Please note: your rear speaker wiring is connected through this amplifier so if you want to bypass it without affecting your sound bar speakers or pods, you can tape or heat shrink the connectors that went to the original sub speaker. Leave all your wiring in tact and just add four more speaker wires from your new sub spring terminals to your aftermarket amplifier.
Just went back and re-read OP's original post. Looks like I just missed it the first time around. So the original factory amp will stay in place unless I'd want to use the aftermarket amp to run the Kickers in the soundbar too.

Another question just popped into my head. Any recommendations on what gauge/fuse combination to use for the amp's power source? I'm guessing I'll use the PXA200.1, though I don't see any problem with the PXA300.4 either.
 
For those with audio upgrades, have you noticed the music is clearer and louder when you run direct to USB from your phone, vs. Bluetooth?
Opposite on loudness for my JVC. Bluetooth is significantly louder. I’ll have to listen again for clarity. I haven’t noticed a difference so far.
 
Opposite on loudness for my JVC. Bluetooth is significantly louder. I’ll have to listen again for clarity. I haven’t noticed a difference so far.

On average it's a 5 notch gain in loudness plugged in.
 
On average it's a 5 notch gain in loudness plugged in.
That's interesting. The only time I plug in is when I am out of juice. And I hate it because I can't manipulate Pandora when it's plugged in. I don't know how many notches louder mine is with BT, but it is significant. This would indicate some kind of difference in either phone or head unit. I use an iPhone with a JVC head unit. What's your setup?

Oh, and I noticed you changed your avatar on me. Looks good, and with the ride of the month photo you now have two photos on every post! Picture whore!
 
That's interesting. The only time I plug in is when I am out of juice. And I hate it because I can't manipulate Pandora when it's plugged in. I don't know how many notches louder mine is with BT, but it is significant. This would indicate some kind of difference in either phone or head unit. I use an iPhone with a JVC head unit. What's your setup?

Oh, and I noticed you changed your avatar on me. Looks good, and with the ride of the month photo you now have two photos on every post! Picture whore!

I'm Android with a Kenwood deck. Might be the difference. I never plugged in either until I noticed the sound quality difference. It was that significant.

What? I like pictures brah! Don't hate! Lol!
 
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My factory sub was also blown when I bought my Jeep. I ended up buying a single HD-6MSUB DVC from http://keeaudio.com/cdtaudiosubwoofers.html and hooking it up in the stock enclosure to the stock amp. As mentioned by others, I had to cut away parts of the reinforcement fins inside to fit the speaker. I also drilled new holes but reused the original mounting screws to fasten it in.

The bass level with this has been good enough for me, even top down on the highway. This sub cost a little less than the Quadratec replacement when I bought it but appears to be the same price now.
 
Wow. I like installing speakers and stereo's. Takes me back to high school / college and my first '74 Sun Bug. I will be referring back to this thread. My heart sunk when I removed the aftermarket radio and the connector for the stereo was cut off. Is there a good place to get the stereo harness connector with wires? I kept seeing things about 4 speakers. Not on mine. I did already put the sound bar in. I will be replacing the 2 - 4"x6" dash speakers, the 6 sound bar speakers (2 - 6" woofers, 2 - 2" mid range, 2 1" tweeters, & crappy amp), add the console sub from a 01-06 and put sound baffles behind the speakers. Am I missing anything? I will have 30 days off before I have to go back to work. I know once I start this project it will end fantastic or I will end up upgrading the whole lighting system at the same time.
 
Unfortunately on many MOPAR vehicles I've had over the years prior owners have lopped the harness for their POS of the week radio installs. Sometimes I go on ebay to find the correct harness side plug, other times I visit junkyards and take the plug pigtails so that I can splice them back together. Usually I can find the harness side wiring and I have kits for the radio side to plug into and make an adapter for brand-X that is going into the Jeep.

