stock JBL subwoofer

[smbracing]

Hey everyone,
I have a '94 ex with the favtory JBL subwoofer and have a few questions. I installed a pioneer cd player a few years ago and was told by someone at an audio shop that the output from the aftermarket stereo was not compatible with the factory amplifier and would cause it to fail, so they sold me a patch cable to bypass the subwoofer. It all worked great for a few years but now my pioneer head unit is bad (only plays from one speaker) and I'm looking to replace the head unit, I was wondering what it would take to make the factory sub operate with an aftermarket stereo, did the guy just feed me a bunch of crap regarding different output? Thanks for any help.

 

[94EddieBauerRock]

I was told the same thing when I got a new Pioneer stereo installed in my 94 ex. The amp was by-passed, however, after 1 month the sub blew out. It rattled around for months. I finally got sick of it and cut the wire to the sub seeing as I had 2 axillary subs and an amp at the time. You can try hooking the sub up to the new head unit but I'm not sure if it will last long. Mine didn't

 

[scrivyscriv]

I can't say for sure, but the possibility is definitely there. The ohms rating on your factory equipment may be different from aftermarket.

I have a 3 or 4 year old Pioneer head unit in my vehicle and Ford premium sound, and when I had aftermarket junk in the trunk I didn't have a problem.
I ran a 480w Xplod amp driving a 500w 10" Xplod for several months with no apparent problems either from the factory amp driving my 5x8s or from any of my aftermarket audio equipment.

Side note, you say you have a factory sub. I've got a factory amp, but have never seen a sub in mine, even though it's got premium sound. Where is yours located? Is it in the same over-wheel-well location as the amp?

 

[smbracing]

the sub is behind the right hand wheel well, in the space between the wheel hump and the tailgate, if yours has the sub you won't have the "indention" in the side with the netting.

I believe that was the problem, the ohm rating on the aftermarket is different than the factory, they wanted to sell me some kind of a box that took the rca output from the head unit and you could tune it for the factory sub, can't remember what it was called

 

[scrivyscriv]

the sub is behind the right hand wheel well, in the space between the wheel hump and the tailgate, if yours has the sub you won't have the "indention" in the side with the netting.

I believe that was the problem, the ohm rating on the aftermarket is different than the factory, they wanted to sell me some kind of a box that took the rca output from the head unit and you could tune it for the factory sub, can't remember what it was called

Awesome, thanks for the location info. I checked out some other postings and forums
( http://www.explorerforum.com/forums//archive/index.php/f-9.html , http://www.explorerforum.com/forums//archive/index.php/t-12609.html , http://www.explorerforum.com/forums//archive/index.php/t-12966.html ) that are relevant to your question, and I think your technician is right. I've run into similar issues on another vehicle and it just comes down to incompatibility, IMO.

 

[Anime]

The incompatibility is mostly in the wiring, since it's perfectly fine to use the signal from any head unit to drive an amp. The bypass was the only thing offered as an aftermarket plug-in solution to the problem until the newer boxes that allow mixing aftermarket with factory stuff, but those are still a fairly expensive solution compared to just going full aftermarket with everything.

The factory sub is pretty wimpy anyway, especially for first gens, and is notorious for blowing. You can either get a replacment 6.5" sub that drops right in, and add an aftermarket amp, (which will be rather inexpensive since it won't need to be very powerful), or modify the factory enclosure to fit an 8" sub and use an aftermarket amp for that. Of course, MTX offers a Thunderform enclosure and JL Audio offers a stealthbox that are a drop-in replacement for the factory sub, too.

Basically, modding the factory enclosure with an aftermarket sub and amp or just getting an aftermarket drop-in solution is a lot less time and hassle than trying to adapt the sub-par factory stuff that's just going to blow anyway.

If you haven't already replaced the factory speakers, you might want to do that, too. The surround material typically falls apart with age and makes for a lot of distortion at high volume.

 

[smbracing]

the factory sub sounds great, from what I understand it's the factory amp that fails (could be mistaken) the only distortion that I noticed when using it back then was it vibrated anything in the cargo area (my toolbox especially). I may have to look into the MTX and an aftermarket amp, thanks for the info