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Old 02-25-2020, 08:33 AM   #1
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New Wall Mount Radio

I have a new TT and it has the small wall mount Jensen JWM20 model, has no DVD/CD player. Cheaper $88 replacement if it was broken. I would like to change this out to something with a DVD/CD player and puts out a little more amps to hear it without needing to turn the volume up to 55.
Does anyone have any recommendations? If so would I need to change out the speakers inside and outside? I was looking at the Jensen JWM60 series..
Todd.
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Old 03-01-2020, 04:19 PM   #2
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Unless you have space to put a wider unit in, you may be stuck with what you have. All is not lost, however. It does have a AV input on the rear of the unit, so you could certainly use that audio input to feed sound from a seperate dvd player, if you have a spot to tuck it away. If space is tight, I would suggest possibly attaching a cable to the audio input on the rear of the unit, and leaving the end of the cable possibly wrapped up inside a cabinet or something similar, so you can access it when you need to connect a portable dvd player or the like.
As far as how loud it plays, well, that unit specs at an anemic 6 watts x 4 channels into 4 or 8 ohm speakers. if your built in speakers are 8 ohm or higher, swapping them out to 4 ohm speakers would increase your volume slightly. (the back of the speaker will be marked in ohms, or you could test the speaker leads with a multimeter to find your impedance in ohms)
worst case scenario would be purchasing a plate amplifier, or something of the sort to boost your wattage.
I had a similar situation with my weak unit in my TT, but I resorted to what I know best, which happens to be Car Audio, and replaced it with a Car stereo with DVD player in a custom made bracket, and a power inverter to go from 110v to 12v to power it.
Hopefully I gave you an Idea or 2, or at the very least got your creative juices flowing. If I can answer any questions, or help out in any way, drop me a message.
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Old 03-02-2020, 07:40 AM   #3
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Car radio

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Originally Posted by Rrizz View Post
Unless you have space to put a wider unit in, you may be stuck with what you have. All is not lost, however. It does have a AV input on the rear of the unit, so you could certainly use that audio input to feed sound from a seperate dvd player, if you have a spot to tuck it away. If space is tight, I would suggest possibly attaching a cable to the audio input on the rear of the unit, and leaving the end of the cable possibly wrapped up inside a cabinet or something similar, so you can access it when you need to connect a portable dvd player or the like.
As far as how loud it plays, well, that unit specs at an anemic 6 watts x 4 channels into 4 or 8 ohm speakers. if your built in speakers are 8 ohm or higher, swapping them out to 4 ohm speakers would increase your volume slightly. (the back of the speaker will be marked in ohms, or you could test the speaker leads with a multimeter to find your impedance in ohms)
worst case scenario would be purchasing a plate amplifier, or something of the sort to boost your wattage.
I had a similar situation with my weak unit in my TT, but I resorted to what I know best, which happens to be Car Audio, and replaced it with a Car stereo with DVD player in a custom made bracket, and a power inverter to go from 110v to 12v to power it.
Hopefully I gave you an Idea or 2, or at the very least got your creative juices flowing. If I can answer any questions, or help out in any way, drop me a message.
I have an older travel trailer that has a really big radio, so at least 2 din, but has a cassette player. I have been thinking about replacing with a car radio with at least an audio port, maybe bluetooth and dvd. I am totally clueless however. I have plenty of space. Wouldn't the existing radio already be 12v? Can you give me an idea of what else I would need to know, or where to seek help? Don't want to go to my rv shop as they charge $170/hr.
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Old 03-02-2020, 01:30 PM   #4
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I have talked to a couple of car audio places here in town. they are telling me that most of what they deal with is all 12 volt and its pretty simple just picking out what i would want such as DVD, bluetooth, etc. they have told me chances are i'd have to change the speakers out too. I have plenty of space on the wall just don't know what behind the existing radio to see if there are bracing etc in the way. And getting the trailer there on a busy day and small parking lots is my biggest problem right now.
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Old 03-02-2020, 01:40 PM   #5
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Speakers

Why would you need to change out the speakers?
My speakers are in the ceiling in all four corners of the living room and in the bedroom. One of the main reasons I want at least an audio connection would be to take advantage of the surround sound.
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Old 03-02-2020, 02:31 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Wtlucas View Post
I have talked to a couple of car audio places here in town. they are telling me that most of what they deal with is all 12 volt and its pretty simple just picking out what i would want such as DVD, bluetooth, etc. they have told me chances are i'd have to change the speakers out too. I have plenty of space on the wall just don't know what behind the existing radio to see if there are bracing etc in the way. And getting the trailer there on a busy day and small parking lots is my biggest problem right now.
Its not likely you would need to change the speakers. Every car stereo made is designed to play into a 4 ohm load. Most likely, your Rv speakers are also 4 ohm. Speakers for the home are typically 8 ohm. In the unlikely event your RV speakers are 8ohm, a stereo rated to play at 4 ohm will effortlessly play into anything at or ABOVE 4ohm. You may notice a slight drop in volume between a 4 and 8 ohm load, however.
best thing to do would be remove one of the speakers, and read the rating on the back of the magnet. I can tell you with 99% certainty they are 4 or 8 ohm speakers, and will be perfectly fine with what you put in.
If you can pull the stereo and check your backspace, a typical Double Din unit can be around 6 to 7" in depth. If you are comfortable trimming the opening, the rest is easy. See my followup post to Dallas on where to go from there.
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Old 03-02-2020, 02:49 PM   #7
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I would assume that the current car audios systems put out much higher wattage per channel that older units especially those in RV's. I believe 4 ohms v. 8 ohms is not the factor. That said I suspect the dealer doesn't want to pop undersized speakers with a KickA$$ stereo that is producing 100's of watts per channel.
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Old 03-02-2020, 02:57 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by Dallasrules View Post
I have an older travel trailer that has a really big radio, so at least 2 din, but has a cassette player. I have been thinking about replacing with a car radio with at least an audio port, maybe bluetooth and dvd. I am totally clueless however. I have plenty of space. Wouldn't the existing radio already be 12v? Can you give me an idea of what else I would need to know, or where to seek help? Don't want to go to my rv shop as they charge $170/hr.
A standard Double Din unit is 4" x 7". Lets start there.
Whether or not it is a 12v or a 110v depends. My old unit was a 110v, and would not play unless I was on shore power. If yours will play when NOT on shore power, it may be a 12v unit. I simply bought a step-down adapter to convert 110v to 12v.

