wet sounds ws420 wireing question
 

ok I am in stalling a 420 in my z3. Can I tap the power off one of the amps? Or should I run power and ground all the way back to the battery?

Personally I would run power and ground back to the battery. Having all your components having the same ground source helps ensure you don't get any differences in their resistance which can manifest itself as that annoying engine noise hum.

Ya if I remember I ran mine to my distribution block.

wet sounds ws420 wireing question
 

I have all my stereo equipment on its own battery connected power source with distro block.

Not sure "tapping it off the amp" for this would be all that bad, but if you could connect it up wherever the amp is connected to that would likely be the best.

The safest bet to avoid noise is to get the EQ primary B+ and ground from the power distribution blocks that are close to the amplifiers and in turn are connected directly to the batteries. The most important relationship to have a low potential difference is between the components in the signal path. If the amplifiers are in close proximity to the battery then it's essentially all the same. However, if the battery is a great distance from the amplifiers then taking the EQ directly to the battery could be a mistake.

Well the batteries are at the back of the boat. The amps are up in the front storage across from helm. The eq is under the helm. So I would say the amps are about 18 feet from the batts.

The amp power comes up off its own battery. It's 2 sets of 4 gauge wire into 2 amps. There are no distro blocks. Running power to the eq will be farther then the amps are since it's on other side if boat.

So David will pulling power and ground off the amps cause issue? I can wire it either way.

As David posted, the EQ needs to share the same B+ and B- as the amps. This is impoirtant in a boat like a Tige that has dual banks. Since the batteries are a mile from the helm, I would go to the amp's lugs. You will find the head-units yellow MEM/B+ and GND doing the same. You will also see that the factory install has a B+ and B- for each amp, home running to the battery.

ok, so sounds like I can just tap from the amp then. If the head unit is the same way should be ok with the eq.