New headunit causes less sound.....confused!

[99redbird]

For about a month now i have had two MTX 8000 subs hooked up to my factory head unit in my 99' bird and decided it was time to upgrade to an aftermarket deck and new 6 1/2's in the sail panels. I went with the pioneer deh-8500mp for the headunit and infinty kappa 6.52i 6 1/2's in the sail panels. I am powering the kappa's with a 300w kenwood amp and they sound great, but here is the problem. I noticed my front door speakers are nowhere near as loud as they were with the factory headunit, and of course they should be much louder now then before. I am getting sound front the door speakers, but barely any. U cant even tell they are hooked up. Can anybody tell me what the problem is? thanks!

[99redbird]

Sorry guys i forgot to mention that it is the monsoon system too!

[nda0602v6]

Did you hook up all the speaker wires (both front and rear) coming out of the Pioneer to the factory harness?

[dmw319]

also check your wires, they may be frayed or cheap quality..

[articacid]

i that the monsoon speakers were all 2ohm. most almost everything out there for car audio is 4 ohm. couldnt that be the problem?

[key2emptiness]

If you did all the upgraded might as well removed the Monsoon amp. Everything in the front and the sail panels are 2 ohms. Most aftermarket is gonna be 4 ohms. So it cuts the power in half going to the front.

[nda0602v6]

Using an aftermarket headunit on the monsoon system shouldn't change how the factory monsoon speakers work or their ohm ratings. When you want to replace aftermarket speakers while still using the monsoon amp, that's where the ohms issue comes into play.

[99redbird]

Well i had someone install the headunit for me but yeah im pretty sure he connected both front and rear wires from the deck to the harness.

Also, when i took out the factory 6 1/2's from the sail panels the back of the speaker said 4ohm, but i'm not sure about the front door speakers.

So what should i do, just remove the monsoon amp, or is there another way to get the full power to the front speakers without touching the monsoon amp?

[nda0602v6]

Just to make sure, I would ask him if he wired both front and rear speaker outputs on the headunit to the harness. I'm thinking maybe since you're using an aftermarket amp to power your rear speakers, maybe he just didn't bother hooking up the rear speaker outputs to the harness?...again I'm just guessing. I think both front and rear outputs need to be wired to the harness in order for the factory monsoon amp to turn on.

Is there sound coming out of both speakers in each door or are just the tweeters working?

[99redbird]

That could be it, but I'm pretty sure he did connect both the front and rear, I will have to yank the deck out and look. But I checked and there is sound coming out of the speakers and the tweets in the front door, it's just really really weak. Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is that that rear hatch speakers are working just fine, so why would I lose sound in just the door speakers and not the hatch speakers?! For now I'd like to keep the factory door speakers so if both front and rear inputs on the deck are connected to the harness then where should I go from there?

[nda0602v6]

Hmmm... For testing purposes, try plugging the factory headunit back in (if you still have it) real quick and see if all the factory speakers work like they should.

[still-asleep]

you can also check all your settings on the new head unit. alot of times, like the pioneers are set up with alot of flat settings from the factory (like for the eq, attenuation, etc). did you go in and tweak all of those?

[99redbird]

Ok, I checked the wires in the back of the headunit and they are all connected correctly. Also, I played around with the settings on the deck and that didn't help at all. I'm thinking my problem is that the factory wiring in the sail panels are not connected to anything because I am powering the aftermarket speakers in the sail panels with an a different amp. Could this be the problem? And if so, is there anyway to fix it?

[nda0602v6]

Originally posted by 99redbird:
I'm thinking my problem is that the factory wiring in the sail panels are not connected to anything because I am powering the aftermarket speakers in the sail panels with an a different amp

If the factory wiring is not connected and just laying loose for those two speakers, the Monsoon Amp "should" still be able to power all of the other speakers that are still hooked up to it.


Did you try plugging in the factory stereo to see if the front speakers get louder? Or even before trying that, plug your factory speakers back in the rear and test it out using your new headunit.

[nda0602v6]

I just remembered something...When I bought my car (used), none of the speakers in the back were hooked up (4 were missing and the factory subs were laying loose); however, the front door speakers still worked normal off the Monsoon Amp.

See what happens when you plug your factory stereo back in.