newbie install advice

[[email protected]]

Hi All,

I have a 2000 jeep cherokee with factory speakers and a aftermarket
sony cd player. the cd player was installed as a christmas present
by....*gasp* best buy. as expected, the install sucked. The radio will
lose power very often making it useless to set channels and time. they
also installed some kind of bass "reducer". the guy there told my
friend that installed it for me that i needed it so that i would not
blow the factory speakers with the new head. i have no idea if this is
true, but at any rate. i would like to replace the front speakers and
also the rear roof speakers. is this a major upgrade? meaning would
it be hard for a total novice to do? i am fairly good with electronics
being a computer tech, but know nothing about audio speaker installs.
also, i am guessing that whatever was installed to reduce the bass
would need to be removed if new speakers were installed. i have looked
on crutchfield but i am not sure as to what i am really looking for. i
just basically want a good crisp sound, maybe a little more bass but
nothing requiring a sub of any kind. a little help?

TIA,

R

[MOSFET]

Replacing the stock speakers should be pretty easy, as long as you find new
speakers that match the existing holes. Usually, this involves removing the
door panels and swapping out speakers.

If I had to guess, I would say that this installer put in small capacitors
in series with your speakers. This would create a 6 dB per octave high-pass
filter (a bass-blocker of sorts). The cut-off frequency depends on what
value capacitor he used. However, the trick is knowing where these
capacitors are located. If they are located near the speakers, you can
remove them when you switch out the speakers. However, they are most likely
located behind the new HU (head unit) as that would have been easiest for
Best Buy to install. I would call Best Buy and confirm A) that it is small
capacitors that have been installed to block the bass and B) where are these
located. You may have to pull the HU out to get at those things. Hope this
helps.

MOSFET
> wrote in message
ups.com...
> Hi All,
>
> I have a 2000 jeep cherokee with factory speakers and a aftermarket
> sony cd player. the cd player was installed as a christmas present
> by....*gasp* best buy. as expected, the install sucked. The radio will
> lose power very often making it useless to set channels and time. they
> also installed some kind of bass "reducer". the guy there told my
> friend that installed it for me that i needed it so that i would not
> blow the factory speakers with the new head. i have no idea if this is
> true, but at any rate. i would like to replace the front speakers and
> also the rear roof speakers. is this a major upgrade? meaning would
> it be hard for a total novice to do? i am fairly good with electronics
> being a computer tech, but know nothing about audio speaker installs.
> also, i am guessing that whatever was installed to reduce the bass
> would need to be removed if new speakers were installed. i have looked
> on crutchfield but i am not sure as to what i am really looking for. i
> just basically want a good crisp sound, maybe a little more bass but
> nothing requiring a sub of any kind. a little help?
>
> TIA,
>
> R
>

[KU40]

sounds like they may have messed up the power and acc. wires on the head
unit, I'd just pull it out and double check what they did and make sure
they are going to the right wires from the factory harness. The
factory wires may say which they are on the wires, or should be color
coded the same, or at least labeled in your vehicle's owners manual.

as for the bass reducers, my bet is they were just some capacitors put
inline with the speakers. These are just 1st order passive highpass
crossovers (6 db slope) to stop the speakers from playing the lows
which cause smaller speakers like that to distort from overexcursion.
chances are you'll still need them on the upgraded speakers, but you
can try them without and see. kinda depends on what type of music you
listen to and how loud you turn the volume and bass boost. If you just
listen to the speakers and turn it down when you notice them distorting,
you'll be fine without them.

as far as how hard the upgrade will be, i don't know. depends on if
you have to take off door panels or if they just have grills over them.
but regardless, shouldn't be overly difficult. taking the door panels
off is pretty much worse case scenario, and that isn't that bad.


--
KU40

[Captain Howdy]

Replacing a stock Ford radio is a whole different story. LOL



In article >, "MOSFET"
> wrote:
>Replacing the stock speakers should be pretty easy, as long as you find new
>speakers that match the existing holes. Usually, this involves removing the
>door panels and swapping out speakers.
>

[Rob Kulp]

"Captain Howdy" > wrote in message
...
> Replacing a stock Ford radio is a whole different story. LOL
>

LMFAO!

[[email protected]]

Thanks for the replies. I plan on taking the HU out when I get the
speakers as I ordered a mounting kit too. the rim around the kit that
best buy installed cracked about two days after i got it, now you can
see the metal around the radio...man, what a sloppy job. hopefully I
can get things back to working and looking nice myself.

as for the bass reducers, I ordered a pair of boston acoustic speaker
that are 2-35 watts RMS and my radio is 23.2 watts RMS, should I be ok
without them? i mean, I would like some bass...what i have now sounds
like crap.

thanks again for the help.

[Brandonb]

Do you have the Infinity sound system? If so, there's a factory amp
under the passenger side rear seat that you need to tap into. I've got a
2000 JGC Limited, but I'm not familiar with the rear roof speakers you
mentioned. Mine just has the two in the dash, and one in each door,
minus the tailgate. When I changed my head unit out, I just replaced the
factory amp with a 6-channel amp. It does a damn nice job with the
biggest channels going to the 6x9s in the front doors.

Brandonb


wrote:
> Thanks for the replies. I plan on taking the HU out when I get the
> speakers as I ordered a mounting kit too. the rim around the kit that
> best buy installed cracked about two days after i got it, now you can
> see the metal around the radio...man, what a sloppy job. hopefully I
> can get things back to working and looking nice myself.
>
> as for the bass reducers, I ordered a pair of boston acoustic speaker
> that are 2-35 watts RMS and my radio is 23.2 watts RMS, should I be ok
> without them? i mean, I would like some bass...what i have now sounds
> like crap.
>
> thanks again for the help.
>