The Grand Cherokee comes standard with a variety of sound systems. The 2001 Grand Cherokee Limited I bought came with the best system, the Infinity system. This is truly a good system from the factory but as anyone who has ever compared factory audio sound quality and aftermarket sound quality there is no comparison. Factory systems, even the expensive Infinity Gold system with the 180 watt six channel power amplifier, leave much to be desired. For those who never turn there radio past 2, this article isn't for you, the greatest flaws of a factory system appear when stressed and the volume is up. This is when even the fancy and expensive 180 watt factory amp and Infinity speakers show their massive flaws. That is correct, they are massive flaws. Let's take a quick look at the 180 watt amp. It is a six channel amp and 180 watts is no doubt the peak, so that is probably only 10 to 15 watts of clean continuous power to each speaker. The S/N ratio isn't bad at all, but the frequency range response and total power is bad. Now to the Infinity speakers... the speakers are better than average from the factory but once again don't compare to Infinity's own line of aftermarket speakers. The factory speakers put put out a fair dose of bass but can't reproduce bass faithfully at even moderate levels so a sub is definitely in order.

We understand the shortcomings, now to make this a sound system to be proud of. I decided to keep the factory head unit and factory 10 disc changer. This allowed me to retain the handy steering wheel controls and eliminate the temptation of thieves looking for a fancy new headunit.

So here we have it, the three things that need to be upgraded:

Amplifiers

Speakers

Subwoofer