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[Arjun]

What are some good speakers? I went to some stores and listened to a bunch, but through experience I realized Best Buy and most of the other retailers don't exactly carry the whole line. I got a change to listen to some JL Audio 10w7 subs at Tweeter, and I think I'm going to install two of those. So now I'm looking for speakers. I found the Infinity Kappa Perfect 6.1 components which I liked, but they seem to be lacking in the mid-bass area. Anyone think that the subs would make up for this? Or anyone have any reccomendations?

Oh, and one more question. Is it a good idea to replace the existing/stock speaker wire? I'm obviously going have to run new stuff for the subs and amps, so might as well do it all?

TIA.

EDIT: I did a bowl and realized that of course I'd need new wires since the wires would come from the amp to the speakers isntead of the headunit.

[CJLee89]

the JL W7 is a very good speaker IMO. they will put out a lot of bass if setup correctly with the amp. what kind of music will you be listening to?

as for mids, i would go JL or Memphis. i have Memphis PR series, 3-ways in the rear deck and components up front, mind i say they sound amazing without an extra amp for them.

and have fun replacing the wiring in the whole car. i would just run the amp power wire, amp turn on wire, and RCA's and you should be good unless you are going to amp the mids. make sure you put a main fuse in the engine compartment for the amp power wire for safety.

as for good brands (for anything):
- Memphis
- JL
- Eclipse
- Infinity
- Kicker
- Alpine

[rms2001]

I went with a complete JL audio in my Jeep and am very pleased with the result. SE-40T tweeters, RX650 in the front doors, VR650 in the rear doors, and a 10W3-D2 10” sub in the rear. All powered with JL 300/4 main amp and their 250/1 subwoofer amp.

Clean, clear sound. I opted to keep my factory head unit and used simple high to low converters to hook it up to the JL amps. The front speaks have good mid-rang, or at least I think they do. It took a little fabbing to get them to fit like I wanted them to, but they do and sound nice.

The best part of this is it all looks factory. You can’t see any thing other than the “JL stealthbox” thats in the back, but even that looks factory for the most part. You would think it wasn’t if you didn’t know any thing the Grand Cherokee. Amps are under the rear seats (this was the biggest part of the job), out of sight out of mind. And with the factory RB1 nav head unit, you would never now the audio system was upgraded.

I used all my existing speaker wire. I simply spliced into the factory wiring harness. I didn’t see the need to run all new wire since I’m not trying to blow out peoples windows from eight car lengths away. The speakers I installed don’t draw that much more power. The only wires I added were, power, and the ones to the sub.







This is what it looked like when I first did it. Kinda a mess and the wife hated it. Plus I didn't need some one seeing the amps and busting the windows on my Jeep to steal them.

This is afterward

Crossover installed into the doors. Don't do this if you doors leak. Crossovers and water don't mix.

And the JL stealthbox.

[Rylinkus]

Do your amps overheat at all where you have them insulated under the seat?

[rms2001]

No. They run warm, but not hot with those massive heatsinks on them. Or not any warmer than the factory amp that was under the rear seat. Its not like I’m pushing loads of power though them either.

[jesterrace777]

For once rms and I are in agreement.  Hard to go wrong with a JL Audio setup.

[rms2001]

QUOTE(jesterrace777 @ Apr 25 2007, 02:50 PM)

For once rms and I are in agreement.  Hard to go wrong with a JL Audio setup.

HAHA Amazing isn’t it? I’m thinking of adding a similar system to my truck. Just haven’t got around to it yet. Plus doing this kinda think on the RAM will be a little more difficult I think. Not as many places to hide the amps, plus I have to rip the whole dash apart to get to the factory amp. I have other mods in mind before I go about this thing to my truck though.

[ubernewb]

are you kidding me? you can stuff small children under the front seats of the new rams.. getting a couple amps under there is nothing. and as for the amp.. ignore it. best thing to do in those is to run new lines to the speakers.  worst case, you can tie into the lines right before they go into the door boot.

is yours the quad cab or the mega?

[rms2001]

Mines a one ton quad cab, Laramie, signal real wheel. I really wanted a mega cab, but I needed the long bed more than I needed the mega cab. And since I didn’t want to pay $6,500 to put a long bed onto mega cab frame, I ended up with the quad cab. Now I wish I had bought the mega cab…

Any way, I know theres lots of room under the seats. But I’d rather keep them more out of sight. But this is probably my only option. I can maybe get the amps under the rear seats since my sub will go in between the front seats. I just need to find a person who builds the box and can match the factory leather color. Seen cloth ones, but I want the leather since the rest of the tuck is leather too.

I’ll get it done sooner or later. And your right, I’ll probably leave the factory amp there and run all new wires. Will still have take apart the dash to install the high to low converters. While I’m in there, I will probably install the Mopar iPod adapter.

[ubernewb]

unfortunately, you can't use hi-lo's on the new infinity decks... the deck itself has no variable volume output. the deck itself only has two volume states, on and mute. the signal goes from there to the infinity amp, where volume is controlled via a data signal sent from the deck on a different wire. kinda sucks.. the only way to use hi-lo's on them is to tag the speaker lines coming out of the amp. and if you do that, you don't get full range sound from the rear speakers.. those have a high pass filter on them from the amp.

my suggestion.. get a new deck and forget the stock system altogether.




side note, the mega cabs are effin sweet. my old shop's manager got one and we did all kinds of cool shit to it. i fabbed up the dash to hold a double-din pioneer avic-z1, and he built a box behind the rear seat that holds 4 pioneer superflat 12's.. came out pretty sweet cuz he could still fully recline the seats. i've got some pics of the dash piece i did floating around on my pc somewhere.. i'll see if i can find them



arjun.. sorry for the thread jack buddy.

found 'em..

first i had to semi-center the opening, so i cut out the piece that divided the radio and the small pocket. then i cut some filler pieces from sheet abs and epoxied them into place..



here's what it looked like from the back..



and here's what it looked like after some bondo, glazing putty, and a few coats of primer..



he later got it painted to match the truck, as well as the other wood grained interior accents. came out pretty nice, but that was right after i left that shop to move down to everett. i keep meaning to get pics of it when i go back to visit, but it always slips my mind while i'm there.

[rms2001]

Hmmm. I know the new decks run on DCX’s funky CAM bus system, but I didn’t think they were totally different from the old PCI systems. Theres no way I’m giving up my factory deck. I had enough difficulty getting the dealer to through in the NAV system in the first place, I’m not gonna rip it out for a cheapy aftermarket unit. And even if it was nice head unit, I’m still not giving up my steering wheel controls.

Guess I will have to do some more research. I know people are upgrading their auto systems in these trucks and are still using their factory decks. I know these new systems are weird, but I’m sure theres a way to do it. Maybe a trip to my local audio shop will know. With all the newer DCX vehicles on the road, they must know some thing about it.

[ubernewb]

yeah.. they know what i just posted the have adapters to allow aftermarket decks to run the infinity system, but nothing that works the opposite way.

but realistically, you could grab it after the amp.. having a low-pass on the rears isn't exactly a bad thing seeing as you're going to add a sub anyways.