Upgrading 2001 Path Speakers

[zin1904]

I installed a Pioneer AVH8400 DD a couple weeks ago and noticed my speakers played extremely loud and I could not get the volume past 12 without getting distortion. If I turn down the volume below 7, the speakers aren't very loud. There isn't a very good range with this setup. After doing some research, I found that I actually had the factory bose system in and read something about adding an aftermarket HU gives out more power than the stock or something like that which cause my speakers' behavior. I then added this harness: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_142C4NN03/ ... apter.html. It was supposed to turn down the signal strength and I could adjust each speaker accordingly. So that did the trick, kind of. I now have full range of sound instead of just very loud or can't hear shhhhh. The speakers now sound really bad, I have to turn the volume up really high to get some good sound and just a tick higher than 31, the speakers start getting distorted. I've tried to adjust the gains on the harness but no good. I'm been really irritated about this. I've never had such nuisance with an upgrade before this.

I now want to upgrade all the speakers. I understand there are 2 amps for the fronts and 1 amp for the rear.
I want to use the factory wires.
My questions are:
1. Is there a way I can hook up the new speakers without having to use the factory amps or will I have to wire brand new wires throughout the vehicle from the speakers to HU? - I'm not looking to install a 4ch amp at this time.
2. Just use the existing wires/amps and continue to use the harness mentioned above? - this I don't really want to do because I feel the harness will just make my new speakers' quality go down.

This is the first time I've had to do an upgrade with factory amps. I normally just use the existing wires. And I really do not feel like wiring the whole vehicle because I am a bit OCD and what a normal 1-2hr job will take me 5+hrs for a "clean" setup. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Towncivilian]

The easiest way other than running your own speaker wiring to each door is to bypass the factory amplifiers. If you want to do this, I can tell you which wires to cut and connect to each other to achieve this. Replace the crappy Bose speakers and you'll be good to go after that.

[zin1904]

Oh yes please! That would seems like the route I wanted to go. Could you please let me know how to do this? It will be a good small project for this holiday weekend.

[Towncivilian]

Connect these wires together:

Front left: Purple & blue/yellow and light green & blue/green
Front right: Blue/red & blue/yellow and blue/green & blue/green
Rear amp: Pink & light green, blue & black/yellow (left) and light green & orange, purple & black/pink (right)

You can also remove the rear factory amp from the vehicle since you won't be needing it ever again.

You can see wiring diagrams starting on page EL-183 of the factory service manual.

[zin1904]

So after doing this I will be able to use the existing wires correct? And also will my tweeters stop working after this?

[Towncivilian]

Yes, you will not have to add any more wiring. Your tweeters will stop working, unfortunately.

[zin1904]

Well that's all good then. Thank you! I'll be doing it this weekend

[Towncivilian]

Great, good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

[ribasaurus]

I just did the wiring bypass to upgrade the HU to a Sony XAV-68BT.

No need to lose the tweeters. What I decided to do was to remove the bose amp and connect red to purple & yellow to green. You'll lose whatever low pass filter there was on the crossover on the bose amp, but I plan to upgrade the speakers at some point in the near future. This step was to get a better HU with better power and a screen for a backup camera. Still planning out the wiring for the camera.

Heres a pick of the wiring to replace the door speaker amp. :