Howdy all, I have a jeep grand cherokee 97 model and a Chrysler Town & Country 96 I think. Both of which have the same exact radio/cd player from mopar. Basically i'm wondering if anyone knows if an empeg will fit in place of the current radios. they are oversized but i'm not sure if they are double din size. and if i do replace these units how am i supposed to control the volume? Thanks.
-later
Richard
#9114-Ouch!



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Chardmon,

Alright, at least with the Grand Cherokee (if you have the Infinity Gold system), there should be an Infinity amp underneath the left rear passenger seat. If you want to replace the current unit with an empeg, you already have the power there. As far as supplementing the current head unit with an empeg, you then have to deal with placement and all. Unless you have a desperate need for tapes (shouldn't with an empeg on board!), or you have a CD changer tucked away in the trunk (that's where the OEM units usually are in the Grands), I would say get a Chrysler oversize to standard DIN adapter from Crutchfield or the like. BTW: Only the base stereo in the Jeep and the T&C is Mopar, anything above that is Infinity, which is manufactured by Harman Kardon. If I were you, I would honestly drop the OEM head unit and use the amp to power the empeg. It is plenty powerful enough ;) With the T&C, you might be conceivably be able to mount the empeg in the center bin, but I'm really not sure of the dimensions of that console and how easy it would be to "fit" an empeg. Incidentally, the empeg has onboard volume control, so you would only need to be concerned with the line level between the amp and the empeg. Hope this helps...

Festus

Ok, yeah both are Infinity Gold systems. I tried finding information on the DIN adapter from Crutchfield but all I got was a picture and no info. Do they sell this seperately without having to buy a unit from them? What other companies might I obtain the adapter from. Thanks.
-later
Richard
p.s. does anyone know where i might find the tech specs on the system i have? (infinity amp plus current speakers all OEM)



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Chardmon,

Well, after a brief search of harman international's site, I couldn't find much in the way of specs. They have some white papers on recent innovations, but not much in the way of a catalog or specification sheets for individual models, especially with OEM components. Everything with the Infinity name falls under harman's wing, whether or not that helps. If I had to guess, I would assume that the speakers at least are something on the order of Infinity Kappa's, though that's just a guess. Likewise with the amp, there might be power ratings printed on it, but I wouldn't count on it with an OEM. The head units are going to be custom for Chrysler. Crutchfield should have some specs on retail Infinity components, that might be a place to start. Also, call the Jeep or Chrysler dealers, you may get lucky and find someone (less "greasy" than a sales guy) who knows that stuff and could at least give you some numbers. I would try to *go* there, they might be more willing to help if you showed up instead of called. Try wandering down to the service area, and find someone in a coverall that's less dirty, he might be the guy who does the electronics ;)

Festus

Back to the Infinity Gold... My head unit has a tape deck and cd changer controls on it (vs. the indash cdplayer). The changer (alpine) is connected to the head unit by an eight pin cable (circular, one pin in the middle...)

I found some docs on the changer that tell what the pins are for: data bus, signal ground, data ground, right signal, left signal, battery, ignition, power supply ground.

Do you think I could hook the leads from the empeg chassis up to an eight pin connector and plug that straight into my head unit?

If I can't figure some decent way of wiring the empeg into the current setup, I'll ditch the head unit and worry about figuring out how to wire it into the amp and be happy. But I'll be losing my equalizers and speaker controls (unless empeg has some similar features?)

Pharf

The changer bus won't wire direct to an empeg - the signal levels may be different, and one huge problem is going to be that the head unit won't switch to the changer unless it's responsing to the commands from the head unit on the data bus.

I *think* that alpine may have a box to allow an aux input - I've seen it mentioned on the boards here before (AInet or something?) which would work.

The empeg has 10ch parametric EQ in the DSP - however, there's no way of getting to it at the moment. It will arrive in a future software update.

Hugo