Alpine RUX-knob: What I've learned (and pictures of Hicksta's sweet audio setup)

So I bought Mr.Hicksta's badass car a couple weeks back and there was one minor issue with his amazing stereo system. The Alpine subwoofer fader knob didn't work. The broken knob made it so you'd have to use the equalizer in the double din head unit to adjust subwoofer bass, which is annoying while driving. Sometimes you want a lot of bass to rattle your teeth fillings, and sometimes you don't. I had to fix it!

First, here's a few pictures of mr.hicksta's impressive build:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/DSC01116.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/DSC01117.jpg

This plate is just genius, and seems to fit perfectly there:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/DSC01118.jpg

So here is the RUX-Knob cleanly installed in the armrest console area:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/DSC01111.jpg

The knob uses a telephone cord to run back to the Alpine subwoofers to control their gain. The single telephone cord leaving the knob enters a phone splitter and enters the amps (white cords):

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/DSC01115.jpg

So like I mentioned, there was an issue with the setup, and the knob didn't work. I dug around for a bit and here is what I learned:

The telephone cable (RJ14) provided in the RUX-knob kit uses a straight-through design, which is unlike a typical RJ14 telephone cable:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/DSC01110.jpg

If this was a standard telephone cord, the colors would be reversed across the pair. Therefore, if you want to hook up two amps to the fader knob, you have to be very careful what type of cable you use. If you use a splitter and two telephone cords that hook into phones, you will end up with a reversed pinout. This is exactly what happened during the stereo install.

I fixed this reversed pinout by adding a phone coupler like the one here: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4394903

The nice worker at Radio Shack gave me a multimeter to verify that the phone couple inserted a crossover/rollover.

I added the coupler and jammed all the cables back into wherever they would fit under the seats and behind the side bolsters:

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/DSC01119.jpg

And voila! The fader knob now works and I can quickly adjust the subwoofer gain without hitting all sorts of equalizer buttons.

Next thing to fix? I can see daylight out of the lower rear trunk. The sound insulation is pushing the trunklid out a little bit. It doesn't seem to cause any water to get in the trunk, though.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j253/Dispatch20/10858d94-0415-4fbf-adb1-1edbae412572.jpg