My New System

[parshal]

My project started out as a speaker replacement but then included a Stealthbox and a JL Audio XD700/5 amplifier. I used JL Audio C2-650x coaxials in the rear and C2-650 components in the front and put the tweeters in the stock location. I used a SOEM-T that provided a trigger for the amp but I found it turned the amp on every time I closed the doors so I used the RAP above the brake pedal for the amp instead. Once I installed everything it didn't have much mid-bass and the highs were harsh so I replaced the fronts with C5-650 components and the amp with an HD900/5 and a separate sub volume knob (see my pics for the installation location). It fits perfectly, is unobtrusive, easily controlled while driving and mounted perfectly with double-sided tape. I mounted the amp under the front passenger seat with double-sided carpet tape and it doesn't move at all. I left the heat duct as well.

 

The amp is supposed to take both high and low level inputs but I was unable to dial-in the output correctly with a Fluke multimeter so I used a PAC SNI-35. I soldered speaker wire into the rear speaker outputs at the rear of the head unit and ran that to the passenger seat where I have the amp and PAC unit. I found friction tape at Pep Boys that matches the factory tape perfectly on the harnesses.

 

I routed the 4 gauge power wire through the firewall just above and right of the large grommet. I used a close quarters drill from Harbor Freight to drill a small pilot hole and then used a stepped bit to get the hole to the correct side for a new grommet. The spot I drilled already has a cutout in the factory sound deadener on the inside. You only need to pull that out (actually, you have to cut a few little “tabs” first) and you’ll see a dimple in the sheet metal. You don’t even need a punch, you just drill your hole right there. You’ll have to cut a hole in the fabric in the engine compartment along the firewall to get your wire through (see pics). I installed an isolated battery a few years ago so I ran the power directly to that battery up front on the driver’s side. I mounted the amp under the front passenger seat and ran the power wire under the driver’s side and the RCA cable from the radio along the passenger side to keep them far apart.

 

I added dynamat to the bottom half of the doors. I don’t know if it did anything or not but I had a full box from when I dynamatted my entire Shelby. I ran new speaker wire to all speakers. Getting speaker wire to the rears was somewhat difficult through the factory boot. I ran the wire through the edge of the harness where there is a little cutout which fit perfectly. A picture is worth a thousand words here but I didn't think about pictures until that part was done. I tapped the front right speaker wires at the side of dash (where you pull off the side to access fuses) and ran those to a $5 4" speaker that I zip tied under the dash. Door chimes, XM and bluetooth all come through that speaker and work great. If you tap the speakers where I did make sure that you grab the correct wires. There are identical colored wires in the harness. The speaker wires are twisted and the others are not. I initially tapped the wrong wires and couldn’t figure out what was going on. A little testing with the multimeter helped me to find the correct wires. Note, I’ve since removed the 4” speaker with the OGM1.

 

This setup sounded pretty darned nice. The 650x's have great mid-bass when I turn off the crossover amp’s crossover. They are impressive. The C5-650's don't have as much mid-bass but they're designed to have a sub. They sound good but the tweeters were quite bright at high volume even set to -3db on the crossovers. I believed this was from the stock head unit attenuating the mids and lows at higher volumes which caused me to re-evaluate the head unit. Since I wanted to retain my factory XM, chimes and bluetooth I got an Advent OGM1. It has five low-level outputs as well as USB, bluetooth, iPod control and navigation. It's quite a nice little unit.

 

Door chimes work differently with OGM1. They won’t work unless the unit is actually on. If the radio is off the chimes don’t work. The door chimes are perfect but the turn signals are very loud. I can’t figure out a way to turn those down. Advent said I needed to change the Bose setting on the unit. I wasn’t able to set the gains properly on the amp with it set to non-Bose (they just wouldn’t go high enough) but I’ll play around with that setting again. I want to re-run my remote power-on wire away from the RCA cables anyway and plan on adding 6db RCA attenuators to the XM signal when they arrive.

 

Not all XM stations were listed in the channel line-up. For instance, channel 59 is New Country which I listen to a lot. It wasn’t listed in the channel line-up but I could punch in 59 and get it. It showed up with the correct name at that point but when I set it as a preset it showed up as 000 and could not be used. I called XM and they sent a signal to reset the unit and all is now well.

 

In order to use an aftermarket amp you have to set the OGM1 as if it were connected to the Bose system. That’s done via the hidden menu on the settings, info screen. If you don’t do this you have no door chimes and the output isn’t quite right from the amp. You must also turn on the OGM1 sub in the audio settings menu. I left the EQ and sub output flat and the loudness off before setting the gains on the amp.

 

I had originally set up my amp’s remote turn-on to come from the RAP power in the fuse box above the brake pedal. The OGM1 takes longer to turn on than the stock head unit and it would send a loud pop through my system when it would power on. A quick call to tech support and they pointed out the remote turn-on power in their harness that I should use. Well, it’s obvious that it’s there when I look at the installation diagram, it’s the blue/white wire in the harness. That’s not be confused with the blue/white for the parking brake that’s a separate wire. I just tapped that and I was in business. I left the RAP wire under the seat in case I ever need it in the future for something else.

 

I must give kudos to Walt at ADC Mobile. I bought my OGM1 locally but Walt was kind enough to send me a custom startup screen. He spent 45 minutes on the phone with me talking about the OGM1 and it’s features. Had I not had a credit at my local supplier I would have purchased this unit from Walt. His customer service is second to no one! During my conversation with Walt, he mentioned that Advent is looking at revamping the medialink so that it may replace one of the 12v receptacles in the dash below the heater/AC controls. I had originally planned to install that in the little cubby in the center dash but decided I’d replace it if Advent does indeed change the medialink. So, I used some sticky tape and connected above the transmission hump (see picture). I have a cheap little box from Wal-Mart that I have on the center hump and the medialink sits right above it and is unnoticeable. I have the JVC iPod connector that I keep connected to the medialink and I can leave the connector in my storage. Nobody even sees the iPod or connector.

