Mudderoy
03-08-2009, 12:59 PM
Reminder: Jeep Cherokee "XJ" 1998
The XJ came with the premium "Infinity" sound system. 100 watt amp, and 6 speaker set up. After the passenger side door speaker BLEW I started looking up on the Internet to see if I could find a replacement. NO! Dealership only and it was ahhh $130 a speaker!?!?!?
I went around to several stereo shops and they all said the Infinity system I had was crap, and any speaker I put back in the door would not have the BASS response that the original speakers had.
My best bet was to let the TRASH the whole system and put in EVERYTHING new. Yeah right.
So YEARS went by and I finally decided replacing the door speakers was better than not having any. I poked around on the Internet and found some good marks on some 2 ohm Infinity speakers. I can only hope they are better than the originals.
I settled on Infinity Reference 5022i 5-1/4" 2-way car speakers. I was going to drive to Best Buy and pick up a pair, put them in and be done with it, but a quick check of prices on the Internet showed everyone with the same price as Best Buy, about $100, except one company that Amazon.com: Infinity Reference 5022i 5.25-Inch Two-Way Loudspeaker (Silver/Black): Electronics@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61jGEPYev3L.@@AMEPARAM@@61jGEPYev3L hosts, wanted $53.95, with $12.42 shipping. Yes that is $66.37 shipped! A few days after ordering I nervously went back to verify I was buying a PAIR of speakers and not just one.
Happily I found it was for the pair.
It took a good long while to get the speakers, about a week. I was saving $40+ so I reminded myself that it was worth the wait.
The speakers were delivered about 10 am by UPS. The speakers were in their own factory box, and that box was put in a brown shipping box that was about 3 times the size of the factory box.
The only packing in the brown box? A single sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper. You are correct, there was no packing.
Anyway I took the factory box out and looked it over, it all looked fine, and the speakers were packed very well in this box.
I took the speakers out and I was surprised how small they were. 5 1/4" speakers just like I had ordered and was told would fit my Jeep.
So I went outside, fresh in the knowledge on how to remove the interior door panel.
I removed the 4 screws that held the panel in place, popped out all the nylon fasteners, and lifted up on the panel. It came right off.
I removed the wiring harnesses from the controls for the power window and lock, then disconnected the rods linking to the door latch and lock.
I eagerly removed the two screws that help the blown speaker in place. The screws are at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions. Ok this is the first problem as the new speakers have screw holes at 10, 2, 4 and 8 o'clock.
I removed the old speaker...
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker1.jpg
You may notice the second problem from the above picture. You see that funky little jack on the original OEM speaker where you would normally expect to see the + and - speaker wire metal tabs?
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker2.jpg
Here is the other funky little connector that was plugged into the speaker!
Factory RAT bastards! Obviously they were making this Jeep easy to put together and not trying to make it easy for me to replace the crappy "premium" factory speakers. But HEY I'm saving what $115 dollars on this one speaker over the factory replacement? I guess this isn't so bad.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker3.jpg
So SNIP and the problem is half way solved!
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker4.jpg
Ok the speaker is out, now lets see what I have to mount the new speaker with. This is the assortment of screws and those metal tabs. I quickly drilled four new holes in the door, started slipping the metal tab in place and found that the metal tab does not fit over the pressed lip that runs around the door panel. Ok so no metal tabs, just screws.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker5.jpg
I cut back the cloth like tape that was wrapped around the wires. I stripped the insulation from each wire. I didn't have any connectors that would fit the tabs on the new speakers, my fault since I hadn't done anything like this in 20 years! So I made the command decision to solder the wires to the speakers. Being a normal man an only possessing 2 hands (and never one to ask for help) I let the speaker dangle a good 2 feet off the ground while I soldered the wires to the metal tabs.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker6.jpg
That white thing you see behind the speaker is a piece of thick soft plastic. It is there to keep water from trickling down from the window into the speaker. I strongly recommend keeping it in place. You can see the two large original mounting holes from the picture above. This is the completed installation of the speaker.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker7.jpg
Here's the money shot!
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker8.jpg
I didn't take any pictures of the speaker installation on the driver's side, I did replace that speaker as well. If I had taken any pictures they would have looked like this...
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker9.jpg
If I had traveled back in time, forgot to bring my digital camera, and had to use a camera from the current time period... say 1850 the picture might look something like this...
After returning to the present, I replaced both door panels, and cranked up the stereo, 96.5 (Houston FM station). It sounded like crap!
I was disappointed in the BASS response, yes yes, I was warned.
I tried a CD, and to my amazement it sounded much better. DUH! A CD should have better audio than an FM station anyway. Ok so the BASS isn't as good as it was, but it really isn't bad.
Do I think I got my money's worth? Yes, so far. The system sounds good, just not as good as I remember. Of course a simple solution to more BASS is a big woofer. I'm not out to annoy the neighbors, or irritate people that sit next to me at the traffic light, but more BASS would be more better.
I am currently researching if I can connect a woofer to my OEM Infinity 100 watt amp. I have found, and like the design of the "XJ POD" as it is out of the way and doesn't take up any cargo space. This Jeep is a daily driver, and our escape vehicle the next big hurricane, so I'm interested in functionality rather than "tasty toons".
All in all it was pretty easy and pretty cheap to get the stereo back to 100% speaker utilization.
