After market amp with factory subwoofer & wiring harness
OK, so I went ahead and bought the factory sub thinking that I could just connect it and no worries. Alas, there is no signal (or too weak) to do that job. I had about given up on getting any help from my dealer on the subject. I could not trace the sub wires back to the audio amp upfront, so I just installed a small Pioneer 200W amp to run off a mono signal feed from the L&R rear speakers so it will work with the fade and tone controls. Didn't need to spend any more cash as I was not redoing the whoe rear system - much as I ewsa tempted to in reading these audio threads on the forum.
Sub amp rolls the signal out at 200 cycles and I have the gain way down so that it blends well with the wizzer 6x9’s. Was able to tap the power right off the rear battery and fuse block and mount it on a carpet board to ride on top of the spare under the truck flooring so that there are no wires or amps in the trunk spce at all. Sounds good after setting the right level for the input gain to the amp (about 25% of total gain range). Only thing I can think of is that I might want to install a low by-pass filter across the 2 rear 6x9’s to ease their low end excursion now that I have the sub to do it. That and put some damping sheets under the rear deck if it comes “alive” after a few weeks and start to resonate with the sub kicking now.
I am a little tweaked looking at the hi-end Boston component car speakers that were available in the audio shop as compared to the wizzers I have on my SGII option. Priced out they are about the same, but the separates in the store were of much better quality. Didn’t want to mess with the overall sound balance and blending that the SGII provides, so I’m considering myself lucky and calling it quits with what I have now. Thankfully the whole system still has the nice imaging (even with the center 3.5"), just a little more punch and oomph when needed. I'll let the car turn heads at traffic lights and not booming sounds coming from out of its trunk.
Thanks for the solid advice from everyone in this thread and the others as well As the FAQs on the 300c audio system.