Accidental audio improvement with dash speakers and Alpine system

[CouchPotato]

Dumb question. Could Crutchfield’s wiring diagram be wrong?

Based on a quick test tonight, I think it is wrong. I put a set of the 3032s into the dash corners a couple of weeks ago using the adapters that Crutchfield included. I didn't feel like they were much of an improvement, but they never sounded out of phase to me. Seeing the comments about the adapters being wrong, I just pulled one of my speakers to check it and it appears to be wired correctly using the supplied adapter.

I did the battery test to determine polarity on the original speaker and based on that, I'd say that for front left, in my jeep, grey/yellow is positive and grey/orange is negative - opposite to what it says in the Crutchfield guide. So I think maybe they made a copy/paste error in the guide or something, but they are sending out the correct adapters.

If the wiring guide is correct (and it's late and maybe I screwed up) then there's a different Metra wiring harness with an opposite pin layout that they should be including instead.

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[Loki Kai]

No dumb questions. Set a multimeter on 20 VDC. Red probe to what you THINK is the POSITIVE wire and Black to what you THINK is the NEGATIVE wire......if you get (+) reading you are correct.....if you are seeing a (-) reading you are not. If you see a (+) indication on the multimeter the wire touching the RED lead is POSITIVE and the wire touching the BLACK lead is negative.

 

[Loki Kai]

I assumed the Crutchfield chart was correct because the colors matched so I did not test with the multimeter. I will check them later today to be sure. If the speaker change gets much better.......WOW.

 

[Stickerhead]

Mine sounds great so not sure without swapping them and seeing which way sounds better.

 

[Joker4L]

Mine sounded better after I swapped the wires. And the sound bar wires are black and white and the adapter wire connects white to black and black to white. Definitely seems off on the adapter side

 

[Chocolate Thunder]

Has anyone tried the 4032cfx in the sound bar and/or knee panel locations?

 

[Kyanche]

One thing I'm pondering right now, is if the giant magnets on aftermarket speakers are just a marketing thing. The cones on the stock speakers don't really look that bad, and I could totally see an improvement on sound by going with those aftermarket coax speakers because they have a tweeter in them. Yea?

Edit: For whatever it's worth, I used 77kick25abs in my JK and they sound great, but are really heavy on treble. The 3.5" alpines here appear to be the same 3.5" alpines they used on the 2015-2018 JKs as part of the alpine upgrade. I suspect they're not that bad? If you think those are bad you should listen to the 2.5" junk that comes with the not-alpine-upgrade sound system. I've heard better driving a u-haul truck!

 

[CouchPotato]

Mine sounded better after I swapped the wires. And the sound bar wires are black and white and the adapter wire connects white to black and black to white. Definitely seems off on the adapter side

The Crutchfield wiring diagram matches the wiring diagram stickyed in the forum. Last night I pulled my Infinitys and swapped the wires in the adapter to match the colors in the diagram. So far, I have to say I think it's even worse. I don't know if the Infinitys are overwhelming the other speakers but the whole system just sounds even more unbalanced now to me. On the EQ I've had to crank the midrange all the way down and the treble is down a few notches to make it bearable but it's still too bright and kind of fatiguing. So I think I'm going to put the stock speakers back until I can replace the whole Alpine system. I'm no audiophile but it's just junk.

 

[Chocolate Thunder]

The Crutchfield wiring diagram matches the wiring diagram stickyed in the forum. Last night I pulled my Infinitys and swapped the wires in the adapter to match the colors in the diagram. So far, I have to say I think it's even worse. I don't know if the Infinitys are overwhelming the other speakers but the whole system just sounds even more unbalanced now to me. On the EQ I've had to crank the midrange all the way down and the treble is down a few notches to make it bearable but it's still too bright and kind of fatiguing. So I think I'm going to put the stock speakers back until I can replace the whole Alpine system. I'm no audiophile but it's just junk.

Infinity reference speakers are known to be somewhat bright.

 

[DogsOnTheRun]

Has anyone tried the 4032cfx in the sound bar and/or knee panel locations?

I am ready to install my 4" Infinity 4022cfx (I keep finding the 022 series online) using the Metra adapter # 72-6514.
I have the old speakers out now, and the adapter is correct size. (I bought it on looking at the photo on Amazon and the fact that it said "Chrysler".)

 

[Joker4L]

Everyone!! Please check polarity with a multimeter before install!! So I got paranoid after someone brought up the good question as to if crutchfields wiring diagram was wrong and not metra adapter wiring.

I went back to both dash speakers and sound bar speakers ( all 3.5 ). The sound bar speakers to my Surprise was white = (-) and black = (+). I attached a picture of the rear passenger soundbar speaker with the wiring connected to my multimeter

I also attached the front passenger side dash speaker photo showing the correct wiring. All our JL May be wired differently so this is all just for my 18” JLU Sahara with Alpine system.

Please please check polarity at vehicle plug for correct polarity before installing or reversing any wires

Hope this helps

 

[DogsOnTheRun]

I learned long ago, that polarity was not important, as long as all speakers on the same plane MATCHED polarity.
So, if all speakers are "reversed", you will be just fine. Idea is that, since speakers are driven magnetically, reversing the polarity causes the driver to move in the opposite direction, out versus in. So if the left speaker is "correct", and the right "reversed", the drivers will attempt to cancel each other out. If both are reversed, you will never be able to notice that your soundwave is "backwards".

Most subwoofer amplifiers have a setting to reverse the polarity, since subs are often mounted out of phase with the other drivers.

So I plan to charge forward tonight, replacing my 4" drivers in the soundbar to get everything perfectly backwards.

 

[Stickerhead]

I learned long ago, that polarity was not important, as long as all speakers on the same plane MATCHED polarity.
So, if all speakers are "reversed", you will be just fine. Idea is that, since speakers are driven magnetically, reversing the polarity causes the driver to move in the opposite direction, out versus in. So if the left speaker is "correct", and the right "reversed", the drivers will attempt to cancel each other out. If both are reversed, you will never be able to notice that your soundwave is "backwards".

Most subwoofer amplifiers have a setting to reverse the polarity, since subs are often mounted out of phase with the other drivers.

So I plan to charge forward tonight, replacing my 4" drivers in the soundbar to get everything perfectly backwards.

Post up because I am ready to replace mine. Don’t think I am going to mess with knee speakers

 

[DogsOnTheRun]

I would have preferred a 4" woofer, but here is my new weird double coaxial look!

I'm gonna say it sounds OK, but still no great shakes. I think I'll stop here. If you did the 3.5's that was the big improvement.

 

[Joker4L]

Yeah I just did the 3.5

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