The XJ came with the premium "Infinity" sound system. 100 watt amp, and 6 speaker set up. After the passenger side door speaker BLEW I started looking up on the Internet to see if I could find a replacement. NO! Dealership only and it was ahhh $130 a speaker!?!?!?
I went around to several stereo shops and they all said the Infinity system I had was crap, and any speaker I put back in the door would not have the BASS response that the original speakers had.
My best bet was to let the TRASH the whole system and put in EVERYTHING new. Yeah right.
So YEARS went by and I finally decided replacing the door speakers was better than not having any. I poked around on the Internet and found some good marks on some 2 ohm Infinity speakers. I can only hope they are better than the originals.
I settled on Infinity Reference 5022i 5-1/4" 2-way car speakers. I was going to drive to Best Buy and pick up a pair, put them in and be done with it, but a quick check of prices on the Internet showed everyone with the same price as Best Buy, about $100, except one company that Amazon.com: Infinity Reference 5022i 5.25-Inch Two-Way Loudspeaker (Silver/Black): Electronics@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61jGEPYev3L.@@AMEPARAM@@61jGEPYev3L hosts, wanted $53.95, with $12.42 shipping. Yes that is $66.37 shipped! A few days after ordering I nervously went back to verify I was buying a PAIR of speakers and not just one.
Happily I found it was for the pair.
It took a good long while to get the speakers, about a week. I was saving $40+ so I reminded myself that it was worth the wait.
The speakers were delivered about 10 am by UPS. The speakers were in their own factory box, and that box was put in a brown shipping box that was about 3 times the size of the factory box.
The only packing in the brown box? A single sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper. You are correct, there was no packing.
Anyway I took the factory box out and looked it over, it all looked fine, and the speakers were packed very well in this box.
I took the speakers out and I was surprised how small they were. 5 1/4" speakers just like I had ordered and was told would fit my Jeep.
So I went outside, fresh in the knowledge on how to remove the interior door panel.
I removed the 4 screws that held the panel in place, popped out all the nylon fasteners, and lifted up on the panel. It came right off.
I removed the wiring harnesses from the controls for the power window and lock, then disconnected the rods linking to the door latch and lock.
I eagerly removed the two screws that help the blown speaker in place. The screws are at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions. Ok this is the first problem as the new speakers have screw holes at 10, 2, 4 and 8 o'clock.
I removed the old speaker...
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker1.jpg
You may notice the second problem from the above picture. You see that funky little jack on the original OEM speaker where you would normally expect to see the + and - speaker wire metal tabs?
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker2.jpg
Here is the other funky little connector that was plugged into the speaker!
Factory RAT bastards! Obviously they were making this Jeep easy to put together and not trying to make it easy for me to replace the crappy "premium" factory speakers. But HEY I'm saving what $115 dollars on this one speaker over the factory replacement? I guess this isn't so bad.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker3.jpg
So SNIP and the problem is half way solved!
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker4.jpg
Ok the speaker is out, now lets see what I have to mount the new speaker with. This is the assortment of screws and those metal tabs. I quickly drilled four new holes in the door, started slipping the metal tab in place and found that the metal tab does not fit over the pressed lip that runs around the door panel. Ok so no metal tabs, just screws.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker5.jpg
I cut back the cloth like tape that was wrapped around the wires. I stripped the insulation from each wire. I didn't have any connectors that would fit the tabs on the new speakers, my fault since I hadn't done anything like this in 20 years! So I made the command decision to solder the wires to the speakers. Being a normal man an only possessing 2 hands (and never one to ask for help) I let the speaker dangle a good 2 feet off the ground while I soldered the wires to the metal tabs.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker6.jpg
That white thing you see behind the speaker is a piece of thick soft plastic. It is there to keep water from trickling down from the window into the speaker. I strongly recommend keeping it in place. You can see the two large original mounting holes from the picture above. This is the completed installation of the speaker.
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker7.jpg
Here's the money shot!
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker8.jpg
I didn't take any pictures of the speaker installation on the driver's side, I did replace that speaker as well. If I had taken any pictures they would have looked like this...
http://muckleroy.com/images/JeepSpeaker9.jpg
If I had traveled back in time, forgot to bring my digital camera, and had to use a camera from the current time period... say 1850 the picture might look something like this...
After returning to the present, I replaced both door panels, and cranked up the stereo, 96.5 (Houston FM station). It sounded like crap!
I was disappointed in the BASS response, yes yes, I was warned.
I tried a CD, and to my amazement it sounded much better. DUH! A CD should have better audio than an FM station anyway. Ok so the BASS isn't as good as it was, but it really isn't bad.
Do I think I got my money's worth? Yes, so far. The system sounds good, just not as good as I remember. Of course a simple solution to more BASS is a big woofer. I'm not out to annoy the neighbors, or irritate people that sit next to me at the traffic light, but more BASS would be more better.
I am currently researching if I can connect a woofer to my OEM Infinity 100 watt amp. I have found, and like the design of the "XJ POD" as it is out of the way and doesn't take up any cargo space. This Jeep is a daily driver, and our escape vehicle the next big hurricane, so I'm interested in functionality rather than "tasty toons".
All in all it was pretty easy and pretty cheap to get the stereo back to 100% speaker utilization.