puting in two new rear speakers and need some help. - Honda Prelude Forum

MOTO696 · 08-05-2009, 12:10 PM

I am in my garage doing this right now. I am just replacing the two rear stock speakers with two aftermarket ones. The stock ones have a little chip with a mic on it. It is on the end of a red wire and a black wire, held on to the under side of the stock speaker. Do I need to put it on the new speakers or can I cut it off???

Rodmunch · 08-05-2009, 01:16 PM

You actually should do a bit more research before hooking the new speakers up.

But no, you don't need to use the chip with the mic on it...that is for the AFBS (Acoustic Feed Back System) that is used with the stock rear speakers and AFBS unit on the underside of the rear deck, next to the passenger rear speaker.

The stock rear speakers are rated at 2ohms and are wired in mono (because of the AFBS unit mixing the L and R signals). Your new speakers are most likely 4ohm and I'm assuming you'd like them to be in stereo. The ideal method here is to bypass the AFBS unit...the Helms manual will tell you which wires to tap into BEFORE the AFBS unit to hook up to your new speakers.

If you don't care about all that, then you can just hook the speakers up to the stock wiring locations and it might sound ok, but you don't need that chip/mic thing...in fact I would recommend not using it because it will react funky with your new speakers.

Search around this site, there is alot of info about this. Good luck!

MOTO696 · 08-05-2009, 01:19 PM

ok thanks i will go to the auto store now and get a helms.

spin_r_g · 08-05-2009, 01:32 PM

bypassing AFBS system (5th gen)

djstevo · 08-22-2009, 05:05 AM

I just put in one after market Pioneer 4ohm, rear speaker, and used all the original wiring including the chipped mic. (I did one because the pioneers are old and I want to test it out for a week and see if I get better quality from it then the original speakers)

In what way do you mean when you say the results may be funky. How is the sound going to be different? Wouldn't you want to afbs to work regardless to the speakers that are being used?

So far things sound fine, actually better, but I'm wondering what the long term results may be.

Rodmunch · 08-22-2009, 05:15 PM

The stock rear speakers are rated at 2 ohms. Aftermarket speakers are rated at 4 ohms. The AFBS expects to see 2 2ohm speakers. This difference in impedance might screw with how the AFBS works with the mics. It shouldn't hurt the AFBS because it is an easier load (4ohms are easier to drive than 2ohms).

Also, I believe that the AFBS has an amp in it. So if you use an aftermarket headunit, then you would ideally want to bypass the inferior AFBS amp, assuming the aftermarket headunit is good quality. It sounds like you are using the stock headunit.

Then there is the summing of L and R signals into mono.

I was only theorizing that it would sound funky, but it sounds like it's working out for you. I've read on some other sites where a couple people didn't like the sound.

djstevo · 09-01-2009, 02:03 AM

I've had the single speaker in chipped and all for about a week now and I haven't ran into any troubles. I'm going to put in the other pioneer tonight and see what happens. I am using the original head unit to so I didn't want to bypass the AFBS.

I'll post the results after a week or so of now it all sounds.