Hey what’s up guys I’m new to this LS form and I’m not sure if I’m even posting in the right place, I need help/info on the monsoon system I have a 2000 Camaro SST top that came with the factory monsoon system, the The previous owner replace the head unit the door speakers the seal panel speakers and a hatch speakers, he also had a standalone amp and a 10 inch subwoofer in the hatch, I pulled the standalone amp and the subwoofer because it killed the battery and alternator, and the head unit installed was faulty so I replaced it with a pioneer head unit End it sounds like crap, I remember back in the day the monsoon system was fairly decent I’m not too big on big stereos I would just like to know if the monsoon amp was bypassed and how to get it back to factory and figure out a good set of speakers to replace in the doors/seal panel/hatch I heard some good things about kee audio on here and I was wondering what Would be the best option to go with because he offer several different levels any info or help would be appreciated I attached some pictures below thanks again


The first picture is of the speakers that are in the hatch, the wires that are in the hatch don’t make sense they are a green and gray wire on the Drivers side with a connector that wasn’t connected to anything and on the passenger side Black and purple wires and another Connector that wasn’t connected to anything The seal panel speakers I’m not even sure if they are subs which I know the factory ones were subs and the pictures of the amp was the best I could’ve gotten I don’t know if it is bypassed and if I’m not mistaken the hatch speakers were also supposed to have tweeters, again any help and info would be highly appreciated I would love to get it back to factory but slightly better, Something that would be clearer/louder/more bass

 

Since I just worked on this issue on my 2000 Trans Am, I'm going to try to explain a few things, and hope I can help you some. I'll start first by saying I thought I had problems to deal with! It looks like you really have some issues to deal with there. What I did was go back to the factory system 100% with a level III speaker package from Kee audio. I cannot say enough about Ian Kee and how well the speakers he sells were matched for the Monsoon system. If you're using the factory system. I also installed a USA Spec adapter so that the factory Monsoon head unit can function as if it has an aux input, and also directly control my iPod. As Ian promised on his website, I can turn the volume **** up to 95% now without distortion! I must say the unit sounds much better when it's being fed from the iPod then when it is being fed from the radio itself. But the radio still sounds 100% better. While not the same as a 10" sub in the trunk, the two sail panel subs do provide the best base I've personally ever had in any stereo!

I'm going to say that those twisted wires to me look like they are not remotely factory. That purple and black is not factory and a green and black is not factory. Someone else can correct me if I'm not right about this, I believe the factory wires for the sail panel subs would be two red wires and two black wires on each side of the car they have a dual voice coil so you're looking for two red wires and two black wires for the subs, 4 total for each sub. So what I see from your pictures it looks like they took the tweeter out of the back hatch area and used a coaxial speaker that has a tweeter mounted in the speaker and it looks like they took the subs out from where the sail panels are and put regular coaxial speakers in there and connected them with those gray and green wires.

The first thing I would think you would want to do is talk to whitebird and Ian Kee, show them some of these pictures and see if you can figure out if the amp has been bypassed. You need to figure out how much they modified the factory wiring, or if you're lucky, they just disconnected the factory wires and ran their own wires. The factory wires may still be in there un-butchered. From what I'm seeing it looks like the amp is still there I think you would be looking for a harness that would be jumpering it out those bypassing it. Such harnesses that bypass the amp are usually only 1-2' long.

But again I would console see if you can consult whitebird and Ian Kee, I strongly recommend a level III speaker package, you could also consider the level one or level two packages. I also strongly recommend that you look at whitebird's sticky on the monsoon system description and start looking at connectors C1, C2, and C3 and see what the wire colors are there and look for pictures of what the wire colors should be to the factory speakers at the speakers themselves, and also inspect the wires closely at the head unit connector. If I can get it with the installer who installed my speakers two weeks ago, I believe that he has a bunch of pictures that would be helpful, I'm going to try to get with him in the next couple weeks. Let me know your thoughts!

 

From what I can see, it doesn't look like the factory amp is bypassed at the connector at the amp, but they may have bypassed it somewhere else. It's common for installers to thing it's a good idea to replaced the sail panel subs with coaxials and sometimes they bring the wires from the hatch speakers up to drive coaxials in the sail panel speaker area.

 

thanks for all the info I’m definitely gonna look into the level III system, and try to trace back all the wires and put them back to factory or slightly better, thanks in advance for any future info or pics

 

A couple of small corrections to k3000's post... he has a Firebird which is wired somewhat differently than your Camaro. Camaros have single voice coil subs in the sail panels so you will only find a single wire pair in each panel. This is different from the dual voice coil subs used in Firebirds (which is why there are two pairs of wires on each side for them).

Another difference is that Firebirds have two speakers in the hatch area - a 4" mid and a separate tweeter - but Camaros have only a single 4" speaker there. So the speaker you show mounted there is actually appropriate for your car. As mentioned, the twisted pairs (green and black, and purple and black) are not factory but those colors match the standard for aftermarket wiring of rear speakers. It appears that the wiring was done by a professional installer (although one who didn't know the Monsoon system) which is a good sign that the factory wiring is undamaged and just needs to be reconnected.

You can see in the photos that the original hatch speaker connectors are still intact (the extra connector in the last photo is for the optional factory CD changer) and that the Monsoon amp and its connector are also still intact. This leads me to believe that you will find that the speakers were wired directly from the head unit and that, hopefully, the wiring behind the head unit is mostly undamaged. If that is the case then all you need to do to go back to using the Monsoon system is install a proper wiring harness adapter to your Pioneer head unit (about $10) and plug it into the factory connector. Then replace the sail panel speakers with proper 6.5" subs and plug all of your speakers back into the factory connectors which were probably left hanging loose much like in the hatch area.

Replacing the door speakers as well as the sail panel speakers will give you a much better sounding system with more power than you currently have just using the head unit alone. Kee Audio is a great place to get appropriate replacement speakers.