JBL sound system compatibility

[FarmerPug]

My car has the JBL system in it, and id like to ask what is so good about it, obviously i can tell that the sound quality is much clearer than other cars i have been in, but why is this. More importantly if i change the headunit in my car to a radio out of another 406 will the sound system still work as well?

[Welly]

Did you know that there is an amplifier buried behind the right-hand side boot carpet? this is why the sound and bass are good. I found mine by accident

The JBL speakers on the rear shelf are not to be sniffed at although some connoisseurs of sound will disagree they are certainly 'very good' when put next to other car's standard set ups.

[FarmerPug]

i know about the amp in the boot i stumbled across it when putting in the parking sensors, but what im intersted in is wheather or not another radio from a 406 not equipped with the jbl system will still be able to work with it correclty, and what do you mean about sniffing at the rear parcel shelf speakers

[Captain Jack]

No, it won't work due to output levels being different. A JBL amp is fed from the radio using pre-amp/line level outputs from the "speaker" socket, whereas on a non-JBL radio, the output is speaker level. You'd blow your speakers (and your ears) if you fed the JBL amp with speaker level signal!

[ianjoh]

However, there are devises on the market that can reduce the signal level from speaker to line level, they usually contain a tranformer that reduces common mode noise such as hum and whine from various electrical items. Where there is hope a solution can be found

[mjb]

I found that I got unacceptable hiss and ground loop noise when using my JVC head unit's line outputs to feed my coupé's JBL setup, but my new JVC AVX33 (i think) can be setup to severely drop the levels coming out of the speaker outputs, so I do it that way

[FarmerPug]

how can i drop the level coming out of the new radio, its still a peugeot clarion one, but just not one thats come from an exec

[mjb]

how can i drop the level coming out of the new radio, its still a peugeot clarion one, but just not one thats come from an exec

Buy one that came from an exec, use line level converters, bypass the internal amp with a bit of soldering, or buy an aftermarket head unit that has the ability to drop its speaker level output

[FarmerPug]

would any in line converter work with this cd unit