Simple Upgrade Sounds Worse?

Hey there, I have this 03 Ram quadcab pick-up and
some time ago I planed a complete audio revamp but was so impressed with the Satellite sound quality I scaled back. Stock wasn't too bad for me as I am no audio buff but wanted just a tad more.

I added these:

Infinity 3.5's to the dash locations that were empty. I piggy backed the feed wires from the stock HU front channel and rather than having the HU power the front doors also I instead added one of these:

a Pioneer GMX374 amp that is rated for 35Wx4 at 4 ohms. The HU inputs to the dash 3.5's and the amp.
The amp outputs to the stock door speakers.

What bugs me about this is that while it will play more loud the sound quality is not as good as it was stock with no amp or dash speakers. It doesn't sound as clear and seems to have more rumble in the base. I don't listen with it turned way up either.

Is it possible that the amp at only 35W per chanel is now overpowering the stock speakers making them sound bad or do I have some other trouble?
I double-checked all connections and polarity- all is good there.

My next upgrade may be these:

Infinity 6x9's for the front doors and these:

Infinity 6.5's for the rears.

I want to keep the factory door speaker wire and would rather not use components due to the added installation stuff. I do it all myself.

Any thoughts good or bad on the direction im headed?

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Matt

I would make sure there is not a factory amp that is causing some problems. Did you run the Pioneer amp up to the deck to conect to the speakers, or did you go directly to the speakers? I am not to familiar with this vehicle yet but i would make sure there is not an amp, crosover, or somthing between the amp and the speakers.    Good Luck

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Wyoming 12volt Enthusiast

Does this truck have the Infinity sound system? If it does, you are amplifing an amplified speaker = sound's like crap.

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Top Secret, I can tell you but then my wife will kill me.

JakeJ] wrote:

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I would make sure there is not a factory amp that is causing some problems. Did you run the Pioneer amp up to the deck to conect to the speakers, or did you go directly to the speakers?

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I ran the amp up to the deck so it then outputs to the speakers from the factory harness. There is no factory amp other than the power from the HU which I don't know the power output of.

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Matt

forbidden wrote:

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Does this truck have the Infinity sound system?

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No it does not. The infinity system uses 6 speakers and has an amp behind the glove box. This one is just 4 speakers and no factory amp.

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Matt

Today I installed capacitors/base blockers on the 3.5's and then turned down the gain on the rear doors and even more down on the front doors till I got a nice even sound mix from all 6 speakers.

Sound quality is now much better than stock so it just needed a little fine tuning. Next upgrade will be to change out the door speakers.

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Matt