Ok, so I got my speaker situation resolved. The JBL speakers I bought, were still way too loud. Since I hadn't spent a lot of money on these, I figured I'd do some testing. I decided they were junk, and cut the speaker leads to the tweeters on one, and to the midrange on the other. The midrange actually don't sound too bad, and the tweeters are crystal when run by themselves - without being too "bright". JBL says they're 2.5 ohm Speakers - and when I ohmed them out - testing the individual components by themselves, they both came back at 2.5 ohms. However, the mid-range and tweeter are run in parallel, so this means that together, they are about 1.24 ohms - so way louder than 2 ohm OEM speakers.
I ran the midrange in my center channel, and the tweets on the corners. Sounded great, but still a little too loud.
Ordered 2x sets of Infinity Reference 275s from Crutchfield. Dropped them in to the corners and overhead, and man - what a difference! They are awesome, the sound is awesome. The highs are perfect in clarity, without being over-driven. I then dropped the JBL in which I had cut the mid-range out of the circuit, into the center channel, and it sounds pretty damn good, but it's still louder than the left/right tweets - so I'm going to put the JBL in which I cut the tweeter out, back in (I initially had it set up this way the other day after I got done with the dash Infinity Reference install) and I think that will do what I want.
For those of you thinking of upgrading your speakers, here's some needed info:
NOTE: This info applies to the 2017 (GEN 4) RAM 1500/2500/3500 Crew Cab with the Alpine Premium Sound System - I do not know if it will be 100% accurate for other years/packages!
1) Your "factory" Alpine "premium" sound system is HEAVILY tied into your truck's computer system. This means that any "mods" you do, will be problematic and expensive. Based on what I've found so far (to the best of my knowledge), if you are looking to replace your amp and go cheap, forget it. You will need to order a PAC, and a new amp, but you can't "replace" your old one. Additionally, there are a lot of choices out there. I didn't want to spend more than about $500 on my truck sound system, so I decided against ordering a PAC, and other stuff - which would have cost at least another $800. Don't know about you, but my wife will only tolerate so much...
2) Your factory AMP has (I think) 9 + 1 channels. These channels are (based on what I've personally witnessed) frequency filtered as follows:
Channel (not necessarily the channel number scheme that the amp actually uses - but I needed something for reference so I'm just showing how the channels are separate on each set of speakers):
1 & 2: Front Right and Left Dash - Tweeter Only
3 & 4: Front Right and Left Door - Woofer only
5 & 6: Rear Right and Left Door - Woofer and midrange (might be full range - IDK)
7 & 8: Right and Left Overhead - Tweeter Only
9: Center Dash - midrange?/tweeter
10: Under Rear Passenger seat, right side - Sub-woofer
Positive (+)/Negative (-) speaker wires are color coded as follows:
Dash:
Left front corner dash speaker:
positive (+) gray/orange or gray /
negative (-) gray/yellow
Right front corner dash speaker:
positive (+) gray/dark green /
negative (-) gray/light green
Center dash speaker:
positive (+) gray/brown or gray /
negative (-) gray/orange
Doors:
Left front door speaker:
positive (+) gray/violet /
negative (-) gray/yellow
Right front door speaker:
positive (+) dark green/violet /
negative (-) dark green/yellow
Left rear speaker:
positive (+) gray/light green /
negative (-) gray/dark green
Right rear speaker:
positive (+) dark green/light green /
negative (-) dark green/gray
Roof:
Left rear roof speaker:
positive (+) tan/white or green/light blue /
negative (-) dark green/gray or green/orange
Right rear roof speaker:
positive (+) dark green/brown /
negative (-) yellow/gray
Subwoofer:
Rear subwoofer voice coil #1
positive (+) white /
negative (-) black
Rear subwoofer voice coil #2
positive (+) white /
negative (-) black
3) When replacing your speakers, do it in sets - so, replace both the front left/right and rear left/right pairs of tweeters at the same time. Do the same with the doors. The center dash and sub-woofer can be done any time. Keep in mind that if a speaker is removed from a channel set, I have "heard" that the Alpine will apparently shut off all the speakers - I don't know for sure as I haven't tested this.
