Help! Help! Help!

[Walkercolt]

'98 Dakota CC with the factory am/fm/cass/cd Infinity Sound. I want to upgrade the factory(weenie) amp. Suggestions???Also, anyone have the specs on the connector(million wires) that goes into the factory power amp? Does somebody make a ready-to-go harness for hooking a new speaker-level amp in??? All the car stereo shops want to change out EVERYTHING. I think not.

[realdeal6973]

well id hate to tell you the bad news...but if you wanna add more wattage...you have to change everything out....speakers and radio

the problem lies not so much on the radio but your speakers... the amp is on the speakers....pull the panel off carfully using the right tool and youll see what i mean...you add an amp to them and who knows whats going to happen.(guarantee it will sound like sh**)...i have rockford fosgate separets in front, pioneers in the rear and two 10s under the rear seat...

mtx has a nice sub box for your truck....

go to crutchfield.com

for the wiring harnesses (both for an aftermarket radio and for your speakers

go to autosounddicount.com
and or wholesaleconnection.com
(just to try to save you some money)
for the radio and other accessories

changing the radio is easy...should only take you initially 2 hrs to put the new one in with the crutchfield wiring harness....good news is if you want to trade it in or if its a lease...you can change it back relatively fast and even easier because your not cuting anything up when you insatall it in the first place...
speakers are the same way....

get a catalog from crutchfield and do some research on your truck to see what fits and what dont and then try to pick speakers with the right specs for your system.. look for R.M.S. power handling and DB. numbers....the higher the db number the louder the speaker will play at a given wattage...dont base your speakers too much on the peak wattage though....although its important....its just not ass important as the rms...the catalog from crutchfield explains alot....

any other questions feel free to post and ill try to help ya

[Walkercolt]

Well that's part of the trouble. I put Infinity Kappa Series 3-ways in the front doors...they sound excellent , but they take more wattage to drive than I have(ie: not much volume). I'm planning on putting Kappa 2-ways in the back, but it seems I need a more powerful amp. I was looking at a Rockford-Fosgate 4X25 watt Punch Series(which takes speaker level inputs) I'm somewhat concerned about the total distortion: 1% at rated output seems high by "hi-fi" standards. I don't want to rattle the windows. And my biggest problem is listening to classical CD's at hiway speed.

[Walkercolt]

Ooops, two things I forgot to mention. The power amp is a seperate box on the driver's side rear panel, not on the speakers. I also CANNOT remove the radio without a special jumper from Mopar, as the alarm/security system is intgrated into the radio on my truck...the jumper is about $50. The dealer and 3 car audio shops have confirmed this. Ultimate Electronics was the "National Chain" I checked with, the other shops were locals.

[realdeal6973]

sounds like a wiring nightmare....you might still be able to replace the existing radio with an aftermarkey one and still have it wired up to all the stuff you need to....then i would use the rca cables out of the new radio and into the anp and from the amp to the speaker wires in the daash right behind the radio...so you dont have to dig all through your truck routing wires....thats how i did mine and other than all the rattles (which im taking care of soon) it sounds fine

let me know if you find any other way

[Walkercolt]

I was hoping to keep the factory head unit...it has outstanding specs, but very little power. My power amp is an ivory plastic and metal box with a rectangular connector(green plastic) (Molex??) with about 20 wires in it. I'm guessing rt frt in, lft frt in, frt com, rt rear in, lft rear in,rear com, rt ft out, lft frt out, frt com, rt rear out, lft rear out, rear com out, power on, power in, grnd(See that's 15). Do you think R-F has a harness that would hook-up directly to my plug? I understand I need some heavy-duty power cable from the battery( say 4 or 6 gauge) for a new amp. I really like the factory set-up, and finding a DIN 1.5 AM/FM/Cass/CD is a nightmare. I also don't want to lose the security system....I get a big insurance discount for it, and I'd lose my remote power door locks too. BTW the factory amp was rated at "100 watts". That's gotta be a "peak music power" rating. The factory speakers are 6 ohm so that makes me think about 6-8 watts RMS per channel, which is a commom "amplifier-on-a chip" power rating. Most after-market amps are rated at 4 ohms, so I'd lose about 2/3's of the rated power per channel at 6ohms(OK really multiply the rating by 1/2 the square root of 2...) See I've done some homework. I know LOTS about PA, home stereo, TV audio, even some small-time recording studio sound, but car audio uses their own language, specs, parameters and it really doesn't tell me too much "real-world" info.

