In general, is grounding the wire all that important? I understand the + and the -, but not grounding.

 

- is the ground wire, and yes it matters alot. It completes a "circuit" if you have shitty ground on amps, it tends to lead to
A) static in speakers
b) Amp not workin
C) i'm sure there a third nasty one i'm just forgetting

 

The third is friying your gear, I see people that have have mitsubishi galantes or what ever the are called. Come to me that there aftermarket headunits don't work anymore. They don't proplery ground the unit because the car side does not have a ground in the car radio harness and they just plug in the antenna for ground,

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I see people that have have mitsubishi galantes or what ever the are called. Come to me that there aftermarket headunits don't work anymore. They don't proplery ground the unit because the car side does not have a ground in the car radio harness and they just plug in the antenna for ground</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ahhh yes... One of my very first installs was in one of these gems... The Metra/Scosche Mitsu harnesses have a ground in them, so I just hooked it up, and never thought that there wouldn't be a ground in the car's harness... Wracked my brain for about an hour trying to figure out why the deck would dim and shut off when the volume was up... LOL... Good times...

So, to stop hijacking your thread, yes, grounding is important...

 

If you don't ground, you don't have power. You dont have ****. Plain and simple. Take the ground off your car battery and see how that works out for you.