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Just add my dumb two cents.....My camaro has a monsoon system. The head unit was a cassette and it had a changer in the back. It sounded like only some of the speakers worked and the changer didnt work. I removed it and i put the new HU I took out of my S-10 nineteen yrs ago and plugged it in,all speakers work now and I'm happy so far. My car sit out side sometimes and thieves dont want your stock stuff.
Alright guys, I had the fun of upgrading speakers on my girlfriend's 2002 Firebird with a Monsoon system today, and I wanted to share my findings with everyone else. Typically, what I've heard everyone say is that you either buy the specific speaker that works well with the amp, or you have to rewire from the headunit to the speaker so that you bypass the amp. The local major audio store that's in this area (Mickey Shore) told me to tap into the wires from the headunit so I could use the regular Infinity Reference series 6.5" speakers for the side/sail panel location. Using the wiring diagram found here, I tapped into those wires and then had to run new wire from the headunit to the side panels, which was very time consuming and required removing/unbolting interior panels to tuck wire behind them. When I wired the side speakers straight from the headunit to the speaker, bypassing the amp, the speaker sounded 100x better than the same speaker being powered by the amp (read the Monsoon amp for discussion on why). So, the decision was made to rewire the front door speakers too to effectively bypass the amp. The problem was running wire from the headunit to the speaker, having to go through that grommet that passes through to the inside of the door. Then it hit me,
THE EASY WAY TO BYPASS THE MONSOON AMPLIFIER FOR SPEAKER UPGRADES:
1. The Monsoon amp is located behind the spare wheel on the passenger side rear quarter panel. Remove the spair tire and equipment so you can easilly reach in and disconnect the large connector from the amp.
2. Once you have the connector unplugged, use the following wiring diagram for Camaro or Firebird and find out what wires come from the headunit and what wires go out to the speaker. Because I just did this for my girlfriend's 2002 Firebird, below I'll use an example of what wires to splice together. Basically, the idea is that you're literally taking the wire that was supposed to go into the amp and connecting it straight to the wire that was supposed to go from the amp to the speaker -- effectively bypassing the amp, and bypassing any needs for running new wires! My job rewiring and running new wires to the side panel speakers took 7 hours, whereas it only took me 1 hour to rewire the front speakers using the amp bypass approach.
2002 Firebird with Monsoon Amp Wiring Summary:
I only had to bypass the amp for the doorpanel speakers and the side/sail panel speakers. Here is the wiring I used:
E1 - Dark Green - Right Front Input (Negative) CONNECTS TO F6 - Dark Green - Right Front Speaker (Negative)
F1 - Light Green - Right Front Input (Positive) CONNECTS TO F7 - Orange - Right Front Speaker (Positive)
E2 - Grey - Left Front Input (Negative) CONNECTS TO E16 - Light Blue - Left Front Speaker (Negative)
E3 - Tan - Left Front Input (Positive) CONNECTS TO E15 - Dark Blue - Left Front Speaker (Positive)
E4 - Dark Blue - Right Rear Input (Positive) CONNECTS TO F14 - White - Right Rear Speaker (Positive)
E5 - Light Blue - Right Rear Input (Negative) CONNECTS TO F13 - Grey - Right Rear Speaker (Negative)
E6 - Yellow - Left Rear Input (Negative) CONNECTS TO F16 - Purple - Left Rear Speaker (Negative)
E7 - Brown - Left Rear Input (Positive) CONNECTS TO F15 - Red - Left Rear Speaker (Positive)
Using this idea, you'll have the front door speakers and the side/sail panel speakers bypassing the amp, while the stock tweeters and the stock subwoofer in the rear quarter panels are still powered by the amp. In my case, I just disconnected the crappy sounding "subwoofers" in the rear quarter panels and left it to be just a 4 speaker system with 2 additional tweeters in the front doors.
I hope this helps make life easier for you guys!
bypass monsoon amp
is there anyway to bypass the monsoon amp for a 2004 grand prix gt? And if so could you help me find out what wires to tap in to please
The simple answer is no, there is no way to do the same kind of bypass (just splicing wires at the amp connector) in the Grand Prix as there is with f-bodies. The reason is that f-body head units output speaker-level signal and the Monsoon amp merely adds more power. Grand Prix head units output pre-amp (line level) power so the Monsoon amp is the primary power source. You can't run speakers off the head unit without an external amp of some kind.
What wiring diagram? I just went back through this ancient thread post by post and could not find anywhere that had a schematic. All of the posts just refer to connector pin-outs.
Just did a Monsoon bypass on my 2002 Camaro. Given the age of the car I really wouldn't have an issue with splicing the wire harness but I'm a sucker for neat wiring so I decided to get an old Monsoon amp which are now a dime a dozen and use it for it's connector and housing. (keeping my original Monsoon amp just in case)
I de-soldered the connector from the amplifier and mounted it directly to the amplifier housing by drilling 2 holes in the housing and I used the mounting holes that already exist on the connector.
