My new kenwood head unit arrived a couple days ago. It looks very sleek but there is a lot more wires on the harness than there was on my old HU. I just read a topic about not using the power antenna wire for the remote turn on because a current is only sent through this wire when the radio is on (I only listen to CD's so no power would go through the wire and turn my amps on). So I searched for some other wires and I am unsure of which one to choose. I am guessing that I will use one of these two:

(as written in the manual)

Power Control Wire (blue/white) - When using the optional power amplifier, connect to its power control terminal.

or

External Amplifier Control Wire (pink/black) (KDC-X790 only) - To "EXT.AMP.CONT." terminal of the amplifier having the external amp control function.

I am pretty sure I need to use the first one but I want to be positive because I have never heard of using anything else other than the Power Antenna Wire to control the amps. Do you guys think that one of these two would be the right wire to use?

 

hey
i'm not a kenwood fan therefore i don't know for sure...

but what it sounds like is that you should use the amp wire (blue/white) for the remote on the amps, and if you have a kenwood amp(???) you could hook the pink wire to it to set gains or something from the HU? I know alpine did this but in a much better way than one wire so i'm not sure.

To be sure just run a multimeter on both of them. Check for 12v+ output on all sources (cd/radio/aux) and for how long they deliver the current for. Whichever is a constant 12+ when the deck is on is the one you'll need

 

Use the blue/white.

 

Ok, thanks guys.

 

External Amplifier Control Wire (pink/black) (KDC-X790 only) - To "EXT.AMP.CONT." terminal of the amplifier having the external amp control function.


the ext.amp.cont is used to control an excelon amp... providing of course that your head unit is also an excelon model... otherwise it has no use

 

Shweet. That would be convenient.

 

The Excelon decks have built in controls that will alter the settings on an Excelon amp, and the amps will send info on it's operating status back to the deck for display on the screen. Had them on my last couple of decks, never had an Excelon amp to play with, so.....

If you're interested, more info can be found here.