I recently traded my Mountaineer in and bought an 05 Durango with the Infinity Sound system, it only had the din & a half. I bought a new bezel and installed the D3. I also installed the PAC SWI-CAN & SWI-PS for the steering wheel controlled, which I installed and it works without issue, as well as my back-up camara. ** My problem is, I also installed the CHTO-01 (interface to make factory amp work) from Metra and it sounds HORRIBLE compared to the factory radio. ** Any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

dump the factory amp and get a couple decent pairs of speakers.

I concur

Thanks for the reply. I really don't want to replace the speakers and amp, but right now it looks like my only choice. Also, i noticed today that sometimes when I turn on my car, the sound from my radio dosn't turn on, but my screen is working and I can switch from radio, ipod, backup camara, nav, etc... just find, but if i turn the engine off to the ACC option, the radio will come on, and then stay on when I start the engine. I also noticed that the sound of the radio fades in and out slightly as well. I've tested all 8 speakers and they are all working correctly. I've installed several audio/video systems before, so I feel pretty confident in my wiring. I'd appreiciate any more thoughts. Thanks!

One more thing, the volume "beep" and navi voice guidance (i checked, both are turned up all the way) is very weak sounding, even with the volume on 40. Volume 40 on the D3 in the Durango is probably equivilent to volume 18 or so when I had it in my Mountaineer.

Hmmm. Maybe your amp interface is bad

Hmmm. Maybe your amp interface is bad

Thats what I'm starting to think as well, I'm going to call Metra's Tech support tomorrow, hopefully they can figure it out.

The Pioneer is 2.2 volts, correct? I'll try this tomorrow.

This may be the problem:

When using the CHTO-01 with a radio that has a high audio pre-out voltage,

usually greater than 2 volts, the audio signal may become distorted.

To resolve this follow these steps: (steps 1-6)

Link to document:

http://documents.victorytechnologies.com//documents/product/CHTO-01.pdf

id locate the factory amp and rewire the system.

if the navi and beep sound wierd then id guess the positives and negatives are switched somewhere along the lines.

a rewire on an ifinity system is pretty easy scince the amp is usually located in the dash. just run new speaker wires to the amp location and find the wire colors through any kind of net search. look under your dash for a square box im not sure where it is on a rango.

also the factory speakers in all 04 and up dodge/chrysler infinity/premium sound systems rock when givin power from a deck. usually 6/9s in the doors so "bass up front" is actually posible.

I just talked to Metra, and they said this is a common issue with Jeep/Chrysler products. He asked me to unplug the D3, plug the factory radio in, listen to it for 5-10 minutes, turn the vehicle off, disconnect the negative battery cable for 20 minutes, put the neg battery cable back on, plug the D3 in, and cycle the ignition two times (turn the key to acc) and then turn it all the way on. He said this will also fix my volume going up and down as well. I'll try it tonight and will reply with the results.

Your easiest solution is to bypass the factory amp, it should be in the passanger kickpanel with the input speaker leads on the top of the unit, and the output speaker wires on the bottom, just cut the wires off the top connector, and connect them to the wires on the bottom going directly to the speakers. just check 12volt.com for spkr wire colors in and out should be no problem, iv done it many times

bypassing the fact am will give you just as bad sound, not to mention the infinity speakers are 2 ohms and crossed over in the amp. if you can locate the potentiometer on the metra harness try tuning it with that. it should be a round knob recessed in the opening where wires come out. the battery and ignition thing just updates the harness to the can-bus system in the car when acc power doesnt work. if you spoke with andy from metra he could be very right about the battery and ignition he is usually dead on.

by the way i have a sweet fiberglassed box and amp rack for a 03-05 durango painted to match the factory black color. box is for 3 15" jbl gti series and 3 jbl 500.1 crown amps no equipment included it hit mid 150's and looks incredible with that setup. let me know if anyone is interested.

possible that interface is bad ..but probably install problem the distortion is an impedance mismatch between devices possibly...could try a different interface ...metra is great stuff you could try p.i.e. or pac ...sure you did great job but something got missed. recheck all and verify ..properly interfaced should sound great...stereo seperation wont be phenomenal but it will sound pretty darn good just interfaced my avalanche with eclipse deck and i had onstar and bose both to interface sounds great ...did swap oem tweeter for decent low wattage silk domes but sounds good .... it will probably be something small missed in install or replace interface and it should all come out great ... good luck

I did everything that metra said to do and it worked. I'm pretty sure it was the CHTO-01, as it has a turn dial on the inside of the unit that act's like a gain on an amplifer, perhaps that very well is a "gain" It sound's better than the factory stero did (which i mentioned above that i was pleased with it all stock). Thanks again for everyone's help.

I just caught this thread, I had the same problem with a Venture interface, and tech told me about the "initialize sequence". This is included int the instruction manual, now.