Aftermarket vs. Subaru OEM head units

[TRUBLU]

So if i had one of these, what else would i need to complete the install?

One of these....and thats it.

[shizznats]

haha alright i got one of those. i actually got a Pioneer DEH-1900MP off ebay and the guy happened to have a subaru harness lyin around so he said he'd throw it in there. thanks for all the info.

[Wiscon_Mark]

Keep in mind you may have to do some wire splicing. I've never seen a direct Subaru --> Pioneer harness like the one you pictured. But if it is, great!

[shizznats]

Yeah the guy is just givin me the subaru harness and the pioneer harness as two seperate pieces. i got myself a crimping tool and some male/female connectors so im gonna have to do some splicin for sure. goin on vacation for 2 weeks on saturday so ill have to wait till i get back

[rougeben83]

I have an older pioneer CD HU. Blows the subaru HU out of the water; I highly doubt the newer stock WRX units will have significantly better sound quality over the older HU's (which were just garbage IMO...even my Taurus' stock HU was better). The thing I like about the Alpine and Pioneer HU's is you can buy the adapter for their proprietary CD changer plugs so you can have aux. in; about $20 in cables and I got a place to jack my MP3 player into.

The harness that plugs into the subaru plug should have labels on the wires. All you need is match up everything and merge the HU harness with it. Very easy.


Paired mine up with a set of Pioneer speakers all around and added the OEM tweets (helps with the 2ways in the fronts, 3 ways in the back), and dynamat'ed the enclosures.

Very good sound now, and I bought everything used, so I spent less than $140 on everything, including the roll of dynamat I still have left over.

[JourdanWithaU]

umm..... I have $0.02 to contribute...

The Subaru sub sucks... granted that's my opinion... I figured out that there is one in my 1998 legacy outback... for a while I was running completely stock with the Subaru sub under the driver's seat...

Then Christmas rolled around... I upgraded to a Pioneer 6800 HU with the OEL display and iPod interface... It wasn't what I originally planned to get, the guy at circuit city talked me into it... But it is great! it took some time to figure out but once I got it all down I love the thing...

As for the bass... about a month after I got the HU I got some real subs... circuit city has a deal on a pair of 12" subs that come with a box and 1000 watt amp... The Subs really kick and I love em'... this setup won't make you be heard three blocks down the road but it really helps out with the quality... I highly recommend getting real subs.

And if you go to circuit city... and you have them to the install... be prepared to be without your car for the whole day... they like to take their sweet time... ALSO make sure you get a protection plan... recently for some reason my subs blew and I got a whole new set for free because I paid the extra 20 bucks for the protection plan.

[rougeben83]

Some of the techs at CC aren't the most careful either; give your interior and any other place they touched a good once over before you leave just to make sure...

[llaprad1]

awesome thx a lot, those are some good links. i think this sub is a little different though... if im not mistaken this is how it hooks up, in which case it would work with an aftermarket unit w/o sub out. but i could be completely wrong, this is just my guess.

In case this hasn't been answered yet, the other "connection" is not a connection at all. It's 2 adjustment knobs; one for Gain and the other is for the Low Pass crossover point.

I installed one over the weekend, and it adds some low mid-bass. It sounds pretty decent for rock (probably not rap) if you have the tweeters, and you set the Low Pass fairly low.

If you don't have tweeters (I disconnected mine to see), it sounds kind of muddy no matter where you set it.

I got my sub for less than $50 a while back. The trick is to search eBay for less popular models like the Baja, so there is less demand. They're all the same harness anyway.