Stupid stock radio speaker question.....

Hi gang,

Ok, the 1990 I got, had no radio, just bare wires sticking out. So, I pulled a nice Sony unit out of another one of my vechicles ( where it worked fine). Did a search on this forum, got the wire details.

I put it in, and it all works, but sounds like tons of distortion when I turn it up (above 30% volume). Sounds fine at low levels, but turn it up and it's bad! The stereo is only rated at 15w per side, so I don't think it is over powering. One thing I do notice, is the illumination on the front of the deck flickers and goes with the music when I turn it up. I thought maybe hooked up the illumination wire or mixed up the black wire from a speaker, but I think I got right.

So the question is, is it more like the speakers are blown, I screwed up the wiring, or???

Thanks in advance.
Bob

I was going to say it's possible the speakers are blown, but doubtful that all of them are bad. Because of the flicker it sounds like you have the wires mixed up. If need be, go back and check what each wire is for (trace it out), label them and then ensure they're connected properly.

If that doesn't work, I have a Pioneer MP3 CD deck with harness and all I'll sell to ya for cheap.

Shameless advertising aside, I'd agree with the above post. Chances are if the speakers are stock, one or more might be blown, but doubtful all of them are. I'd be more inclined to think you may have crossed a wire somewhere. For what it's worth, replace the crappy stock speakers anyhow...

Chances are that you do not have a good ground if the lights are flickering. Also, you may want to check to see that you have the constant and switched power lines hooked up correctly. The way to check that is to see if the clock resets itself when you turn the car off and on. It sounds like a ground problem to me.

you may want to check to see if your polarity is correct in othere words + to + , - to -
your speeks should push out if they are correct .
rite now it sound to me like that is the prob that is also why the lights dimm when turned up the head unit is trying to play at a loud volume insuffiently thus makeing the head unit work harder cousing the lights to dim
i hope this helps you

pitbull10 said:

you may want to check to see if your polarity is correct in othere words + to + , - to -
your speeks should push out if they are correct .
rite now it sound to me like that is the prob that is also why the lights dimm when turned up the head unit is trying to play at a loud volume insuffiently thus makeing the head unit work harder cousing the lights to dim
i hope this helps you

Click to expand...

While it's a good idea to ensure you wired things correctly, reversed polarity doesn't cause the problems the OP explained. And it doesn't cause excessive drain on the amp. Try it on your home stereo some time (if it's convenient). Reverse the polarity on all speakers and you'll notice it sounds the same. Reverse it on only one speaker and you'll notice it attenuates the low frequencies (cancelation).

head unit ampification is not known to be outstanding, chances are that the stock paper speakers, (that i assume you are using) do not have enough compression in the doors to keep them from fluttering and do what is called woofing, (the sound it makes), at the very least go to any car steroe store and get a fabric/rubber insert for the speaker that sits behind the speaker between the door and the speaker to create a chamber so that the low end won't flutter the speaker turning all sound to utter garbage. those 3.5 speakers aren't meant to compress the volume of air in the door, you need some type of resistance in order for the spl's to pick up. if not you will always have this issue as the head unit is not designed to supply more than 15 watts rms. that's seriously low, in reality it's more like 7-8 watts consistently. no way you will ever get totally clean low end from that.

i capped my front door speakers at 150 khz to keep the woofing out of the soundscape and rely on my sub to do the heavy hitting, try circuit city they run about 10.00 for a pair and come in different cross-over frequencies. minimum i would recommend to run the doors without crossing over is at least 25 rms (watts). otherwise it's like powering housespeakers with a walkman.

hope that helps...

I did check polarity on the rear speakers, and it appears correct. The speakers back there were Pioneer coaxial. Could that be the stock speakers?

The speaker are rated for "120 watts"!!!

Thanks,
Bob

underpowered head unit. get those speaker baskets i was talking about, they usually go for 20.00 or so at most stores. the dimming is due to draw on the unit, it's not meant to power 120 watt speakers, for every time you double the sound level you increase the power @ 10x's. 10w is half the power of 100 w. 15 w head unit, 120 w speaker.... you need a minimum of 25 watts rms (not peak) to even power the speakers with out distortion (from the amp unit) of dimming, the transformer in the head unit is not up to the task, cap the low end and that will free up some more power for the mids and highs, low end frequencies draw heavy power consumption.

the rule is, (in a extremely thin nutshell), 2x the power for every octave you drop starting from the top octave (20,000 khz for most people under 30) just to get the same volume. a standup bass would require @ 3 times the power for the same volume to recreate the sound volume that a violin had just played.

btw, reversing the polarity would only create an out of phase soundfield which has the strange ability to amplify some frequencies and cancel out others, especially in the environment of a vehicle, it is usually less noticable to the less than perfect shape of the vehicle. but usually only most noticable on the low end. phase cancellation would not dimm the head unit, thats a power issue. can't feed a fire engine with a garden hose.

how did you connect the wires... if the splicing is sloppy it could be making some resistance, just a thought...

