What's so special about the Infinity Sound System in my 1997 SLT? I've been having problems with my radio since I bought the truck, and a few weeks ago was the last straw. In cold weather, the volume control does not work, or work well, so when I tried to adjust the volume it jumped to ear bleed levels and I couldn't get it to decrease the volume.

I grabbed a roll of quarters out of the center console and beat the **** out of the radio. Suffice to say, it doesn't work anymore.

I've been looking at the Crutchfield site for radio ideas, and the Infinity system is a defining parameter of what radios I can choose from, so I need to know what's so special about it.

 

It has factory amps for the speakers I think. Other than that I don't think there is anything that special about it. It's not that great of a system imo. I don't see why you can't get a normal single din radio to work in there very easily.

 

**** yeah!

 

That's what I'm wondering. Will the amps in the speakers interfere with another radio that has am amp in it? I'm certain the Crutchfield people will know; however, I think there are enough of you people around who've crossed this bridge before and can render assistance.

 

Call them and ask. I'm not 100% sure but I think all you will have to do is hook up the remote turn on wire to power the amps on. I'm not 100% sure on this though. I know on my system I don't think was a Infinity but all the speakers and everything did say Infinity on them. Anyone on it I had to hook up the remote turn on lead when using the factory wiring and speaker setup to get sound.

 

MODS: Can you move this to the Audio Forum? I should have posted it there.

 

Moved to Audio section, bump to the top.

 

TO answer that question it's YES. If you hookup an after market stereo to those speakers it will sound like crap. The reason is the Infinity speakers has their own individual "mini" amp attached to them and they require a certain amount of "juice" to push them. Mine went out as well and I replaced them with the Sony brand from Wally World and they work fine with my after market stereo from Wally World as well. Now if you have an amp hooked to the new system and you have a good set of Infinity's then the sound is awesome. Hopefully this helps.

 

^^ That helps *somewhat*. I don't understand about the mini-amps. Are you saying they interfere with the Amp on a radio?

 

Infinity speakers are "tailored" to a specific type of audio system. If you pull one of the speakers you will notice a batery pack looking object at the rear by the magnet. That's the mini amp. Now some automakers have a factory amp that will push these speakers and it's usually hidden somewhere either in the rear of the dash or on the floorboard at the bottom of the dash. There's this square looking cover with two phillip's head screws at the bottom of my dash at the floorboard under the foldout cupholders. I don't know what's behind it but this would be a good place for 1. They don't interfere but it requires a certain amount of power from the head unit to push them to make them sound good. Infinity speakers are good speakers but when they go bad they sound like trash....almost like an AM station. If your's are bad then replace them with speakers that will sound good with an after market head unit and will also handle a good 3 or 4 channel amp if should want to upgrade it later and not have to change out your speakers to handle the additional power.