RR
 
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I have upgraded the rear sound pods to 2005 pods out of a Rubicon that I swapped the entire interior except the actual dash and half door panels.

Is there a write up in the works on installing the sounds pods in lieu of the sound bar(roll cage in the near future)?
I have the pods in my garage, I've mocked them in place but other than the 2 mounting holes lining up it doesnt seem like it's a straightforward install. I'd PM you but I dont have that option, thanks in advance!
 
I should look through my photos and see if I can do a detailed writeup on the sound bar speakers so I will have to check if I can do a "how to" on that aspect of the install procedures.

I used late model sound pods because the roll bar spreaders wouldn't work with the earlier metal sound bar that was a factory install in 1997-2002 TJ's. The sound pods I used came out of a 2005 LJ Unlimited Wrangler and were easy to add onto the earlier style roll bar. This left plenty of room for spreader and streamer bars to be added to the factory main hoop on the TJ. The later sound pods have a dome lamp in each pod so there is additional wiring to support those lamps.

The original pre-dimpled or threaded holes if your Jeep actually had a sound bar will not match up exactly. You will have to re-drill the two side holes and a large hole on the main hoop for the pods alignment dowel that sticks out into a hole on the main hoop for supporting the pod. The actual wiring gets run under the main hoop padding and cover. I loped the sound bar speaker wiring off the 2005 harness at the main hoop just so I could unplug a pod if I needed to service it outside of the Jeep. Also makes things look factory that way, nice and clean.

The power for the dome lamps comes from the same junction that supplies power to the under dash courtesy lamps. If your TJ was a basic model, it may not have come with any lamps but the wiring is there to add them none the less. You will tap into those power lines and use the chassis as a common return ground. If you have a salvage yard near you and can find the wiring harness part that plugs into the junction block on the drivers fire wall panel, you could use that and install the wiring like it was factory. Problem is when you are adding the late pods to an early TJ, the wiring harness isn't 100% compatible so I just rolled my own for that part.
 
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With the top down or the hard top removed, you will unzip and peel back both the main hoop nylon cover & foam padding. Take care to align the tops of the sound bar with the main hoop and use a sharpie marker to mark where the alignment dowels will contact the main hoop so you can drill those holes. This dowel that protrudes out the main hoop side of each sound pod will support the "inner" part facing inwards towards the center of the Jeep and must be drilled properly or the sound bar may not align properly. You will cut a hole in your factory hoop padding cover for this dowel to fit in the hole you drill. Make sure you have firmly pressed the sound pod against the side hoop where it will line up properly into the corners so that once you've drilled the dowel pin hole and pushed the sound pod in position, you'll be able to mark the side hoop for where the holes should be for the two self tapping star bolts that hold each pod in place.

Make sure to have the padding and bar cover zipped up in place on the main hoop and the sound pod firmly pressed into the new dowel hole before preparing to mark the side bar for the two bolt holes. This takes into account the "thickness" of the main hoop padding when positioning the pods so your holes will be spot on.

In my case, I had a factory sound bar pad so there was a hole cut out for the bracket to access the holes for the original long sound bar that went across from side to side with 4 bolts that held them in place. Once the main hoop padding is in position, the dowel pin is in it's new hole that was drilled, you can mark and drill the two bolt holes. Factory bolts are pointed self-tapping torx. Try to get the original bolts from the sound pods and make sure the new holes are under-sized just enough to allow them to bite and thread tightly or they will loosen up over time if the holes are too big.

If your Jeep didn't come with a sound bar, there are dimples on the side bars where the original bolts held the factory sound bar or pods in place. The spacing is different on 1997-2002 vs. 2003-2006 TJ/LJ's. On later Jeeps, just get the original style bolts and thread them in these holes. There will also be a hole under the padding for the dowel pin already drilled in your main hoop to support those factory pods.

If you take your time in aligning the pods on an earlier Jeep, the later pods will fit and look factory. This will also allow you to install a Rock Hard or Smitty Built bolt-in cage supplement kit with no access blockage by the pods. The later pods can also be adapted to fit some versions of the Gen-Right & Poison cages depending on style & option.
 
