Yeah, I was more wondering if the crossovers were in line or if they were built into the RF amp. Turns out they were built in the RF amp so I had bought some crossovers and installed them. No way was I gonna blow the system just yet!

 

Correct, and essentially you can just connect the two wires coming out of that harness, but its kind of weird that you would be running the power all the way back to the amp and back. I imagine its not a big deal though.

 

Sorry I haven't been back here... I sorta fell out of touch with everything after I broke my ankle 2.5 weeks to go until I'm out of the cast!

Thanks!! Trunks always muffle sound, especially when the box is sealed, and the trunk is sealed. If the speaker has sealed air on both sides, it can't move as easily. This is why ported and bandpass boxes are preferable in a trunk. But I hate the sound of a non-sealed box. So, with the 10W3 in the stock RF box, it sounds FABULOUS! Not as good as I'd like, but it sure sounds a hell of a lot better than the stock sub.

 

To add to this...

I actually replaced everything recently (i'll be doing a write up on that later).

We actually took the factory box out, cut a whole in the back and reglassed it so my Polk 10" MOMO would have enough airspace. While it doesn't knock your throat out, it feels good for what it would have been had it not had enough airspace. I'm happy with it overall. I recommend doing that at the very least if you're wanting decent bass in the factory enclosure.

 

This may sound silly, but it looks like that splices in to the middle of the factory wiring. Does anyone think it would be possible to just use that for the front / rear wiring, leave the factory amp in place, and use another LOC to get variable sub volume control for the 5th channel to the sub from the output on the factory amp? Seems kind of a waste to leave the factory amp in there just to have sub volume control, but whatever works....

I'll probably pick up a PDX series 5 ch amp if I go this route.

 

Like I said, I broke out the low level inputs into all 5 channels to my PDX5... and I have bass control from the head unit. I didnt use a LOC or anything yet though, just kinda rednecked it.

 

I'm not sure why anyone thinks that leaving the stock amp in place for any reason, is a good idea. The stock amp is what is doing the active frequency volume adjustments. It is the weakness of the system. Sure, you can do it. Buy why would you want to make a steaming pile of crap even bigger by amplifying it?

I have sub control via the RBC knob available for JL amps.

If you split the low levels into two separate channels for the amp, the purpose of the 5 channel amp is completely defeated. You get no more functionality than you would with a 4 channel amp. Power the front and rear speakers by 2 channels, and power the sub by the other two bridged.

Remove the old amp. Use the two low level channels on an amp that takes one pair of channels as an input and will internally split that signal to be amplified across all its channels. Splitting the signals before the amp halves the low level voltage, and can degrade sound quality. Higher voltage pre-outs result in higher quality audio. This is why 5v pre-outs are highly touted on aftermarker stereos.

Also, as I've said a billion times before, do your research before buying that PDX-5. You'll find that its amplified distortion is a ridiculous 1% compared to JL and other amps.

 

+1, I used to be a big alpine fan. The PDX-5 is actually pretty sub-par to the 6 channel JL amps.

Honestly, I feel replacing the whole system was easier than trying to hack my way in. I sold my NAV for $1k, already had a jl audio g6600 6 channel amp, bought a kenwood excelon 9140 wired them in and was off and running. Sounds a million times better than what it did before. Not to mention I have front and rear 13 band equalizers, and a upgradable garmin nav. I couldn't be happier with the set up. I also found the stock rf speakers to be pretty subpar (compared to what people were telling me) for what i was pushing. I blew a tweater with in a few days. The speakers I replaced with aren't producing the sounds I want (they are SPL competition speakers), so I'm going to sell those and go back to CDT Audio. Once it's all set up I'll post up some pictures.

Here is a teaser:

 

I was impatient when I bought my PDX5 and dont know enough about car stereo's to know it wasnt that great. I can say however that as someone who just wanted his stereo to sound better, it does... tons... even if its not hooked up perfect or what. Eventually I will upgrade the whole system but for now... this is it.

 

Holy crap, you got a grand for your factory NAV?

 

Yep ... btw above was a typo. I got a Kenwood Excelon 9140, not a 96140 ;p

 

1,000 is below average selling price, they are usualy going for about 1,200 to 1,300. still a good price to sell it for though. I got 1100 for mine.

 

That'd probably explain why I had about 6 people message me in about 5 hours.

 

It was an off thought for keeping bass control, but now that I'm not as drunk anymore I can see that you would probably be killing much of the subs range also. I really dislike the remote mounted sub control knobs, especially if they cost extra money since they are basically just a POT.

Really, I just want *better* sound, for not much money, with ipod integration, and that isn't super bright in my eyes at night with trim pieces that actually fit. No navi necessary, and some form of PNP is ideal. The factory stereo fits other than direct iPod integration and better sound.

SQ isn't really that big of a deal with a buschur bullet under my ***, but I can definitely hear that the factory stereo is doody.

 

Does removing the stock amp remove any functionality besides bass control? Like bluetooth, hands free, etc?