Replacing BA front speaker nightmare Please Help

[Valkyrie14]

So, I decided that I was finally going to have a car with a bad ass sound system, and why not do it on my 2014 SS I bought about a month ago. I was replacing the front speakers today and it all went to hell. I will get into that, but first let me tell you what I did first.

I saw on this forum the FARK harness and that sounded good. I bought the harness and a JL XD 400x4. Things sounded good, but I wanted more. So I bought JL C2 650 6.5 components and 6x9s, and a JL 10” with a stealth box for the trunk powered by a JL XD monoblock 600w amp. The sub is not hooked up yet, I don’t have the box yet and everything went to hell.

Yesterday I took on the 6x9s, it was a chore (well documented in other posts). The 6x9s went in and sound great. I used the sub thump x2 adapter by splicing the negative wire of the woofer to the positive wire of the tweeter and connected the remaining wires to the speaker (saw this on a tutorial).

So today I took on the front. I didn’t have any adapter because my plan was to connect the lower speaker to the JL crossover and run the woofer and tweeter from the crossover. I cutoff the factory connectors and ram speaker wire from the factory lines to the crossover. I did this and it sounded like shit. Distortion was prevalent at low gain and had could not handle volume. Plus the dash speaker and passenger side don’t work at all. Awesome.

I decided that some serious troubleshooting was required so I put the door back together without any speakers. My doors have a lit stripe that turns on when it gets dark. I love this feature. Well now that doesn’t work either. Not sure if it has anything to do with the speakers or if I was too rough with the connector when disconnecting the plug while taking off the door.

My guess is that I will have to run new wire from the amp to the speakers. Am I right? Will this mess anything else up? Why did the passenger side quit working? Is there an easy fix? Please help, if you have the answer to any of these or all of these.

[Black_SS10]

Weird. I used the FARK and the same amp. I installed some Infinity Kappa speakers up front. I used some adapters, hooked up the crossovers, and it worked just fine. Do you have the amp hooked up correctly and set up properly? The gains can be adjusted individually, front and rear. Take a look at your amp settings.

[InFiD3ViL]

I have aftermarket door speakers with a cross over and luckily ran into zero issues, but I am running off the factory BA amp still.

There are multiple connections you need to check. The one for the ambient light strip is a tiny little connector about 6 inches below the mirror.

The other connectors are trunk release, window switch, mirror control, and in your model likely the door locks, although mine are on the dash. Also, of course, the door release you have to be very careful with. The ambient light connector can be hard to spot, as it is a tiny little thing. The main door harness is a tough sucker, so you probably are ok there. Just try to find the condition of the connector for the ambients and see what is going on. If the wire is damaged you can probably splice it back together without issue. Are door lights out or just the one?

I have taken my door panel off probably 30 times due to an ongoing window issue. Be careful as the white trim tabs will break eventually. If so don't freak out. I bought a giant bag of them on Amazon for like $8, so you can easily replace them. Use a trim tool.

[Moto-Mojo]

Back when I was a younger man, I had to have the baddest car stereo. And at the time, I did. I play guitar and have Les Paul’s, a Marshall half stack, a 900W PA with 15” JBL’s...I guess I get my fix on that stuff now. Oh, did I mention I’m half deaf? Enjoy that music while you can!

[Valkyrie14]

I’m pretty sure the amp is hooked up properly. Before I replaced the speakers the BA speakers ran fine. I played with the gain when the sound was so bad and it didn’t help. I am going to test it tomorrow by wiring it directly to the amp. If that sounds better I will just run wires up to the front. If not maybe it is something else.

The ambient light is a mystery. Thanks for advice. Moto Mojo, I’m not exactly wet behind the ears, (early 40s) I just waited too long to have fun with the car I drive. Better late than never.

[Black_SS10]

You shouldn't have to run new wires. Are you sure you cut the correct connector?

[Valkyrie14]

I am going to double check today. I tried running the speakers off of the wires from the woofer alone and the sound was puny. The tweeter was screeching, not a clean sound at all and no volume compared to the 6x9s. I used my multimeter to determine power and ground (pink was power and gray was ground). I could have that backwards, I used the multimeter for the first time and I may be using it wrong.

[redcoats1976]

Originally Posted by Moto-Mojo

Back when I was a younger man, I had to have the baddest car stereo. And at the time, I did. I play guitar and have Les Paul’s, a Marshall half stack, a 900W PA with 15” JBL’s...I guess I get my fix on that stuff now. Oh, did I mention I’m half deaf? Enjoy that music while you can!

very true.i have 2 lespauls,strat,a tele,a fender 5 watt tube amp and a 50 watt peavy classic that gets played once in a blue moon...and a case of tinninitus to go with the hearing aids.too bad you dont live closer,we could bother the neighbors.

[Black_SS10]

Check out this thread. Maybe it will help you.

https://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130857

[Valkyrie14]

Quick update. Check the speakers right off of the amp, sounded better, but was also using 14gauge wire. Thanks for the link, very helpful. I think I hooked it up right initially but expected it to sound better/louder. I think the 2ohm factory vs 4ohm JL is the issue. At any rate the link was perfect. I am going to get these in and tune the heck out of it to get the sound I should for the cost of these speakers. Then on to the sub. Thanks again everyone!

[Black_SS10]

Glad the link helped.

The XD amp works at 2(100watt RMS) and 4(75watt RMS) ohms. Are the speakers 4ohm? Then they need more power to sound good. That's why I got 2ohm speakers, and they need 100watts RMS to sound good. You need to match your amp and speakers. Ohms and watts.

[bandier]

Looks like your on the right track to fix. I wish I could help. I have the FARK, JL C3 front and rear speakers (which are the step down from the C3s), and XD400 amp. It plays so loud like the other guy, I'm sure I'm damaging my hearing. Anyway, there is a ghost in my system and periodically the fronts wont play and then I'll get in again and they are fine. Obviously there's a short somewhere. I've questioned whether its the FARK with a short. I don't know. I finished it off with a $600 alpline headunit in the Idatalink CAM1-kit dash adapter and maestro brain. The aftermarket sound before I replaced the headunit was fine actually very very good. Like you I wanted to the badass stereo and spent way too much. In hind sight, the amount I paid for the headunit, all the necessary XM connections, dash adapter, etc, and everything it does the carplay, big screen... I kinda wish I would have left good enough alone and stuck with the just the speaker and amp and left good enough alone. I'm not sure the other stuff was worth with.

[Valkyrie14]

So all of my speakers are 4 ohm. My 4 channel is indeed 75 per channel at 4 ohms. And my sub amp is 400 at 4 ohm, the sub is 600w. Crap. How bad is it to be running this system below it’s max? I could sell my amps that are less than a month old at a loss and buy new amps better suited to my system. Project is already twice what I told myself I would spend. Question is the brand of amp as important as it is with speakers? I could get a Pioneer amp that runs 100 per channel at 4 ohms for about $150 less than I paid for the JL.

[Black_SS10]

What are the speaker requirements? What is their RMS rating? Either match an amp to the speakers or vice versa. The brand isn't the most important, just it's performance. Audiophiles may say different. I'm half deaf so it all sounds the same to me. Lol