Does anyone know how the MYGIG HU's are setup to operate in Infinity vs. non-Infinity applications? Is this programmed into the units from the factory or are there specific models used for each application? I have a Jan/2012 mfg. date RBZ unit installed in my 2012 2DR with factory Infinity system, not the original unit (came stock with a RES/RSC unit) but plugged in and powered up fine.

I have heard of people with non-Infinity factory systems running MYGIG HU's without issues.

Would it be possible to disconnect the Infinity amp and use a Metra 22-pin harness to connect to the MYGIG front/rear 4 speaker outputs, along with the +/- canbus wires and 12V/Gnd power wires and use an external amp?

Metra Part # 71-6522 | Chrysler wire harness | Metra Online

This harness would be needed since the factory Infinity wiring harness does not include wires for the front channel outputs, since it uses the "Audio left/Audio right" outputs which are same pins as rear outputs on the non-infinity setup, and then does DSP in the amp to create the front and rear channels, along with the sub/tweeter channels.

So i guess the big question no one seems to know answer to is does the canbus tell the HU an Infinity amp is present or not present, then HU acts as normal 4-channel outputs, or is the MYGIG setup one way or the other from factory?

 

I can't speak for all MyGig head units. As you may or may not know, there are different developers for different flavors of MyGig radios. I have done several installs with the Harman/Becker MyGig radios, which would include the RER, REN and RHR versions. With all of these MyGig head units, the radios recognize if an Infinity amp is connected or not by communicating with the amp over the CAN BUS. If the Infinity amp is not connected to the Can bus wires with these radios, then the radio will go into a 4 channel variable output operation mode where you can then run all 4 of these output channels to an external 4 channel non can bus amplifier like you are trying to do. If the Infinity amp is connected to the can bus wires coming from the radio, then the radio will detect that the Infinity amp is present and will go into a fixed mode output operation, where only the rear channels from the radio are active. Thus, with the Harman/Becker MyGig radios which are the REN, RER and RHR, there is only one radio which works with and without the Infinity amp connected.

Now, what I don't know for certainty is how other MyGigs like the RBZ you mentioned and the RHB work when connected to the Infinity amp since I've never had one to be able to find out. I'm not sure if there are 2 separate versions of these radio or if there is one radio that works with and without the Infinity amp, like the Harman/Becker radios do. I believe the RBZ and RHB are made by Mitsubishi. So it may be different, but I'm not sure why it would be.

If you find out one way or the other with the RBZ you have, then be sure to let us know.

 

Rednroll

So based on your sig, I assume you're running an after market high end amp and speakers setup pulling front/rear/left/right signals off of your RHR. So what about steering wheel controls? Is this also done via CanBus communication, so the MYgig still needs CAnbus wiring to utilize the steering wheel controls?

 

My setup is a very non standard setup. I'm actually using an OEM Infinity amp, but instead of the JK 8 channel amp, it's a 12 channel OEM Infinity amp from a Chrysler Town & Country (AKA "RT"). Thus, there are still Can bus communication between the MyGig radio and an OEM amp. I did some circuit board modifications on this amp, so that the audio bi-passes the output power stages within that amp, where it's basically acting as a surround sound processor with 8 line level outputs. These line level outs then connect to after market amplifiers. So the RHR is still connected to an Infinity OEM amp, where the 2 rear outputs from the MyGig feed the inputs of the OEM amp. I don't have any connections from the MyGig L/R front outputs, since there is no need for them with the way I wired this up since the fade/balance controls are all done within the OEM RT amp I'm using.

As far as Can bus communications, the radios need this for the steering wheel controls as you mentioned, but I have an '09 where there are no steering controls. In addition to steering controls there are can bus communication wires, which connect from the vehicle's ECM to Can bus connections on the radio. The can bus connection from the ECM is how the radio turns on and off with the ignition key and additionally gets speedo info, reverse status, park status, and head light switch status. So the MyGig radios need these connections to turn on/off, light the face plate with your head lights turned on, get speed info for proper navigation, and to enable the rear camera if connected when you put the vehicle in reverse. Fortunately, there are separate Can bus connections from the ECM to the Radio and from the Radio to the amp. So the Can bus connections can be disconnected between the amp and radio, where everything else will work just fine as long as the ECM is still connected to the radio via the can bus.

