I'm not sure which path you are on now. Originally, you where talking about bypassing the amp and adding an aftermarket amp. That should give you close to full range to the rears.

Removing the Infinity amp would also give you full control of fade and balance on the radio.

 

So if I understand correctly, if I disconnect/bypass the Infinity amp, and maintain CANBUS signal wiring to the MYGIG HU, I can run front and rear speakers directly from the HU, but I would need to add front speaker connections at the back of the HU since the Infinity system currently has none (maybe use Metra harness?), and fade/balance/eq can still be adjusted with the MYGIG.

I can also add a 4 or 5-channel amp with hi level inputs (or use LOC's to convert to line level inputs) to eventually power everything, assuming the RBZ will respond accordingly, although not sure if it could power the 2 ohm infinity speakers without issues.

I guess I need to test out the idea of bypassing the Infinity amp and get some temporary wiring to my front and rear speakers and see what happens.

 

Exactly!!! I'm not sure what the Metra harness does since it does not have any documentation and I usually do my own wiring. It's probably just some kind of plug and play jumper harness to make things easier for those who don't want to be bothered with wiring.

Also, as I mentioned earlier I'm not 100% if the RBZ MyGig works this way, which would take some investigation on your part of disconnecting the amp from the can bus and then seeing if all 4 output channels on the radio adjusted with the volume control. If the outputs from RBZ adjust with the volume control, that also means the Bass, Mid, Treb, as well as Fade/Balance controls are taking place inside of the radio also, instead of within the external Infinity amp. I have confirmed, this is how it works with the RER,REN, and RHR MyGigs.

Probably the easiest way to test this out would be to disconnect the input connector from the amp with the ignition off. Which would remove the Can connections and L/R inputs from the amp as well as the power connections to the amp. Then run some jumper wires from the Right/Left inputs on the vehicle side harness of the amp connector and connect them to a couple of speakers. Turn on the ignition and see if audio is heard from those speakers and adjust the volume control on the radio to see if that adjusts also. Adjusting the Fade to the front on the radio and hearing if the speakers mute would be a pretty good indication that the R/F and L/F outputs on the radio are now active.

 

I could probably use this and cut out the unused wires, it is fully populated with 14awg power and ground wires at pins 1, 12 and has wires needed for the speaker out at 8-11 (rear) and 19-22 (fronts) and canbus at 2,13

http://www.metraonline.com/part/Chry...arness_71-6522


Ill try the temporary wires like you mentioned at the amp input plug and see what gives

 

Ok

I can confirm that by disconnecting the Infinity amp, the RBZ MYGIG does in fact switch to 4-channel mode with full fade/balance/3-way EQ control. I was only able to use the rear channel outputs since the Infinity setup does not have factory wiring to the front channel outputs at the HU. So my next step is to acquire the Metra harness which includes the wires for all four channel outputs, CANBUS, and power. The additional wires will be capped off since not needed for the MYGIG. I would ultimately run better speaker wire and leave the factory harnesses intact.

I still need to compare the front channel frequencies vs. the rears to see if there is any signal processing going on in the MYGIG HU. But at the vary least there is definitely noticable lows and highs from the rear channel when connected to either the stock front woofers or the rear soundbar woofers. All of this was done with no tweeters or sub present, and I was only able to run two speakers at a time, using some sewing needles and some stranded 16 AWG wire I had laying around to make some temporary jumpers so I didn't have to hack all the wires at the amp connector plugs.

But now I'm thinking I can at least upgrade speakers to some quality components for the front and coaxials for the rear and add a 5 channel amp and sub later on. I will update as I can going forward but it looks totally possible to improve my system without using the summing device with the Infinity amp as others seem to claim is the only option. My goal is to have full sound and volume at the both front and rear speakers and get rid of the muddy stock sound .

Rednroll, thanks for the feedback, and I'd love to hear your system in person, looks pretty impressive!

 

Thanks for the update Vulcan. It's good to know that the RBZ works the same as the other MyGigs. Maybe one of these days, I'll pull my RES out of storage, dust it off and confirm if that works the same also.

 

Now that I got the bug I decided to go with the Polk Audio DXI6500 components in front and DXI650 for the soundbar.

I will eventually add an Alpine MRX-V70 5-channel amp to power everything, along with a Polk Audio DB840 8" sub in the stock enclosure. I ordered the Metra 71-6522 harness to make speaker/amp connections on the MYGIG. I'm hoping I can extract a couple sets of wires/contact pins from the Metra harness and add them to the factory harness for the front channels to keep power and CANBUS wires intact. I also ordered a Metra 70-6522 so the combination of the two should allow me to connect in between the factory harness and the Mygig.

I'm thinking install the amp under the driver or passenger seat so I may just run speed wire from the MYGIG to the amp and either run new speaker wiring or tap the amp output plug but I'd prefer not to hack any factory wiring and haven't been able to find a male plug/housing that would mate to the 16-pin amp output connector.

Again, my goal was to keep the MYGIG and retain Vol/fade/balance control and achieve good/clean full sound to the rear sound bar, especially with the doors/top off, without using a summing device. I was discouraged by all the negative kicker/nitro amp feedback.

I also got to hear the Polks vs. Kappas at a local Bestbuy store and was impressed by the Polks
and I like that they are marine rated, since I run topless alot and hose my Jeep down since it is bedlined.

 

FYI, I started a new write-up thread here:

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/jk-e...4/#post3196721

 

Bumping old thread... So this all started when I spilt some coffee....

Radio provides no sound. Next morning battery flat. Pulled one very hot RER from dash.

So thought - ah - must be the amp. Pulled panels below steering wheel... No amp! Went back and checked windshield sticker when originally purchased back in 2007. 368W Infinity Sound System with optional RER Radio...

So what gives - no amp?

Any help appreciated.

 

Did you purchase the 2007 new or used? If used, then it sounds like someone pulled out the amp and then wired the RER to the speaker wires. If new.....you got screwed somewhere along the line.

Does you JK have a rear sub-woofer and was there any sound coming out of it before you spilled the coffee?