2005 base with Monsoon Audio - Aftermarket head unit install

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wagnercr
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Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:43 am

2005 base with Monsoon Audio - Aftermarket head unit install

Post by wagnercr »

Hey, I just bought a 2005 Vibe base with the Monsoon audio. I'm replacing the head unit with aftermarket and bypassing most of the factory amp. There are some old posts on here that were great resources.
https://forums.genvibe.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 29e66b3ff8
and
https://forums.genvibe.com/phpBB3/viewt ... 89006923cd

Anyway, I'm powering the 4 - 6.5" door speakers with the new head unit, and powering the tweeters and sub with the factory amp. If anyone is interested in my setup, I can post pics and a guide of how I wired everything. One thing to note... In one of the above posts and threads, it's mentioned that the amp has built in crossovers/filters for the speakers. I don't think this is the case. I noticed a high-pass cap directly wired to the tweeter and I'm still getting no lows to the front door speakers. So, I believe all filters are at the speaker. I'm going to look at the front door speakers again to see if it also has a high-pass cap that I can bypass. At this point, I left the factory speakers in because I didn't want to bother with them right now. This is why I'm separately powering the front 6.5" and tweeter.

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I'm actually surprised by the sound after the install. I bought this car for my 16 year old daughter and just wanted to quickly switch to a head unit that had bluetooth. I got this $80 JVC from BestBuy, because it was one of the cheapest head units (and it was available locally). This unit has a lot of features for how cheap it is.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/jvc-built- ... Id=6395737

The audio sounds fairly decent. I was trying to stay quick and cheap, so I didn't want to bother with speaker upgrades. It's amazing what the Monsoon sub will do when you have some control on the LPF and level. Now it makes me want to do more work and add the sound deadening like the post listed above. One negative to the head unit change is that I'm getting pop from the sub when it turns on. Most amps have a "soft turn on circuit", but maybe not this factory amp. I'm not sure why this didn't happen with the factory radio. Maybe the cheap JVC head unit is actually sending a glitch on the RCA sub pre-outs??

Rewiring the Monsoon amp wiring harness
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Amp wiring harness taped back up. Note the level converter added for the front channel tweeters.
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Amp connected and bolted back in.
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New head unit - JVC KD-X270BT. Note the included mic mounted in the storage tray. Yeah hands free calling.
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