Changed speakers and added an Amp.

[Hawkeye Jim]

2022 Ram 2500 Tradesman with 8.4 Uconnect and 6 speakers. I changed the speakers. 3 1/2s in the dash, 6 1/2s in the front doors, and 6x9s in the rear doors. Sounds a lot clearer but very little base. The 4 Ohm dash speakers are overwhelming but can be toned down by fading to the back a little and adjusting the EQ. I brought it to my local shop to get a 5 channel amp added with a sub. Come to find out this truck has a factory amp that had to be bypassed. I also included resistors like everyone says has to be added but the shop didn't add them. Everything plays fine but the dash speakers blew within a day. Shop said they were not hooked up to the new amp, just from the radio. Said they got too much base.

How can aftermarket 3 1/2" speakers rated at 50 watts RMS that were initially hooked up to a factory amp and then supposedly only to the radio blow?

If I had to do it again I would change the factory speakers and add a mono amp and sub. Much cheaper and sounds pretty closed to the same.

 

[wsutard1]

Someone will correct me if I’m wrong but I think the factory speakers are 2ohm. It’s been a long time since I messed around with aftermarket but that would explain why the speakers weren’t as expected. Also might explain why the factory ones you left in blew, if they were connected to a 4ohm source. Maybe, again, hard to remember this stuff.

 

[Hawkeye Jim]

Someone will correct me if I’m wrong but I think the factory speakers are 2ohm. It’s been a long time since I messed around with aftermarket but that would explain why the speakers weren’t as expected. Also might explain why the factory ones you left in blew, if they were connected to a 4ohm source. Maybe, again, hard to remember this stuff.

Factory dash speakers are 8 ohm. Adding aftermarket 4 ohm speakers requires either messing with the fader and eq or installing a 4 ohm resistor to each speaker.

The installer didn't know the dash and door are on the same channel. He thought the dash was connected to the radio and not the factory amp.

I checked the gain setting with a multimeter. It was set way too high. Those dash speakers could only handle 50 watts rms. My calculations said they got hit with 60+ watts. Explains the blow out. Installer is giving me another set. With the gains set correctly, should work just fine.