Car Stereos: car stereo, crutch field, sony cdx

Question
hi i have a 1999 lincoln continental and i just installed an aftermarket radio (sony cdx-gt640ui) from crutch field. when i first hooked it up the radio sounded great but upon lookin at the stock one i reallized that i might have missed the plug for the stock amp. so i pulled the radio out and noticed that the connector with all of the amp wires was no connected. so i tryed to conected it and found out that one prong was bent so i strightend it out with plyers. how ever since my battery was not disconected i made a zap noise and a blue spark. anyways i got it connected finally but when i pluged it in the sound was extremely worse. i tried changeing all of the settings on the radio like low mids and highs but that just made it a little better. the door speakers sound muffled and the bass speakers are putting out a TON of bass but im fine with that it just seems wierd how the door speakers went from sounding great to sounding muffled. so my question is  is did i screw up the radio trying to unbend the prong or is there another problem  i'd appreciate any help u can give thanks, jon

Answer
Hi Jon,

You might be dealing with the fact that the OEM deck was just a lineout type connection over small wires, and the amplifier was amplifying that, and now, the high level output on your aftermarket deck is being used on an input expecting low level input.

Short answer: make sure you got all of the equipment Crutchfield would have suggested, including any factory amp integration kits and harnesses, and make sure everything is hooked up according to their instructions.

Justin