On another JK forum, I had done a complete write up of how my system was put together, and how to mod the amp but there were some not so friendly mods over there that didn't appreciate electronic stuff in JK's and were rather rude, so I took my stuff down and moved over here. I keep telling myself, I'm going to do a write-up over here one of these days but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Here is the basic overview of how my system is put together. I'm using 4 high powered after market amps, in addition to still using 3 amplified channels from the OEM amp for the smaller speakers that aren't as power hungry.

 

I only see 2 CANBUS wires on the back of my RBZ HU (pins 2, 13) and they are the same color as the CANBUS wires to the amps input connector.

Also, can you tell me if the tweeters are run off a separate channel from the front woofers or are they parallel?

Looks like a kick ass system you have but definitely overkill for my 2DR soft top; I just want to improve sound/volume for when I run doorless/topless.

 

Sorry about that, I had to go look at my notes and you are correct. The CAN BUS is a parallel wire connection bus, so the amp is probably connected somewhere else in the vehicle and not directly to the head unit. What you would have to do is disconnect the can bus wire connections on the amp side. These are pins 2 and 13 on the larger 22 pin connector on the amp. Just disconnecting that connector from the amp would achieve the same result.


On the Infinity System the tweeters are run off of separate channels from the amp, thus not connected in parallel. On the non Infinity system, they are connected in parallel via a cross-over.

Since you have the Infinity system, you would need to add a (2) cross-over networks, connecting the tweeter and woofer wires to the output side of the cross-over, then wire the output of your aftermarket amp to the input side of the cross-over. If you just wire them in parallel with each other without the cross-over then you risk easily blowing out your tweeters, not to mention adding distortion in the woofers.

I'll dig up a pin out diagram for the JK amp and post it in a few for you, which should help you out.

 

Here are the pin outs for the JK amp.

 

rednroll,

I already have the pinout info but thanks for posting, this may help others following this thread. So although the tweeter wires are taken from the input connector, these are still amplified/crossed over signals, correct?

So if i go with speaker upgrades (likely Polk Audio DX/DB series or Infinity Kappa components in front and coaxials in soundbar) along with the Mygig HU, should I use built in crossovers with stock amp?

I see that you did not use a summing LOC for your rears so how are you getting full range sound out of the 3-way's in your rear?

 

Yes, those are amplified signals coming from the amp for the tweeters. It's an 8 channel digital amp. So there is EQ applied inside of the amp to remove the low frequencies for the tweeters. It's not really a cross-over.

Now this is where it gets tricky. The way the amps work is that the ECM will send the VIN# of your vehicle to the amplifier over the CAN BUS connections. The amp then knows, your vehicle is a JK 4 door, 2door, etc. and will load EQs and other settings within the amp to match the speakers intended for the vehicle. You ever hear of the Nitro amp mod, where people have put Nitro amps into a JK and they say it sounds better because the amp uses the Nitro settings? Well, this is not true. What they are experiencing is that the amp is actually loading settings that were originally intended for the 2008 JK but it seems Chrysler pulled those settings out of the JK because there was a digital distortion problem where people were hearing crackle sounds from the tweeters with some sound sources that were high in volume, but older Nitro amps still had the 2008 JK settings in them. Both the JK and Nitro use the same 8 channel Infinity amp. I guess, the JK settings in the Nitro amps didn't get pulled for awhile, or the pipeline of inventory probably needed to be cleared out.

So, what I'm doing with the RT amp, is that this amp was never made to go into a JK vehicle. So therefore, it does not have settings in it for the JK to load. What I found out through some trial and error by plugging this amp in and doing some measurements, is that this amp seems to load what seems to be some kind of default settings, which look to be flat responses out all channels.

 

So how can I get full sound and volume when I upgrade my rear speakers and still use MyGIG for my HU and retain fade/balance controls? I'd have to replace the JK Infinity amp or use a summing device? I still dont see how that would work since you can only sum to one output channel, the Kickersum8, LC6i, JL cleansweep all seem to have this limitation.

So by summing all 8 signals with one of these units, you still can only send one summed full range signal out to the front crossover if using components, while the same poor rear channel signal gets sent to the rear sound bar speakers, with no improvement from the stock Infinity amp signal processing, which we all agree is knocking down the lows and highs and only giving you some muddy mids on the rear channels.

You mentioned modding the amp internally by bypassing the internal amp I/O's, this make sense to me but wouldn't I lose the fade/balance, EQ settings for the 8 individual channels? I know the Infinity uses dual TDA8594's and I can see the pinout for the I/O but what about the signal processing for each channel?