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Hooking Up An Eq To The Jbl Black Box


NorrisMike

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I read a post about wiring an EQ to the head unit in the walkway so that when you hit the power button on the head unit it only turns on your EQ. Is there somehwere on the forum that shows how to do this or can someone explain the steps? thanks in advance.

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I'm sorry I wasn't very clear. I don't love the radio control in the walk thru so I purchased an EQ and am planning on mounting it somewhere easy to reach in the driver area. I would like to hook my mp3 player directly to the EQ and use the EQ to control the volume etc. If I just bypassed the walk thru control and used the EQ only I would lose the radio function. I guess I would be okay with that since we never really use the radio anyways. I am open to suggestions. What would be the best way to install this? If there was a way to install it and have the volume controls on the EQ but still have the radio work that would be best. Thanks

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I am not sure why you want to bypass the control. You can still hook up the eq to the black box and use it to plug your ipod into while keeping the radio funciton etc. Just hook it up as shown in the manual..

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I'm sorry I wasn't very clear. I don't love the radio control in the walk thru so I purchased an EQ and am planning on mounting it somewhere easy to reach in the driver area. I would like to hook my mp3 player directly to the EQ and use the EQ to control the volume etc. If I just bypassed the walk thru control and used the EQ only I would lose the radio function. I guess I would be okay with that since we never really use the radio anyways. I am open to suggestions. What would be the best way to install this? If there was a way to install it and have the volume controls on the EQ but still have the radio work that would be best. Thanks

Gotcha. Best way to hook it up is to run the RCA's from the FRONT ouput on your black box to the MAIN input of the EQ. This is the only RCA that will be coming out of black box at this point. Then run the 3 zones from the EQ to your amps FRONT/REAR/SUB and you'll have total control from your eq. Plug your ipod into the AUX input on the eq with an RCA-3.5mm cable. When you have your EQ set on AUX you'll be running your ipod as the music source. When your EQ is on MAIN you'll be using your black box as the source unit. If you leave your volume up on your remote you can control total system volume with your EQ when wired like I described above. When you have the EQ set to AUX you'll have your ipod and EQ volumes to deal with, the remote wil be useless.

Hope this makes sense for you.

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Make sure you disable the sub output on the black box with this set up. If you don't none of the low frequencies will make it to the EQ. You can also set the black box to start at a predetermined volume level if you want, that makes it easier to just use the EQ as the main volume control. This is how I have mine set up and am really happy with it. I do use the aux input on the black box vs. the EQ, just personal preference it will work either way (I have the Maliview with the speed compensating volume which I really like, without that I would run the aux directly to the EQ). I did find the entire system sounded awesome by just adding the EQ. I use an AudioControl EQ but most here use the Wetsounds. The WS will give you separate EQ band control of the tower speakers which is nice as well as a microphone. I really like the AudioControl EQ is sound really nice. It also has adjustable gains for the preamp outputs, not sure if the WS has that.

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Make sure you disable the sub output on the black box with this set up. If you don't none of the low frequencies will make it to the EQ. You can also set the black box to start at a predetermined volume level if you want, that makes it easier to just use the EQ as the main volume control. This is how I have mine set up and am really happy with it. I do use the aux input on the black box vs. the EQ, just personal preference it will work either way (I have the Maliview with the speed compensating volume which I really like, without that I would run the aux directly to the EQ). I did find the entire system sounded awesome by just adding the EQ. I use an AudioControl EQ but most here use the Wetsounds. The WS will give you separate EQ band control of the tower speakers which is nice as well as a microphone. I really like the AudioControl EQ is sound really nice. It also has adjustable gains for the preamp outputs, not sure if the WS has that.

Not sure what black box you have but that's not an issue with the 10' jbl black box I have in my boat. Do you have the rf unit?

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I have the JBL black box (2010 pre-Rockford control head). If you have the sub woofer output enabled it will use an internal crossover in the black box to sent low frequencies to the sub output and frequencies above the crossover point to the front and rear output. If you use the front RCA output to send the signal from the black box to the EQ then you won't get frequencies below the crossover point going to the EQ if the sub woofer is enabled. The sub output is in the setup options on the blackbox, could be that the sub woofer output was already disabled in the setup menu.

If you have the auto volume in the Maliview it works really nice.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the help. This makes sense now that I'm into it.

Few Questions

where are you guys getting the power, ground, and remotes wires from?

Do I need a small type of distribution block for the remote wires? Or can I hop from one to another? I will eventually have 3 amps and an eq. If so, where would I buy one? Link?

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I tapped into one of the amps for the EQ power and remote turn-on. I did add an inline fuse for the hot power lead. The EQ doesn't draw much power and I haven't had any problems with this setup.

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  • 1 month later...

So I just got a pair of exile audio xm9s, the exile harpoon amp, and the ZLD preamp EQ. Trying to get everything working with my 08 JBL black box. I've got a Rubicon sound stream powering cabin speakers and sub. Like discussed above, the problem is the black box splits the signal into "front, rear, and sub.". How do I get a main output to go to the ZLD? Y'all mentioned disabling the sub signal from the black box so that you get a full signal... How do I do that? And if I run the "front" output through the EQ do I need to disable the rear somehow?

Sorry. lots of questions.

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There is a setup menu for the black box and enabling the sub output is in that menu. I don't have my manuals handi and won't be to the boat till next weekend but the blackbox manual shows how to access the menu. I just used the front output as the main input for the EQ. I just left the fader and balance in the middle positions on the blackbox. I also left the bass and treble at the middle position on the blackbox.

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