I have a feeling my amp is dead. Wiring harness I hooked up had an amp bypass built in, and it worked a lot better with that. Is it worth it to drop an aftermarket amp in? Or should I try to find a new factory one?

 

Before changing the radio, did you have sound issues similar to what you have now?


You added an aftermarket radio and then the sound got bad? What year is your Monte? I believe some years use an "amp power on" wire and others, I am not sure how the amp turns on.
Also, where did you install the amp bypass?

 

Sound was bad before as well, figured it was the power problem with the amp. Had the same problem previously, the wire had split underneath the interior. Had fixed that before, figured I'd wait to mess with it until I threw a new radio in. Turns out there wasn't an issue with that wire, but still sounded like the amp was dead. There was a way to bypass it with the wiring harness for the radio, so I tried it there.

 

Something I can tell you, if the amp bypass did not get installed in the trunk, I am doubting the amp was truly bypassed.
From all the reading I've done on the factory audio for my 2004, which is to my knowledge identical for 00-05, the audio from the head unit for left/right front and left/right rear that comes out of the head unit goes to the amp in the back of the car. To by pass the amp, you would need to unplug the two connectors from the amp and plug something in to jumper the wires from the head unit to go directly to the speakers.


Also, can you define what you mean by it sounds bad? Such as, is value tough to hear, distortion, crackling, popping? Depending on the sound issues, it might not be the amp, could be the speakers.


Just a few thoughts. Hope it helps.

 

I'm not sure if it actually bypassed the amp. There were 2 different ports though. One labeled "Factory Amplified" and one labeled "Non factory amplified." When it used the Non Factory Amplified port, it sounded ok, but not normal. Sounded like it wasn't using the amp. When I used the Factory Amplified port, it sounded like no bass was coming from any speaker. The little bass there was, was absolutely blown out. Occasionally something would kick in, and it would sound perfect, exactly like it should when everything is working correctly.

I did take apart my amp last night, and everything seemed fine on the inside. I think you might be right about the amp being fine, I just don't know where to go from here. Maybe try to test power at the amp?

 

Well I threw a new amp in there. Got an OEM out of an Impala, same thing. Audio in the Impala worked fine, but it still sounds blown out in my Monte. I just have no clue where to go from here.

 

What year Monte do you have? In the 2000-2005 Monte, there are at least two different amps. One of the amps has a wire specifically marked as an activation wire. This means the factory radio sent a small amount of power to that connection, it basically triggered a relay to activate the amp to power on. For the other amp, I am not sure how it turns on (it may just have a "sleep" mode).

I wonder if your radio is not activating the amp, resulting in your bad audio. I might be able to scrape up some more data once I know the year you have.

 

I have an 04. If it is this wire, that would be a hell of a lot easier then I had hoped, and cheaper too.

 

OK, I did a brief look up on the 04 (I should know more of this off the top of my head as I have been researching it a bunch the past couple of years for mine).

Per the shop book:
On the radio connector in the dash, this is controlled by pin B3, which is a white wire. Do you have anything connecting to that wire from your aftermarket radio?

 

Well, I didn't mess with the original wiring harness at all, so I have no clue. I used the PAC RP5 GM11 kit, which is for the most part just plug and play (besides like 7 wires from the radio to the box, so nothing from the factory harness). I'll tear down my dash in a few hours to check. It also could be a similar problem to that dumb orange wire that always splits in the wiring harness. I bet you the white wire is split somewhere under my interior, so I'll take a look at that too.

On the bright side, if it wasn't my amp, I'll have one for sale on here for dirt cheap pretty soon.