Wow, I can't believe I'm back on here....

I did the write up before for using RCA wires to the stock amp... Someone sent me a PM last week and I finally had some time to respond, so I will paste the reply below.

In regards to the factory speakers, if you have a Limited with the subwoofers, the factory speakers aren't that bad honestly. They're aluminum cone and fairly decent. (They kept up with my 12" sub in a false floor custom install just fine). What blew them was most likely that you cranked the bass up on the deck and didn't have a high-pass filter on the front outputs....That and the aftermarket deck you put in "clipped" and distorted and took them out when the amplifier boosted the signal... Totally common, and hey, it happens.

And here's the PM response I gave to another member...

Hi Steve,

Trying to jog my memory since it was a few years ago & I sold the Xfire in 2012.

My original post to clarify https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...er-review.html

Another one: https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...tml#post318327

There's a few posts in that thread that I made that clarify, but mainly the excerpt from the one below...

Step 1, make sure your deck is off or unplugged so that you do not short out your new deck when you are cutting the wires below.

Go into the passenger footwell, flip the carpet back, remove the styrofoam (just lifts out), unbolt the metal plate on the floor (this has the factory amp bolted to it..) & then solder on RCA ends to the speaker input wires.

Once you have the amp vilisible, you will see the harnesses that goes to it.

Locate the one with "twisted pairs" of wires with the following colours:

Blue and Blue/Brown stripe
Yellow and Yellow/Violet stripe

There will be two pairs of each of these... (These are the wires that the amplifier uses as an input for the sound, from the radio)

Next, unwrap the tape & follow the wires down the harness a little bit.On my car the wires were joined about 6 inches from the amp plug.

When you find this splice point, this is where you can cut the wires, & where you will attach your RCA ends.

(The ends of the cut wires that attach to the factory amp are where you will solder or crimp the RCA wires to, & the other end of the RCA cable plugs into the radio...your new Kenwood...Note that you will have a total of 4 pairs of wires...2 pairs for the front speakers, and 2 pairs for the subs)

Purchase a 20 foot RCA cable and cut it in the middle...

Now that you have located & cut these wire pairs, you will begin with soldering or crimping ... (red crimps will be big enough, but you can use blue ones if that's all you have)

Each Blue and Blue/Brown stripe pair and each Yellow and Yellow/Violet stripepair represents one speaker. Which speaker or subwoofer, ??? you will figure that out after you solder on your RCA's, so don't worry about that.

(So if you cut the RCA cable on one end & strip the wires back, depending on the quality of the RCA the outer shielding will be the negative & the thin wire in the middle is the center pin/positive...More expensive & "twisted pair" RCA cables will have 2 thin wires inside & just have a shielding that isn't connected to the outer ring... If you have a multimeter, set it to continuity to see which wire inside corresponds to which on the RCA, whether center pin or outer ring).


These are the wire colors of the amplifier inputs...

Yellow is positive (the center pin on the RCA) and Yellow/Violet is negative (outer ring on RCA)

Blue is positive (the center pin on the RCA) and Blue/Brown is negative (outer ring on RCA)

Once you have all of these hooked up, tape up the unused / cut wires on the "deck side" , & plug your new deck in.

Next: guess & test method.. (since I can't remember which wire pair is which speaker input on the amp)

Hook up the newly soldered RCA's to your new deck ONE AT A TIME...With the deck on & playing some music.

Fade your Kenwood to front left, & plug in the RCA cables to the Front left output until you get sound... Then you have found the correct one.
Fade to Front right, & repeat the above.

For the sub channels, do the same.

This way you will be able to hook up the correct RCA's to the deck for the left front, right front, & non-fading/sub outputs..


And that's all there is to it.

If your new deck has High-pass & low-pass filters, you can play with these to acheive the sound you like.

50Hz (up to say 100Hz) for High pass for the front speakers should be enough "bass kill" to allow you to turn up the volume more.

Low-pass on the Sub output (might say Non-Fading or NF) will depend on the music you listen to... If you listen to classical, jazz, etc. then 80Hz to 150Hz should work.
If you listen to rap , r&b, soul, blues,etc... you will probably want the low-pass between 50Hz to 80Hz so you get the smooth deeper low bass more pronounced.

So basically, the speaker outputs from the deck will be disconnected, & you will only be using the RCA cables.

Hope that helps.... Feel free to message me if you have more questions.