SmokinDzl

I'm listening to Pro Audio (Highend Clarion) 6.5" 200 W components in front and the 150 W 5 1/4" Pro Audio's in the rear, Dual 10" Pro Audio subs under bench Planet Audio 5-Channel amp and it sounds great! Loud, clear and crisp! U can hear it for blocks if I want U to! I don't have that massive Vibrate from the subs (10's vs. 12's) but it sounds great anyways! Cheapies (speakers or amps) seem to blow quicker and the sound goes flat quicker, I also think, IMHO, that individual speakers sound better then the stacked two-ways, three-ways or four-way speakers and a good highend amp is just plain cleaner! Just my $.02

Cory

P.J

Okay, issues already. I didn't expect to see 10 wires in the factory harness hooked to the infinity speaker. That's right TEN! Now what? I am assuming I am Just rewiring the fronts all together now?

Crutchfield sent me a little two wire harness with what I was going to use as my fronts (6.5's), it's useless against the factory one. Maybe they sent me the hookup for the non-infinity system?

Anyhow, I'm going to pop the passenger side off, I guess it's going to look the same.

Speaker depth is sweet, I probably could've gone with a 3 1/8" 3 1/4" depth, I know for a fact that 3 1/16" is going in no problem.

Anyone know which 4 wires are the + & - and the tweeter feeds??????

P.J

Oaky, I'm gathering that the harness powers ALL of the one side speakers (rear, tweet and the front it connects to) so now what?
I'm really not into rewire the WHOLE truck.

Help.

AggiePhil

Yeah, having the factory Infinity system is actually quite a bit of a hindrance when you go to upgrade it. It's not made to be upgraded. I recommend that you run your own wires. IT ISN'T HARD. Trust me. All you do it buy some 12 gauge twin lead speaker cable and run it from the speaker hole in the door through the door boot (on both sides of the door boot, remove the oval-shaped plastic bulkhead and just tuck the boot into the hole--it'll stay and keep water out), up under the dash, and across the back of the dash to the head unit area. It's really a piece of cake and much easier (and better) than using the puny (and complicated) factory speaker wires.

P.J

Okay, negatory on the depth thing, the maganet is touching the window frame track (both sides) So, I am into building them out a bit, not much, about 1/4" should be fine. Clearance to the door panel is not an issue as stated by others, plenty of room there.
Tha only issue I have with running new wires is that I would need to wire ALL six speakers if I decide to re-wire the fronts.
Laugh if you will, but I am going to detach the infinity amp and crossover from the factory speaker and mount in inside the door. This way I still have a Low freq. crossover for the tweets and don't have to rewire the other 4 speakers. As I stated when I started this project, the truck is not ever going to be for crusing the beach picking up honeys with my "boomin" system. This is just an attempt at improving the overall sound of the system to inhance my Sirius experience.
BTW, I ended up getting a two speaker kit with off brand dynamat from "The Evil Empire" last night, $9.99 for two 10" pieces, it sould serve the purpose.

I'll check back in with pics of old v.s new and how I built them up to clear the window and associated hardware.

P.J

Here goes.
This is how close to factory depth my new speaker were (factory on right)



I realized I could disassemble the actual speaker from the plastic container is was in and then un-bolt (two torx screws) the amp/crossover from the back of the speaker. I then used heavy duty two sided tape to mount it back inside the speaker "holder".




If you notice, I had to cut off the "tabs" and alignment pins from the top of the infinity speaker holder, this was done with a cut off wheel in about 30 seconds.
The sound is greatly improved over stock, much more mid and high. This will be great for when I get the sub hooked up.

AggiePhil

What's the reason again for all the wires going into each Infinity speaker?

jfpointer

They have amps on them.

AggiePhil

Still doesn't explain why they need that many wires. Do you know what the wires do specifically? That's what I was wondering.

P.J

Uhh, the FSM shows a wiring diagram that will give the average man an instant headache. I can really figure out what the abbrevations for the wire colors are, so to a certain exent I was lost. (hence why I decide NOT to rewire the entire system and just decided to do it the way I did)
I am VERY happy with the results, anyone that needs anymore sound is just trying to have others hear it. The clarity is 100% better over stock, I have much better mid and high tones.

Heres the way I see it.

Each speaker has power, ground, remote (turn on), the + & - for the tweeter and rear speaker on that side and the wires for the 6X9.

I thought there were 10 wires on the amp/crossover.
I can only account for 9 now, so I guess either I counted wrong when I had it apart or the other one is just in there for the heck of it.
Everything runs from the headunit TO the amp/crossover, and then out to each speaker.

jfpointer

Carry electricity.

Looks like PJ explained it, but the amp/crossovers on the fronts run all the speakers on a given side.

Rare1

P.J. thanks for the very concise yet informative tutorial on improving our crummy Infinity systems. Yet, I have questions:
My Infinity system 4 door speakers work, but not much sound out of the rear doors. My A-pillar tweets don't work. Is this because the front door amps are bad?
Second, is your "greatly improved" sound just with replaced speakers, using the stock door amps, and the original head unit? (just to clarify)
Third, I don't know speakers. With your new 4-way Kenwoods how does each part get the right signal? Does the door amp do it or does the speaker have crossovers built in?
Fourth, what would be the result if I replaced all six speakers and wired directly to the original head unit, deleting the door amps?

AggiePhil

Here's my question. Is the wiring harness behing the head unit the same whether your truck has the Infinity system or the regular system? I'm going to install my Alpine head unit in my new truck and it's currently wired up to connect directly to the harness in my last truck (no Infinity system). Will it plug straight in to this one too? Thanks.

P.J

I'm going to guess yes.
New Kenwood Head unit. About $280.00 from Crutchfield with a Sirius reciever and remote. (50x4) does everything but cook you breakfast in the morning. Has amp and subwoofer outputs, internal crossovers, etc.
Good question, problem is, I don't really know speaker either. All I can tell you is that the tweets only tweet and the new 6X9's up front sound Great. I suppose there is "full range" going to the 6X9's because I can hear a whole lot of high end out of them.
You would need bass blockers intalled in-line to the tweeters, other than that you would have a better system than me. I suppose you would just wire up the tweeters with the two fronts and put the bass blockers on the tweeters. If you get a decent head unit you will be able to block the low freq's from the back spekaers if you choose also. (I did) It's the "right" way to do it, buit you are talking about a lot of work just in wiring. No biggie I guess, nothing that couldn't be done in a matter of a day.

Just some background, my infinity head unit took a dump, the back channels had no sound (not the amp, the headunit) otherwise I would have just bought a stand alone Sirius unit with FM modulator and been on my way. But, like all things, this turned into an all day, $400.00 job, but well worth it.

P.J

I'm gonna say YES. The harness looked like any other stereo harness I have come in contact with. It's when you get in to the front doors that the head scratching begins. In fact, I was concerned when first inspecing my wiring, thinking to myself "there isn't enough wires back here!".