I then soldered on jumpers to power the front door speakers and rear hatch speakers from the JVC head unit I installed previously. I replaced the blown front speakers with standard 4OHM coaxial Sound Ordnance speakers that had good reviews for the price. I can always add a 4 channel amp later and some KEE Audio speakers to return to a bi-amp setup in the future if I want. I also added wires to provide power to a Soundstream amplifier and speaker outputs for the rear seat subwoofers.
I mounted the new amplifier to the Monsoon amp chassis. This made things nice and neat and allows everything to mount right where it did previously. Plus why not take advantage of the Aluminum cooling fins for heat dissipation. I added some heat sink compound to help transfer the heat.
Here she is before mounting to the car. I ran the RCA cable from the Sub out of the head unit as well as the remote wire.
And here it is all mounted up. I also ran front channel RCA cables in case I add that 4 channel amp later.
The Verdict: Bass is much improved using the new amp. Even though it is class D and 2 channel the new amp has significantly more weight to it than the 8 channel Monsoon. Your can really hear and literally feel the difference. The OEM speakers struggle to keep up so they may get replaced with some KEE Audio woofers in the future. It's hard to compare but I would say the rest of the system sounds at least as good as when the Monsoon amp was used. I imagine the JVC head unit is putting out similar power as the Monsoon since it was just using some 12V chip amps. I'm sure upgrading the Fronts with a 4 channel amp would be a nice improvement though. We'll see. This was for my daughter so it will be mostly up to her. Big plus is now I have complete control of the audio levels and HPF/LPF using the JVC head unit. Can really dial things in to the user's preference. I can easily return to a stock setup as well in minutes but I don't see that happening unless for some reason the car is sold.
This is great information! I have a Pioneer head unit and am still using the Monsoon amp. I've been debating on picking up a 4 channel amp (75W RMS) to replace the Monsoon amp to drive my doors and rears. I have a 10" sub driven by a 2 channel Pioneer amp - bridged mono.
With this info here - being able to jumper the connections to those 4 speakers I might just drive them off of the head unit. I'll try that before I slap an amp in there. Ultimately I could do a series/ parallel connection with the sub and the mid subs (Bazooka 6.5") and use the Pioneer amp - crossed over low pass.
Thanks for this info and to those who contributed to it!
Actually the Pioneer DEH-P8300UB is only outputting 22W rms, so I'm not even going to waste my time bypassing the Monsoon for it's speaker outs. Time for a 4 channel amp.
There were a few folks on this thread that didn't know what jumpers were .... here you go. I'm using a completely new amp so my amp output wires will be connected to the disconnected Monsoon's connector.
This is for one speaker. 3 more to go to get the rest.
For the geeks out there, I went with a Boss pv3700 5 channel amp. All tweeters are driven by my Pioneer head unit. There are 6 4v pre-outs running back to the amp. The front 2 Alpines will get 2 channels high pass around 80hz as well as the rear speakers (DS18s). Since I have no more channels, I'm going to run my Bazooka 4ohm 6" mid bass drivers (sail panels) in parallel with my 10" Audiobahn 4ohm sub. The sub out at the amp will see a 2.6 ohm load. I'll cross those over at 80hz low pass.
I will set everything with my Tektronix oscilloscope. Any thoughts about this setup?
For the geeks out there, I went with a Boss pv3700 5 channel amp. All tweeters are driven by my Pioneer head unit. There are 6 4v pre-outs running back to the amp. The front 2 Alpines will get 2 channels high pass around 80hz as well as the rear speakers (DS18s). Since I have no more channels, I'm going to run my Bazooka 4ohm 6" mid bass drivers (sail panels) in parallel with my 10" Audiobahn 4ohm sub. The sub out at the amp will see a 2.6 ohm load. I'll cross those over at 80hz low pass.
I will set everything with my Tektronix oscilloscope. Any thoughts about this setup?
This makes me curious... if you went to all the trouble of putting together what is obviously a better aftermarket system than the factory Monsoon, why bypass the Monsoon amp? Why not just unplug it? The tweeters in a Firebird are wired directly from the head unit with the connection splitting off from the harness well before reaching the Monsoon amp connection, and you have powered everything else with new wiring to your new amp.
I'm using the existing factory wires (outputs from the Monsoon) to each speaker. I'm not running new wires to speakers. I'm running short AMP outs to the patch into the unplugged Monsoon connector -for bypass. As you said, the head unit is driving the 4 tweeters - so nothing to be done there. Here is an "in progress pic"
Last edited by TA_Freak; 04-17-2023 at 10:41 AM.
Reason: Pic rotate
04-29-2016, 05:03 PM
