Oh, it does work fine...they told me they had to replace the amp because it was making a humming sound through the stock amp as well. I don't think that is related to the gain though, is it?

I think they may have cut this wire here. I don't think they would have any reason to touch anything else in the system besides that. I guess I would find that pink wire in the dash behind the deck? Also, the new wire is speaker wire....

When I replaced my 6x9s i touched some wires together that resulted in a LOUD humming that sounded like microphone feedback. That might have happened to them too so they just ran new wires to avoid the whole thing. The gain amp is wired up to a second voice coil in the factory speakers. I have never seen a dual voice coil 6x9. you will need the factory speakers, or you will have to give up your gain. Unless you hook up your 6x9s to the gain channels, but then you will only get bass from the rears.

EDIT: you beat me to the post lol

They cut a wire??? doesnt seem right, nothing needs to be cut. Do you have the original speakers? You could try splicng the wire back together...

Well, not that I can see but it'* what I'm assuming. If they didn't disconnect anything, and installed a new HU directly in place of the old one, technically, should the gain not still work? And yes, all speakers are stock.

This is getting confusing, lol.

No. The gain uses wiring that only attaches to the original deck. If you hook up an aftermarket you have to just ignore the gain wires. Hopefully they didnt cut anything. If you cant see a cut wire, then they just hooked up the deck as usual, omitting the gain circuitry. so technically the only way to use your gain, is to get the original headunit.

or rewire the gain amp to work, which i dont think anyone has attempted yet.

You dont need the stock headunit to use the gain. I took my 89 SSE with perf sound to best buy when i turned 16 because i wanted a cd player. Now im 17 and have subs. Anyways, the gain on my car works perfectly. That little controller is the best thing i have seen in a car, my system is better then any of my friends systems and thats excluding my subs. With gain its so nice to have because you can always have the exact right amount of bass so the song is not distorted. I read that the gain only works with stock speakers? That is not good to hear because i want to put in some new speakers all around. Could you teel me if putting in new say, ifinity kappas would be much better without gain than stocks with gain?

To use the gain you MUST have dual voice coil 6x9s, which as far as I know, are only available in stock form. So when you change the speakers you lose the gain guaranteed. Do you have an aftermarket deck in? if you do then how did they hook up the gain to it? With an aftermarket deck theres nothing to plug the gain into. By putting in new speakers your sound quality will be much better even without the gain. If you have an aftermarket deck then ANY speaker will sound better.

I have a Pioneer DEH-2600 in my car. Best buy installed the HU and i was not smart on audio so i have no idea how they did it. I installed my subs with my friend and it took about 6 hours, (it was our first time ever messing with subs) but if you could tell me what i should look for i could take some pictures of the wiring harness or whatever the gain controls. I also have the problem with the low tone. It only happens when the HU is off or if i am changing a CD. To fix the problem all i do is slide the gain switch to the left. The guys at best buy wanted me to buy 2 filters at 20 bucks a pice but they were out of stock on them and i never got around to going back for them to install them. Im not sure if the filters were for the gain or for preventing blowing the rear speakers.
One last thing, i really love my gain control, do you think it is much better to get new speakers than use stocks, and will new speakers easily distort?

I would be very interested to know how they hooked up the gain. What problem do you have with the low tone? It would be easier to bypass the gain, than to hook it up to an aftermarket deck. The gain is not necessary and will only hurt your sound quality in my opinion. When the system is stock, it works very well i think, but you will have better sound without it. Also, aftermarket speakers have much more power and sound quality. I would recommend that the 6x9s be changed to aftermarket without a question.

They probably just hooked it up to the factory harness.

You can use the GAIN if you have an amp with an external switch to adjust the bass. Just hook the gain up to that. If you really want to adjust bass and all that **** on all the speakers, get an equilizer.. or a crossover. Can't remember which. If you have aftermarket audio, distortion shouldn't be a problem [unless you have shitty equipment]..


-justin