 

One thing that I did not want to lose with underseat storage was the extra 12v power receptacle. I kept a 12v splitter in that receptacle and had my phone and iPod charger in there so I only need to grab the end of the cords and plug them in. It kept me from having to keep them from hanging from the center dash 12v receptacles. When I pulled the underseat storage I found a plug on the side by the passenger seat. I simply disconnected the plug and found some GM weatherconnects at Pep Boys. I connected those to some 16 gauge wire and connected them to the separated connector and used electrical tape to hold them in place. I took apart my 12v splitter and wired these directly to it. I used some heat shrink tubing over the wires and ran them under the console to my transmission hump and put the splitter in my storage. See picture. You’ll also notice my two extra cup holders.

 

I now have quite a sound system along with navigation, integrated iPod support and a cleaner signal from the head unit (over the stock unit). I know the signal is cleaner due to testing with a multimeter at the amp outs. The signal with a 1k and 50hz test tones were very consistent with the OGM1 whereas the stock head unit would bounce around just a bit. I’ve also kept my stock Bluetooth and XM. This system thumps!

[arctictwist]

How do you like the stealth box?? Looks like a fine install job there!

[parshal]

The Stealthbox is great. I'm certainly glad I got the volume knob. It would be overwhelming otherwise. I'll also say that it sounds much tighter with 500 watts instead of 300.

 

If I were to do this all over again, I'd try getting just the Stealthbox and a mono amp with the stock system and see how that sounds.

[arctictwist]

I got the knob to. Hopefully I stick with jl. You don't think your better off now that u replaced stock speakers? They sound so terrible to me... I actually started this whole project because my frot driver side blew lol.

[parshal]

Oh, they're better. I just could have saved some money and lots of time if I tried that first.

[bbnight3]

Do you know what yellow wire in the teal connection does on this truck?

 

Hello. '09 NNBS ExtendedCab Sierra, non-bose audio system. I tapped into the yellow wire on the teal connector by the brake pedal to get a RAP signal to run to my amp. Worked great. that is until I was installing a different amp which has the turn on wire terminal and the ground terminal too freaking close together and I briefly grounded the that RAP wire I tapped into. It was momentary - quick small spark - didn't seem like much. Now that wire has 12V constant on it rather than turning off when the RAP normally does. Does anyone know what that wire is or what I may have done by accidentally grounding it? Is there any known way of fixing whatever I screwed up? Everything else in the truck seems to be working normally. Thanks for the help!

[parshal]

I have no idea what that wire does. I grabbed RAP off the fuse box by the brake pedal.

[bbnight3]

Was that from one of the open connectors, the second from the bottom left? Are you talking about the box that's on the floor to the left of brake pedal or the fuse box itself? If it was the fuse box, would you mind explaining where on the box to get it? Thanks.

[ap0352]

Parshal,

How did you run your RCA signals?

FYI,

the chimes and warnings are outputted through the Front RCA pair so any amp you connect them too will in turn amp those warnings. It has nothing to do with the Bose/Non-Bose mode.

You will have to run your RCA signal from the rear outputs of the OGM-1 if you don't want the amplified chimes. Catch is, doing it that way with no speakers connected to the amplified power of the OGM-1 or the front RCA's, you will loose your chimes all together. To correct this, you can add a small 3" speaker under the dash and connect it to the Front Left speaker output of the OGM-1 and you'll have your chimes back, non-amplified.

 

You would then have to figure out how to get that single RCA and split it to all the inputs of your amp(s). You can do that with 1-female to 2-male Y-Splitters. Another down-fall of that is you would loose the ability to fade from front to rear since your signal originates from the rear RCA's. You can compensate that with your individual gain controls.

[parshal]

I pulled RAP power from an open connector in the box near the brake pedal. There are a number of threads here about that. I don't remember the exact spot without looking at it.

 

With the OGM1 you can use all four RCA outs and the chimes are normal sounding regardless of the Bose setting. There is no need for a speaker under the dash. With the stock unit I had tapped the rear speakers and put a 4" speaker under the dash. The only thing that is amplified with the OGM1 is the turn signal. It's not too loud but louder nonetheless.

 

I ran my RCAs behind the upper glove box and down the passenger side. I ran the power wires along the driver's side and under the driver's seat to the front passenger seat.

[ap0352]

Not sure I'd agree...

I ran signals to my amps from the front RCA outputs of the OGM-1 and had horribly loud turn signals. I moved that signal to pull from the Rear RCA outs and had no more issues. By using the rear RCA outs, I had to use a speaker under the dash....

Whatever works best for ya.

[parshal]

Interesting. Were the chimes loud for you, too? Mine definitely are not but the turn signals are louder.

[ap0352]

I had the door closed on my truck when I tested it for the first time so I didn't actually hear the chimes but I would assume they would be the same volume as the turn signals...

Maybe not though....

[parshal]

The chimes are lower than the turn signals.

[tazerbro]

Just think I solved my issue. My chimes definitely were louder and the turn signals were even more ridiculous sounding after installing the 4ch amp. SO I opened the door (to hear the chimes) and adjusted my front channel gain a little lower. Adjusted back down until it sounded about the stock sound level of the chimes. The front components now sing as I was hearing distortion at higher volumes. My chimes are about normal (maybe a TAD louder) and the turn signal sounds are normal. Back your gains down a bit on the front stage and see if that helps any of you