New Kenwood deck, very little sound.

[Block]

I'm trying to install a Kenwood deck in my '05 2500.

I've got the CHTO-02 interface for the stock Infinity system.

When hooked up, everything on the deck works fine, but I have to turn volume knob all the way up to hear anything out of the speakers.

I've triple checked all the wiring and everything's correct and the gain knob on the interface box is turned all the way up.

Any of you have any suggestions?

 

[Block]

Anyone? This is driving me nuts.

 

[fastgti]

Some one posted this up in another thread

Hopefully your install goes better than mine. The interface that powers on the factory amp for some reason absolutely refused to work with my truck and wouldn't turn the factory amp on so I had no sound. I ended up having to bypass the entire system and install my own 4 channel and sub amps. But I was going to do that eventually anyway.

 

[justin13703]

If it's making sound but very quiet, there's a potentiometer on the end of the black box in that Chto harness you bought. It's right next to where the wires go in and it's blue. Go in there with a small flathead screwdriver and turn it clockwise and see if that helped.

 

[Block]

Some one posted this up in another thread

I saw that, was really hoping to avoid having to go that route. Mine works, the deck works fine, I just get very little volume out of the speakers.

If it's making sound but very quiet, there's a potentiometer on the end of the black box in that Chto harness you bought. It's right next to where the wires go in and it's blue. Go in there with a small flathead screwdriver and turn it clockwise and see if that helped.

I've tried that and it makes no difference. I even took the box back to where I bought it and swapped it for another one and still have the same problem.

I'm at a complete loss right now.

I've tried the basic 6502 harness, but I lost the dash cluster and got the "NO BUS" reading on the odometer.

 

[Block]

Can either of you tell me where the factory amp on an '05 is located? I've looked behind the glovebox and don't see anything.

 

[fastgti]

maybe behind the rear seat under the window?

 

[justin13703]

Can either of you tell me where the factory amp on an '05 is located? I've looked behind the glovebox and don't see anything.

I thought it was behind the glove box but I'm not 100% sure. If it's like my 08 it's up high and damn near impossible to get to. I could barely get to it enough to unplug the connectors just to bypass it.

Honestly if the potentiometer didn't fix it and it's not a faulty harness or wiring issue with the harness, it will probably be easier to bypass it. If you're not adding amps of your own it's pretty simple to bypass. They make a amp bypass harness that is like 18ft long you can use. Unplug the amp, plug in your bypass harness, and run it to the back of your radio and hook your speaker outputs to that.

Now if you do this you will lose your dash speakers which make the mids and highs so you will pretty much have to replace your door speakers with full range speakers. If you're good with wiring and diagrams then you can technically still hook up the dash speakers, but you'll have to add bass blockers or some kind of crossover because with the factory amp bypassed they will get full range sound and probably blow without a bass blocker of some sort.

 

[Block]

Thanks guys.

I'm installing new Kicker speakers in the doors as well, so I think I'm just going to run new wire and be done with it. I'm not really all that concerned with the 3 in the dash.

 

[justin13703]

Thanks guys.

I'm installing new Kicker speakers in the doors as well, so I think I'm just going to run new wire and be done with it. I'm not really all that concerned with the 3 in the dash.

If that's the case it'll be much easier to use the amp bypass harness than running new wire from the head unit to the speakers. That's not a fun job. If you get a 70-6510 harness, it just plugs in at the factory amp and you connect your radio outputs to that. That way you don't have to run any wire anywhere. I think that harness was less than 30 bucks when I bought mine. Trust me it's much easier, I was originally going to run new wire but took one look at how much of a pain it was and bought the harness. The harness takes less than 10 minutes to install.

 

[fastgti]

If that's the case it'll be much easier to use the amp bypass harness than running new wire from the head unit to the speakers. That's not a fun job. If you get a 70-6510 harness, it just plugs in at the factory amp and you connect your radio outputs to that. That way you don't have to run any wire anywhere. I think that harness was less than 30 bucks when I bought mine. Trust me it's much easier, I was originally going to run new wire but took one look at how much of a pain it was and bought the harness. The harness takes less than 10 minutes to install.

So i just pi ked my son up at daycare and was looking up front. Saw something behind the glove box so popped it out. Found a pic of a naked chick behind my dash. Out of all things.


But the moral of my story is i was wrong about the amp. At least on my 06 it is up under the dash. Way up there

 

[Block]

Alright guys, I tried a few things the past couple days.

