Stereo & Electronics - Rear AUX vs Front?

For you guys who have installed an after market head unit with rear AUX input or for those of you who have set up the stock head unit for rear AUX input, I was just curious as to how well that works?

Where do you run the wires from and out to? Did you have to do any modifications anywhere to get things through? I'm looking for a new head unit now and I'm trying to figure out whether or not front AUX is a huge deal.

I'm guessing you mean output... which is a signal from the HU to the amp.

Front/Rear are pretty much the same thing. They can be crossed over to send signal from like 80hz-20khz or whatever.
Sub Output will send a sub signal, like 20hz-200hz or something in that range.

If you run a 4 channel amp along with a bass amp, it is good to have front/rear output along with a sub output.

No, I expect he's talking about auxiliary input jacks. Some aftermarket head units have jacks on the front while others have them on the back. The factory HU doesn't have auxiliary jacks but adapters allow you to convert the CD changer port on the back to an auxiliary input.

Personally, I prefer jacks on the back because it looks cleaner. You can always run your accessory cables from the back jacks to wherever you mount your auxiliary device (satellite radio, MP3 player, or whatever).

On the other hand, front jacks are really handy for connecting a device once in a while where you don't want permanent cables (perhaps the voice output of a portable GPS or the audio from a video recorder).

Yeah I was talking about AUX input for an mp3 player.

So if I were to keep my mp3 player in my cup holder lets say, where would I run the cables from the back of the head unit out to? I dont know the guts of the radio area so could I just run them out from right behind the head unit and they'd end up somewhere around the passenger side cup holder or would I need to do some creative modifying?

Yeah I was talking about AUX input for an mp3 player.

So if I were to keep my mp3 player in my cup holder lets say, where would I run the cables from the back of the head unit out to? I dont know the guts of the radio area so could I just run them out from right behind the head unit and they'd end up somewhere around the passenger side cup holder or would I need to do some creative modifying?
The area behind the head unit is open enough that you can run cables anywhere you want. For example, you could run from the back of the head unit under the console to the console compartment. Then drill a hole inside the compartment large enough to pass the cable through and you've got your hidden connection. Leave enough slack in the cable and you could use it hidden in the compartment or pull it out far enough to put the MP3 player in the cup holder.

Bear in mind that as long as you're shopping for a head unit, you could just buy one with MP3 capability built-in. Most of them play MP3 CDs these days but a growing number of them have flash card slots. That way you have the display and controls on the HU instead of connecting a separate MP3 player. Some even have connectors specific to iPod - so you can plug in your iPod, hide it away in the glovebox, and control it from the HU.

ah, disregard my post then. I was confused :eek2:

I would buy one specifically for iPod but I've been screwed over by Apple's customer service too much to ever puchase another iPod, so I have a SanDisk Sansa instead which I'm very happy with haha.

I know some head units have memory card slots but that seems like a waste really when I already have a perfectly good mp3 player. Do you know anything about head units with USB input? Do they work just as headunits specifically designed to work with ipod's do? I heard that they're really ONLY for flash drives and wont work with actual mp3 players, such as my sansa in the way that one might expect.