[realdeal6973]

im not saying you dont know what your talking about im sure you do its just this is ow i did it for my truck and i own a 96 ram with the infinity stereo too...of which i thought sounde like crap....but thats me.....they should be closely the same..
i just cant believe your having a hard time finding a 1.5 din radio??? then again whats the difference...they sell kits to fit a 1 din unit in a 1.5 area...i did it to mine and it looks good....

check out pioneerelectronics.com

autosounddiscount.com (for the radio, amp[s], eq's...etc)
wholesaleelectronics.com (also for the stuff mentioned above)
compare the prices and get what you want and or need...

i would also get some dynamat for the doors and the rear seat area.....you sound to me like a true audio buff....with this stuf youll take care of all that road noise (or at least some of it)..

here is a pioneer unit that i dont think is half bad..

also call crutchfield up and see what they have for you

1-800-955-3000 these guys are wisards when it comes to haveing the harnesses and all for your speakers and radio and amps and all that other stuff....

car stereo setup is somewhat easy...it only starts to get complicated when you have 30 band eq's and crossovers and all that happy sh**...i tell ya what...

do this.......

pioneer deh-77dh.......................................300.oo
crutchfield wiring harness............................free with radio
front seperates that you already have
rear fill....(enter speaker here)
small rear sub box specially made for your truck (crutchfield sells that too) trust me youll love it when the drums come in on the type of music you like to listen too...well worth it..

dont worry too much about trying to intergrate the aftermarket radio into the amp....it already is from the factory wiring harness ...all the crutchfield one does is let you go from the factory harness to the harness for the new radio..and then the harness for the radio goes into the back of it.........its simple...

if your worried about loss of power and all that ...i wouldnt worry too much...just get a better amp....the amp your talking about isnt even woth the trouble that your having to put it in....i would get a amp cabable of putting out 50-75-100 watts X4...(im sure crutchfield might have something for you to go from your old amp...to the new one...

also as i said before you would be better off changing everything out and putting in all the correct componets that you would need to set your stereo off ....

but i tell you what i havent rally gone wrong with the correct harnesses from crutchfirel at all...theve always done me right...


what you do to the radios harness is attach appropriate wires to the conjoining wires for the crutchfield harnes ..once done and all is tight...go to the trcuk take apart the dash face and whatever is conected to it

[realdeal6973]

heres that other radio too

[Walkercolt]

I'll have to give Crutchfield a yell. I saw a Precision Power brand 65Wx4 amp at a resonable(to me) price. It has quite impressive specs...loads into anything from 1-16 ohms with almost no loss of power(FET outputs). I have "cheated" on my radio; I jerry-rigged a pair of Audio-Techinca Electrostaic headphones I have into it the week I bought the truck. Thru the "cans" the Infinity Factory system is a good sounding, but low power unit. If I can just up the amp a bit, upgrade the rear speakers, I think I'll be OK. I've lusted after the MBQuart Sub-Woofer system for the Dakota....just a bit too pricey along with the storage space loss...gotta have somewhere "out-of-driver's control" to put my "bang". PS. On the Dyna-Mat, I bought some Ethafoam brand black pad from an upholstery supply and 3M 77 Spray Adhesive to tack-it down on the metal panels. It might not be quite as good as Dyna-Mat, but it was MUCH cheaper and lighter...seemed to help the road-noise quite a bit. I think I get more noise thru the sliding back window than anywhere now. It's thin glass, without the best seals in the world and the turbulence from the wind around the cab causes some "drumming". Thanks for the help!

[realdeal6973]

yeah man hope it help...the precision unit you specified about sounds like a good one. they make some awsome stuff...

mtx has a sub unit that has the sorage unit in it (i think) give crutchfield a call about everything....

as far as the sub goes if all else fails go here...

autosounddiscount.com they have some cool stuff too...

good luck