Musicaparadox

Needing some help via a recent upgrade I made to my Jeep. I have a 2008 Wrangler X model with everything stock no premium stuff. This past week I decided to upgrade the radio in my car and in the process ended up buying an OEM infinity Sub as well (fits 07-10 model jeeps). The radio I installed is a PIONEER MVH-1400NEX Digital Multimedia Video Receiver Apple CarPlay with Blue Tooth. Got it on amazon and the other parts I needed as well to have it custom fit the car. The sound in my car now sounds amazing!

The problem I'm running into is the OEM sub. I plugged it into the cables that are run to the rear passenger side of the trunk and am not getting any sound out of the sub. Just the sub, all my other speakers are working great. After doing much research I believe its due to the lack of the OEM amp (or an amp) that normally comes with the jeep that has the infinity sub installed stock with the car. Again my car didn't come stock with the infinity system and I'm just trying to add it.

Found a OEM amp on eBay for a great deal and its currently on its way to me by this Friday. I wanted to know if anyone on here knows if that should fix my issue of getting a signal to the sub, and if so where is the best place to install the amp. I have done more googling and even took my car to the Cross Jeep dealership near me and they told me they had no idea what I was trying to do. Also that I was the first person to come to the dealership to have there sound equipment tested.... makes no sense the car dealership has no way to test there equipment? But I digress haha. I also have found the cables under the driver side knee panel and I believe these are the cables that need to go into the amp in order to boost the signal to the rest of the car. My car knowledge is a bit limited so please forgive me. Worse comes to worse I have a 30 day warranty on both the sub and the amp and I can return them if it won't work with my system. But I need to know sooner rather than later. Will make an additional post if I end up fixing the problem. Up to this point I have been told its most likely due to the amp not being in the car. But since this is a dedicated jeep forum I figured someone might know. Thanks again in advanced!

GeekyTechyCool

The problem you're going to have is that the factory amp uses a proprietary connection/signal to process the sound from the head unit, it's basically useless to you with an aftermarket head-unit unless you installed a can-bus harness and even then you're hoping that the factory wiring is where you need it. The other issue with the factory amplified sound system is that it "tunes" the audio based on a profile built into the amp, so no adjustment you make at your head-unit is going to make much of a difference. You'd be better off buying a small aftermarket amplifier and running the sub off of that like a traditional aftermarket solution if you're dead set on keeping the factory sub (which is a dual voice coil btw).

My overall recommendation is to ditch the factory sub altogether and get a compact aftermarket sub/box possibly one with an amp already built into it and mount that in the rear. The factory JK sub is garbage compared to even the most basic budget solutions out there in the car audio world.