4) You can buy full range (2-way, 3-way, etc.) speakers for the front doors - but only the woofers will fire due to the amplifier only sending low frequency signals to them. You might find a better deal buying component speakers (separate woofer and tweeter) for the front doors and left/right dash.
5) If you put 2-way (combined midrange and tweeter) on the left/right dash (and overheads?) will probably make your ears "bleed" because they will possibly be too "bright". You'll know this because you won't want to even listen to your system and/or you'll have ringing in your ears (esp. at night when you're tying to sleep!).
6) Match all your speakers by impedance for Channels 1, 2, 7, 8, and 9. Match all your impedance for 3, 4, 5, and 6. The impedances to not need to necessarily match between those two groups, but the closer you get all your speakers, regardless of if you buy from different companies or go with all the same, the better your sound will be and the less likely you're going to run into my initial problems in my original post.
Your sub should have dual voice coils for best performance.
7) You will not need passive cross-overs for your speakers. The amp does active crossover management with the channel separation as I understand it.
8) You should seriously consider getting the Metra Speaker Wiring adapters, the Metra Speaker Mounting brackets, and the Universal Backstraps.
The wiring adapters make wiring the speakers in a breeze and you don't have to do any cutting or splicing. Also, they make having to know which wire is positive(+) and negative(-) a moot point. I have provided that info anyway if you like to do that sort of stuff.
For the dash corners: The mounting brackets are for the corner and center dash speakers, SPECIFICALLY for the Infinity Reference speakers. You'll need a 1-3/4" hole saw. Clamp them down, and drill a small pilot hole in the center of the adapter. Then use the hole saw to drill out the bigger hole. Be careful - they're just plastic, so you don't need to go all Hercules on them. Use the ring mount that comes with the speakers and mount the speaker in it, and pull the wires out the back, then mount it to the Metra adapter. Once you do that, connect the wires to the Metra wire adapter, connect the Metra adapter to the vehicle wiring harness for the OEM speaker, tuck it all in, put the adapter over the hole where the factory speakers were mounted, screw it in, and put your speaker grill back on.
For the overhead roof mounted tweeters - use the backstraps. Find the end with the elongated hole, and count over 1/2 a hole. Bend there (your up bend). Then count up 1-1/2 holes, bend there. This is your top bend. Count three holes - make sure you have three FULL holes - your speaker will mount directly in the middle one. Bend again down, then bend over. You can tuck that long end between the headliner and the OEM speaker bracket if you're careful. Before you mount the speaker, make sure you've pulled all your wires through the back of the adapter that came with it in the box, and connected the Metra wire harness.
Here's my set up as of tonight (once I swap out the center dash JBL that is cut for tweeter only to the one that is cut for midrange only):
Sub-woofer: Pioneer TS-SW2002D2 - wired in series for 4-ohms impedance
Front Right, Left Dash: Infinity Reference REF-375TX
Rear Right, Left Roof/overhead: Infinity Reference REF-375TX
Front/Rear Left/Right Doors: Pioneer TS-G690
Center Dash: JBL Club 322F (Tweeter wires cut)
Additionally, I grabbed some fiber-fill from a pillow (use the foam type) and put it LOOSELY in your factory sub-woofer box. Do NOT overfill or stuff it tight! The amount of thump your sub will produce will transfer much better into your vehicle. You don't need a lot.
I may still replace the JBL in the center dash with something else, but I'm going to hold off on that until I've listened to what I currently have for a few days. I'm not 100% sure that any mid-frequencies are sent there. I know that highs are. Crutchfield lists all the speakers that fit there as 2-way, so that SHOULD indicate that both mids and highs get sent there, but I want to make sure, if I buy something else, that the impedance matches what is coming from the left/right dash speakers.
Overall - as of right now - and hopefully, I'm NOT speaking too soon - I love the sound coming from my system now. It's pretty good. Once I swap out the center dash speaker, I think it'll be nearly perfect.
I hope this helps. The most difficult thing I had trouble with, was finding out what wires were positive and negative for speaker hookup - this is because I initially cut the speaker dash wires when I tried to go cheap and just mount the JBLs as I didn't have the Metra Wiring adapters. I still wound up having to buy spade connectors. So - lesson learned, just buy the wiring adapters!
