Please give advice on this idea
 

Hello, I was wondering if I could please get some help. I have a 1993 Accord, I have replaced the stock radio/tape deck with a very simple one which was given to me for free by a friend. I was wondering if it would be possible to hook up my stock unit aswell. I was thinking about hooking up everything to the same, as in hooking up the wires on the stock unit to the one on the new one. That way they could both output to the same speakers and use the same wires. I would apreciate any insight on this since I need a tape player for some old tapes which I own and cannot find in cd format. Also, I was thinking of placing it in the little box underneath the origional unit, I still have the box attached to my new cd player, but was wondering if I could romove it and put the old deck back in instead. By the way, I would never turn both decks on at the same time. I would turn one off while using the other one. Or I could always put a switch on the ground wire so I could control which one is turned on, that way I would not turn one on accidentaly. Any help would be greatly apreciated. Thanks again, Nick.

You can't hook up two units at the same time. You only have one harness commin out of the car. Plus it probably wouldn't be a good idea to have two different power sources going into your speakers

But what if I put a switch between the powersources, so I could switch on only one unit at one time.I could just connect the backup power which keeps my presets and other settings to both. The main power would only be supplied to one unit at one time. It would work something like one of those switches that can be bought for a home tv, when you have a bunch of things hooked up and you choose your source. I would not use that switch obviously. Usint this method, if I wanted to use the tape I could use it without being able to use the cd deck, and if I wanted to use the cd I would not be able to use the tape deck. And when the speakers are only getting power from once source only, would it not be safe?

Does your car have a double DIN opening? if it does...why not just get an aftermarket Double DIN with both tape and CD? Or a tape/CD changer combo? You won't be able to hoop up amps and get quality sound unless that free deck you got has preamp outputs. I don't know if you were gonna hook up amps in the future