This is not true.

Just an update on this topic because I've read so much about "not being able to bypass the fader" without rewiring. The shared ground system is misunderstood, I think...there is a separate ground wire going to each speaker, pre-wired from the factory. Sure, they grounded them together (and you can, too) but you don't have to. Here's what I did...took only a few minutes:

-Cut off the wires at the fader plug. Now you can gently pull that whole bundle through the console and up into the "DIN sized" hole where the radio goes.
-If you fudge around some more, you can pull the two factory "front" wires with the little round 2 prong plugs out from the tie-down and you'll notice they just run right into the wiring for the fader that you just pulled to the front.
-Pull the covering back, make sure you have all "8" speaker wires coming from the large bundle and cut off all the excess. Throw it away (or plug it back into your old Becker).
-You now have 8 wires (4+, 4-) and you'll have an easy time wiring to a 4 channel radio.

It's all just redundant wiring that breaks 2 channels into a "false 4 channel" setup through the fader. If anyone has any questions about this, please feel free to contact me. It's really SO easy...I wasn't even going to try it because of all the "it can't be done" comments I've read but it turned out to be a piece of cake once I actually looked at it.