "more wires" and I'm just trying to figure out the best way of accomplishing this, while staying as "stock" as possible. I know you can pull the radio and tap into various wires, but I'd like something cleanerm without cutting a bunch of wires. The two harness approach seems to meet this objective, if I can just find 'em.

Mazda is not one of the more highly stocked brands in my area. If you own Ford, GM or Honda - you are set. The web sites aren't even up to date, when that it their business!!