thank yall very much im sure ill have more questions about other things soon im redoing the whole truck

 

Miami, my speaker has decent bass response, just not as good as the factory speakers, but I'll look into the polarity next time I have the door panel off.

Also, my rear speakers do work, but they have little volume. When I fade rear, they can't even compare with the front speakers. They're still factory, so are they under-powered, or crappy and old?

 

Unless I missed it, you still have the oblongs in the front?

Either people don't know this or they forget about it, but oblong speakers don't reach the same bass frequencies that a true round speaker will. That's why you almost always see oblong speakers in the front of a vehicle. Not many people want bass all around them. Hell, I'm a bass freak and I wouldn't want a setup like that.
Another thing, just upgrading the factory H/U and factory speakers, a lot of time won't net you that much of a change. Yes, they SHOULD sound a hell of lot better than the stockers, but not all the time when you look at bass and overall quality. 99% of how a speaker sounds has to do with how they are mounted. If you skimp on the mounting, you more less just shot yourself in the foot.
Wires- This is one of the most over looked components of any system. It can litterally make or break a damn good build. The factory wiring harness in many vehicles lack quality. In Chrysler's case, for years (and still today) when an engineer recommended a certain gauge of wire, the head chiefs always opted to go to a higher gauge to cut cost. (Higher gauge means smaller wire diameter, and a lower gauge wire means a thicker wire.)
Anyone who has tried to use their factory power outlet for an inverter, knows this to be true.
When you look at wire, you want something like a 10-12 gauge wire for door/wall speakers, and probably a 4-6 for amp power wires. Thicker wire means lower resistance, and that itself is worth it's weight in gold.

While I am thinking about it, when you install amps, always always always figure out how to make your ground as short as possible. This helps to shorten the travel time on a high power system, and will ultamtley gain you some boost in the long run.

I seem the recall that over the years, the wire colors for the speakers from the factory changed a few times, so I'm not going to post that up. Small tip to figure out the polarities. When you pull the stock speaker out, LEAVE the factory plug on, and snip the wires about an inch away from the plug. Strip the cover off of the wires going to the plug, and touch them to a 9 volt battery. If the cone is pushed in, that signifies a reversed [(+,-)/(-,+)] wire connection. If when you touch the wires to the battery, and the cone pushes out, that means that you have the correct positive to positive, negative to negative connection [(+,-)/(+,-)].

Don't worry about attaching a 9volt battery to your speakers. You wont hurt them. Consider, in normal use, they see 12 volts all the time. Using a 9 volt wont harm the speakers. I know there are some people that wouldn't want to see their brand new speaker make that sound, and I understand that, but it still wont do harm.

One more thing before I post this, your H/U only decides about 10% of your system's total quality. This is commonly mixed up all the time. People think that they need a high powered H/U to finish their system off. The fact is, almost all of the aftermarket speakers out there have RMS watt ratings that not one aftermarket deck on the market today can satisfy. It is for that reason that when people come to me asking about what they need for a build, and I start with speakers, then I mention an amp; they freak out. They swear," I'm not getting crazy with this!". Truth of the matter, these are people that want a damn good sound, and it just can't be accomplished with new speakers and a new H/U. I'm not saying it wont be better than stock, but that type of setup can't compare to a total amped system. I warn people all the time of the problems of just putting new speakers and a new H/U in. When you do this, you literally under power the speakers. Now, if you never never ever ever ever really crank the system up, it's not a problem. If you actually crank the tunes on it some of the time, you run a risk of seizing the speaker cones up. It CAN HAPPEN, and IT WILL OVER TIME!

END

 

First off I mean no disrespect al all here and most of that last statment was true but there are a few things that need be clarified....(I used to install custom sound systems and have read and studied up a great deal on both home and auto sound systems and I repair electronics by trade)
first off 10 to 12 gauge speaker wire is ONLY benificial when powering high wattage subwoofers.... 12guage will actually power an 800 watt rms/1600 watt woofer without distortion....10 gauge is only realistically used for power to amps which is where skimping on the wire really matters.... Popular mechanics and many others have done independant studies on this (mostly to debunk monstercable brands ridiculous claims and prices) and found that for car audio mids and tweeters 16 and even 18 gauge wire is more than suitable for high end systems where they are being powered by say 75 to 100 watts rms per channel...and in home systems its only really necessary to use 16 gauge on longer wire runs. many tests where done between high end thicker oygen free copper wire and cheap 18 and 16 gauge wire and no sound quality differences where realized at all with human ear and metering equipment. (It just like the myth that a $3 hdmi cable is inferior to the $90 monstercable....for 1080p or lower there is no difference in performance in cable lengths of 9ft or less)....its in the longer lengths where the resistance is greater that it may matter....car audio wires arent long enough and using well shielded rca cables to the amps and things like proper power and ground wiring is more important...

The second thing is I've personally yet to see someone seize up a cone by underpowering it from a stock head unit...it will sound distorted and most people will instantly turn them back down at this point but the heat only typically builds high enough to seize them when they are overpowered...
All that being said I was just trying to clear up some very commonly over exaggerated facts about speaker wiring...the fact is 18 guage is usually enough for stock and mild systems but being 16 gauge is so close is price its usually the size I recommend for future compatibity and is always enough for everything but high wattage woofers...anything heavier is harder to run and totally unecessary.
I agree you need an external amp for many aftermarket speakers out there but you can get great sound by matching the rms output between the head units and the speakers as close as possible....and many aftermarket head units can now put out 35 watts rms without distortion per channel (70w max 35rms speakers are a perfect match) underpowering the speaker results in flat sounding system that distorts easy when you turn up the volume.

 

I wanted to return to the original question posted in this thread since I also purchased 6x9 Pioneer speakers for the front. I also bought a new JVM radio. Sorry if this might of been anwsered but I am not an expert on radio/speaker installations - I do know enough to be dangerous though. How do I make all this work since the factory speakers have amps attached on them. Will my new JVM radio work with my new 6x9 Pioneer speakers if I clip off the wires to the factory amp, or will this require a lot more like rewiring?

 

Welcome to the forums. In all honesty, just run new wires for the speakers. It will be better in the long run all the way around. You don't have to deal with those figgin amps anymore, and you get upgraded wires.

 

Yeah, I figured that rewiring everything would just be the best option.

So I take it that the anwser is NO and that my new radio and new speakers won't work if I cut off the factory attached amps?

 

No, because if you do that, what's connecting everything together?

 

Ok. Looks like I got some work ahead of me regarding rewiring in that case cause the new radio will not work with factory amps.

 

Running new wires is your best bet. The factory amps will not work well with a new head unit as they were designed for a low-level input, not a high level output like what will be coming out of your new deck. If you bought a stereo with an internal amp then you don't need the stock ones anyway. I tried to use them out of ignorance and found out the hard way. Once I removed them and rewired, the sound is now fantastic.