flare said:
I installed right side and disabled tweeter, it actually sounds worse than the stock left side (no bass).
Maybe it's out of phase? Try reversing the polarity of the connections on one side. Other than that, all I can offer is to double and triple check connections. I'll defer this one to an audio guru. Anyone?
I have non bose oem HU, onstar. Does bypassing the factory amp effect onstar?
I've done the factory amp bypass, and it truly has no effect on OnStar. Everything that used to work, still does. It just sounds better now.
I have also thought about adding a new headunit that is XM ready, but am concerned as some posts I have read say this can effect airbags, chimes, and onstar etc. I am not to worried about onstar, can do the bypass or PAC-OS-1.
Your signature indicates that you have an '02. The chime/airbag concerns only apply to '03 and later from what I hear. Yes, replacing the HU will disable OnStar, but the PAC-OS-1 takes care of that.
I bought an aftermarket unit for my other truck and installed it in the Av. just to try it -it had no sound. Also on OEM radio if you unplug 9 pin harness= no sound. I assume the onstar bypass with small speaker would fix this.
How were you hooking up the speakers? If you were hooking them up to the stock speaker wires that attach to the stock radio, it might just be that the stock amplifier was not turned on.
The speaker outputs from the stock radio go to the stock amplifier and then on to the speakers. There is a line from the radio to the amplifier that is needed to turn the amplifier on. If this signal was not on, then you may not get anything feeding through the amp.
This could explain both your problems. When you put in your aftermarket HU, you probably didn't hook up the "amplifier on" signal. Same thing when you pulled the nin pine plug: the "amplifier on" signal routes through that plug.
If this is the case, you have two options:
- run new (good quality) speaker wires directly to the doors (really, the best option if you are doing a full HU/speaker retrofit)
- do the amplifer bypass so that it is out of the loop and does not need to be turned on.
Option =
oem HU + xm tuner +xm antenna + pie gm9-aux
This is an option, and it will work. I have done the same, except that I added an mp3 player instead of the xm tuner/antenna. If you go this route, I would recommend you do the amp bypass. It really improved things when I did it. It won't turn it into an audiophile quality system, but it will change it from a really crappy stock system to an average stock system.
new HU xm ready+xm tuner+xm antenna+pac os-1 OR onstar bypass
This will sound better, especially if you put in new speakers and new speaker wiring. If you don't susbscribe to OnStar, there is really no need for the PAC-OS-1. As for the onstar bypass, I don't really know what that is. Do you mean the factory amp bypass? If so, it has nothing to do with OnStar.
If you put in a new HU, and don't subscribe to OnStar, then you should probably just wire up everything from scratch. Just leave the factory amp and OnStar units in place and disconnected, and they shouldn't hurt anything. (I don't speak from experience on this, I still have the factory HU and an active OnStar subscription. All I have done is the PIE aux inputs and factory amp bypass.)
I'm sure there is someone here who has done exactly that, and can indepentantly confirm this.
-- SS