I threw in the new kicker 6x9's in the front doors and tried the new deck with the CHTO-02 interface and got the same thing, the deck works but very little volume out for the speakers.

I decided to try the 6502 harness again just to make sure I didn't miss anything the first time around. The deck and speaker volumes worked as they should, but I lost the dash cluster again. "NO BUS" on the odometer like before.

Is it possible I have just the basic 4 speaker non-infinity system, but still need an interface to play nice with the CAN-BUS system? I looked behind the glovebox again and there's no sign of an amp and looked through the grills in the dash plate and it doesn't appear that there are any mid/tweeters behind them.

Could it be that using the CHTO-02 box is cutting the output from the head unit,(expecting it to be made up for with the amp?) and since I don't have an amp, that's why I'm getting very little volume out of the speakers?

I thought I only had the 4 speaker set-up when I ordered everything, which is why I originally went with the basic 6502 harness. Only decided to try the CHTO box after I got the "NO BUS" error the first time.

I've only had the truck for 2 weeks and don't have the build sheet. Is there a way to figure out which setup you have by looking at the stock deck?

 

[justin13703]

Yeah it sounds to me like you don't have the infinity system. If you do, it will say infinity somewhere in the truck, on the radio or the door panels. Mine has infinity badge on the door panels by the window.

Regardless, you won't be able to use the 6502 harness. Your truck is a can bus data system whether or not you have the infinity system. You will still need a data harness for it, but you probably need one for the non amplified model. It's very likely that the amp gets a very low power signal from the radio for the speakers and without the amp, the harness you have is putting out a low power signal straight to your speakers.

I tried to look up what harness you will need, but the metra app is junk and the Crutchfield website doesn't want to work for some reason. I believe you'll need the xsvi-6502 harness but I'm not positive.

 

[justin13703]

Ok I did a little research and from what I'm gathering your truck may be an 05 but it must have been a very late 05 and used some stuff from an 06. 05 trucks shouldn't need a can bus interface for the radio but yours obviously does since you get the "no bus" message. So from what I've found, your truck with the non infinity system should use the XSVI-6502 harness.

 

[Block]

Dude, you are the man. Just ordered the XSVI harness from Amazon, should be here Monday. I'll let you know how it works out.

Fingers crossed!

 

[justin13703]

Yeah I was an installer for like 5 years and I was pretty familiar with the nightmares of the Chrysler can-bus crap. And now I own one myself lol. Hopefully that harness gets it all taken care of

 

[Block]

I'm about to cry. lol

With the XSVI harness, now I have nothing on the deck, no power.

There isn't a red wire coming out of the female connector that plugs into the male factory connector in the dash. That's the only difference between the 6502/CHTO harnesses and the XSVI. I think that's the issue now.

 

[Block]

Can I just run a wire from the Ignition 12v wire off the new deck and tie it into the power for the cig lighter? I believe that's a key on 12v source.

 

[justin13703]

Can I just run a wire from the Ignition 12v wire off the new deck and tie it into the power for the cig lighter? I believe that's a key on 12v source.

Damn dude crappy luck with this. This is why I hate these data systems in cars. Way too complicated and over-engineered to accomplish something as simple as turning a radio on.

Yes you can grab accessory power from anywhere in the truck to power the radio. You'll lose the Retained Accessory Power function for the radio (where it stays on until you open your door) but that's about the only downside. If yours even did that in the first place, your truck seems to be a half-breed of some kind lol.

I'm not sure if you've done it yet, but I would grab accessory power from the ignition harness. The cigarette lighter is ignition powered so if you tapped into this and turned your key to accessory mode, you still wouldn't have any radio.

Don't feel too bad though, when I did my radio in my truck, absolutely nothing would turn on my factory amp, so I couldn't get any sound. I tried 2 different brand harnesses, and exchanged both of them so a total of 4 harnesses were installed, and I contacted tech support from both companies to try to get it working and even they couldn't figure it out. That's when I gave up and just bypassed the whole damn thing lol

 

[Block]

PRAISE JEBUS!

I am ecstatic to report the problem has been solved.

Turns out I needed the basic 70-6502 harness after all. I asked for help from the guys over at the12volt.com (fantastic resource btw) and one of the guys suggested...

If by chance on the basic metra 70-6502 harness there is a brown wire and you've connected it to anything, I would try disconnecting it.

When using the 70-6502 in certain vehicles, on the factory side of the metra brown(mute) wire is the j1850 data wire of the vehicle. I've seen it ground out and cause various error messages and dummy lights to illuminate.

I wired everything except the mute and bam!, everything works!