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Update to this old thread...
Ranger Rick, thanks for starting this. I used the Kicker 43CWRT672 to replace the torn factory sub in the 2005 LJ I just got a month ago.
I decided to only replace what I knew was bad, the torn speaker. I used the original factory amp, cut the speaker connectors off the factory wires and plugged them into the Kicker sub.
I'm quite happy with the results, spent about $80 and have a working factory sound system.
After getting on Crutchfield's site I went online shopping crazy and had a $1350+ shopping cart, Kenwood DNX 575S head unit, Kenwood Excelson X802-5 Amp, the Polk speakers as well as the Kicker sub. I'm sure it would have sounded magnificent, but sanity prevailed at the last moment and I stopped with replacing only what was broke. Maybe later...

Don
 
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I just replaced my sub — following the advice in this post — with the Kicker CompRT 6.75 subwoofer.

The factory amp would barely move this sub (2Ω DVC) — it really didn’t work out. Installed the PXA200.1 mono amp and it’s downright obnoxious.

Using the subwoofer pre-amp (low level) outputs on your aftermarket head unit allows you to filter out almost all the bass from your dash and pod speakers — so it is so much more than just adding bass. It really clears up the music coming out of the other speakers.
 
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If anyone is interested, i have a Kicker 200W PX200.1 amp. I bought it when i was troubleshooting my factory sub-woofer. I wound up finding a loose ground wire to the sub-woofer wiring harness. So, i never used it or returned it. I bought it on Amazon for $100. I'd be willing to sell it for $75 + however you want it shipped. I literally opened the box and made sure the contents were all there. I never even unwrapped it from the internal packaging. It's just sitting on a shelf in my office collecting dust. Email me if you want it ([email protected])

Thanks
Ken

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These Kicker amps are very easy to hide up under the dash. Mine sits behind the instrument cluster way up so it's totally out of the way of anything or getting wet even. As stated in this thread, I have the 4-channel amp from this series.
RR
 
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HA!!! It's funny that I found this thread this morning...I ordered a Kicker CompRT 6.75" DVC 2 ohm sub and a Kicker PX 200.1 mono amp and they arrived yesterday. I spent a couple of hours doing this exact thing last night!! I never would've thought that you'd get a decent sound from such a small sub! It isn't ground pounding but it is exactly what I needed to balance everything out in the TJ!!!

A 6.75" fits perfectly in the factory sub enclosure and the amp fits perfectly underneath the passenger seat, where the jack would normally mount. Both the sub and amp are weatherproof and are designed for ATVs, motorcycles, etc so no danger in the rain damaging them (I am usually topless/doorless (even in cold weather)!

The sub is a dual voice coil so I used a Kicker wiring diagram to wire both coils to the mono amp (I have attached it for reference.

The amp was $49.95 (Amazon) and the sub was $79.95 (Amazon). I also purchased a BOSS Audio 8 gauge amp install kit and it was $18. A local stereo shop wanted, (are you sitting down?), $935 plus tax to what I did in two hours!!!

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Another vote for the Kicker sub and amp.

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How does that sub sounds with the stock amp? I need to replace my stock blown woofer but don’t have the funds yet for both the woofer and aftermarket amp.
 
If anyone is interested, i have a Kicker 200W PX200.1 amp. I bought it when i was troubleshooting my factory sub-woofer. I wound up finding a loose ground wire to the sub-woofer wiring harness. So, i never used it or returned it. I bought it on Amazon for $100. I'd be willing to sell it for $75 + however you want it shipped. I literally opened the box and made sure the contents were all there. I never even unwrapped it from the internal packaging. It's just sitting on a shelf in my office collecting dust. Email me if you want it ([email protected])

Thanks
Ken

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The amp has been SOLD. Thank you Ron!!