h3reye51nroam

Hello all, how's it going? I just recently replaced the factory speakers with Infinity Reference 6022i's in the rear and Infinity Reference 6020cs's in the front. Now I must admit, I suspect that the polarities may be reversed on some of the speakers. What I'm most curious about is if this is the root of my problems... The speakers do not sound full, they sound as if they are on a mono setting and certainly are not as loud as the factory speakers, which a fair amount of distortion. After reading on the forums that the speakers wires would be black (+) and red (-), I was quite thrown off to find the different colored wires. At the time being, we simply chose to wire the darker of the wires as positive, which does not appear to be correct as described here:

https://www.chevyhhr.net/forums/audio-video-17/audio-wiring-9439/

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why the speakers sound even poorer than the factory ones? thanks everyone and take care!

GDZHHR

Did you use a cross-over?

crowbar

everything i have read on components is that you almost gotta have a subwoffer because of the crossover, i put polk components in mine this weekend and with the base up on the head unit and the subwoffer off there is no low base comming through them

quest51210

you have a midrange speaker, not a subwoofer. if you want good mid bass you have to have them properly crossed over and give them decent amounts of power. when i say decent i run no less than 150RMS per side.

h3reye51nroam

No, I simply installed the 6.5" speakers of the component system at the time. After listening to it more, it simply sounds like it just doesn't have the low end like it used to. I'm going to discuss it with a car audio shop and see what the best approach to take is and possibly include a subwoofer as well.

Also as far as wiring the crossovers go, I posted one her a while ago but how do I actually wire the inputs to the crossover using the factory head unit? I was told there are seperate wires from the harness for the tweeters and 6.5" speakers in the front doors. Do I simply run both positives to the positive terminal of the input on the crossover? Thanks again!

STREET STYLIN' HHR

a component set w/o an amp hooked up to it will sound horrible due to the fact that you do not have enough power to run them. all the factory gear is "power matched" to each other, when you change it out w/o adding an amp im sure thats what it is. as far as polarity goes, dark colors in the back speakers are your "+" and light colors in front are your "+"s. hope this helps