Like Lucas, above, you will need to confirm that you have the backspace to change your stereo to a car stereo system. I would guess that because it is a cassette, you likely will.
The hardest part of your task is determining which wire coming in are your power, ground, and each of your speaker pairs. (obviously each speaker has a positive and a negative) 4 speakers, 8 wires. Once you have your speaker leads seperated, you need to figure out which speakers the pair goes to. If you do not have seperate switches for the outside speakers, it would be wise to wire them in so you can turn them on or off with the fader in the new unit.
You can figure out where they go with a multimeter, or a 9 volt battery, or like i did, by simply connecting them one at a time while the radio was on to see which speaker was playing. I then labeled each pair for future reference.

Car stereo wires are identical from every manufacturer.
Black is ground
Red is 12v switched power
Yellow is 12v constant power (in our case, we will tie the red and yellow both to the power input wire.)

Speaker wires are as follows:
Front
white/white with black stripe
gray/gray with black stripe
Rear
purple/purple with black stripe
green/green with black stripe
Depending on the unit you buy, there will be other wires we will not use on the new stereo. they will be
Pink
Blue
Orange
Those will get taped off.
If you have more than 4 speakers to connect, we can wire them a specific way to make use of them all, but we can get into that later. Just know that it is possible.
Another item you may need would be an antenna adapter. this depends on the type of antenna your system currently uses.
Mine was located near the antenna hookup for the TV, so I spliced into that. I simply bought an antenna extension cable, cut it to the length I needed, and put a coax connector on it, screwed it into the wall socket behind the tv.

Honestly, If you're the slightest bit handy, its not a difficult task.
Ill be here to help in any way I can, or answer any questions I can.
Note that I have been installing car stereo equipt for almost 40 years!
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Old 03-02-2020, 03:03 PM   #9
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I would assume that the current car audios systems put out much higher wattage per channel that older units especially those in RV's. I believe 4 ohms v. 8 ohms is not the factor. That said I suspect the dealer doesn't want to pop undersized speakers with a KickA$$ stereo that is producing 100's of watts per channel.
The majority of Car stereos on the market today will produce between 15-25 watts per channel. You will be fine. Only when you get into adding amplifiers will you see those higher numbers.
As a rule, to double your volume will require 10 times your current wattage.
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Old 03-02-2020, 08:21 PM   #10
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Thanks for the info. I am a big dyi'er, so it doesn't sound too difficult. I am putting down flooring and doing a little rewiring now. When I get that finished. I will pull the radio and see what's there. In the mean time, I will keep an eye out for a replacement. I will send you a message with questions when I get there.
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Old 03-03-2020, 03:59 AM   #11
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I happened to be browsing on etrailer.com last night. seems they have a few nice looking 12v Rv stereos over there, and at decent prices, too.
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Old 03-03-2020, 07:31 AM   #12
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I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about the subject.
So it is really great to see somebody post such a complete informative set of instructions.
Thanks Rrizz.
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Old 03-23-2020, 09:02 PM   #13
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Thanks Rrizz for all of the information. I bought an irv34 off of ebay. It was a store return and I paid $125. From what I can tell that is about 1/2 retail. I installed it today all by myself. I am so proud. I matched things up from the wiring diagram on the backs of the old and new unit. I also dad to modify my opening a bit. I test played some music from my phone with bluetooth, and played a dvd on my tv with an hdmi cable connection. Everything works great.

I would have never had the confidence to tackle this without your posts. Thanks again.
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Old 03-24-2020, 05:26 AM   #14
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Thanks Rrizz for all of the information. I bought an irv34 off of ebay. It was a store return and I paid $125. From what I can tell that is about 1/2 retail. I installed it today all by myself. I am so proud. I matched things up from the wiring diagram on the backs of the old and new unit. I also dad to modify my opening a bit. I test played some music from my phone with bluetooth, and played a dvd on my tv with an hdmi cable connection. Everything works great.

I would have never had the confidence to tackle this without your posts. Thanks again.
Well, thats great to hear. Theres a good deal of satisfaction knowing you tackled a project on your own, and saved a few $$ in the process. Enjoy. And post a pic so we can all check it out!
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