Ok,

So, I got the manaul out of my 240z, and this Sony CA300 has specs as follows:

4x 45watts at 4 ohms. The front says 4x50, and I was only using two speakers in my Z, where it worked fine.

It sounds like someone replaced the speakers from the stock, and you are saying that the "load" is drawing more/greater than supply?

So either get a better stereo/amp or replace the speakers?

Bob

the ground is black and also one of the feeds for the front right speaker is black on my xj so make sure these are not corssed up.

When I replaced the shitty AIWA that someone put in, I got a Sony CDX-GT200. Granted, the beeping it makes when you turn off the ignition is annoying........but it's a good head unit, much better than the Aiwa!

Anyway, had to cut off the Aiwa plug that they soldered onto the factory harness. So solder, electric tape.....that's the best you can do!

Splicing the wires without cutting any of the fibers is also essential.

That's funny, I put a Sony GT300 in the Z, and put this sony in the Cherokee.

I did wrap all the wires, and checked the two black wires to make sure the ground was not the speaker ground.

I think I will pull a speaker, and test it in another car. At least that will be able to see if the speakers suck.

Bob

get some caps either 100 or 150 mhz probably 15- 20 bucks. that should reduce the draw that those speakers can't produce well anyway. if you want anything clear and low, get a separate amp and sub.

btw - this is after, of course you already have, checked your battery for corrosion and made sure that it was holding a good charge.:star:

Seriously, these recommendations to replace speakers, head unit, buy capacitors, subwoofers, amps, speaker baskets, etc are ridiculous at this stage.

Bob needs to fix first the problem. And it's quite apparent there's a problem that's most likely with the wiring. The OP already identified he has an aftermarket Sony head unit and aftermarket Pioneer coaxial speakers. There's always the chance the power supply in the Sony is bad, but check the more obvious things first.

I also have a Sony head unit. It's old by today's standards and it runs four stock speakers with no problems. It gets fairly loud, too. While anyone would certainly hear a marked improvement with a four-channel amp, it's not necessary and it certainly won't fix Bob's problem.

Bob, I suspect the power feed for your head unit is not correct. How did you determine which wire to use to supply voltage? Trace out the connections and see where they go. If you need, put a meter on the wires to read the voltage. As mentioned earlier, check your ground wires and make sure they are attached to good grounds (use a meter to determine, if necessary).

Well,

Today we got a bunch of snow & wind, so I was busy "playing Cherokee" in the fun stuff. Too much time playing and too cold for working on the stereo. Today was a great JEEP day.

I will " assume " that the Pioneer speakers are aftermarket, since no-one mentioned that they came stock in a 1990 jeep

As far as wiring, I used a link from the forum (Great info by the way):


http://snowboard247.blogspot.com/2005/05/1984-01-jeep-cherokee-xj-wiring-info.html

and it seems to be the right wires. I removed the back panel to check the speakers in the rear, to make sure I got it right. One poster mentioned the clock thing, and it is keeping time. The battery has 12V and I have tried it with the truck running and with it off, sound bad either way. I even took out the cd changer thinking it could be a issue.


As far as the ground, I did double check that, since there was two black wires.


Thanks for all suggetions.I have wired many of stereo, some with amps and other crazy things.... Will play again with it on Saturday.

Enjoy,
Bob:cheers:

The Pioneer speakers are not stock.

car audio is funky at times .
i could be wrong on what i was saying before but i had a vehical in my shop to night that was having the same prob.
his buddy put it in and it seemed to work just fine the pooof
he brought it in to my shop and i rewired his head unit and wala its all good.
electronics can be very wiered at times.
im not trying to start a your wrong or you rite battel but i have been in the car audio industry for 7 years as a installer and have seen some messed up crap ,things that i still to this day cant for the life of me really dont understand but hey as long as the prob is fixed and it does not come back its all good
home audio is vry sim but very dif .
with out seeing your vehical it is hard to say what it could be for sure.
i would just check over the hole thing and make sure you dont have any bare wire and that your polarity is corect.
you could also try a dif unit and see if it has the same prob.
or just hook up the prob unit to a batt and us a speaker that is laying around to test each channel of the head units amp .
i hope you get this figured out with all the info every one is able to give you.

I had a similar problem. I fixed it by running an additional ground wire from the chasis to the radio case. I connected the wire to the strap mounting bolt on the radio and an existing grounding screw behind the kick plate (driver side by fuse box).