Thread: 'Bout to Replace Stock HU with This: Will I Be Disappoint?

Originally Posted by Bronco Boy

Cut it or disconnect it.

2000 Pontiac Grand Prix Car Stereo Wiring Guide
Car Radio Illumination Wire: Brown

Excellent! Thank you!

I haven't gotten the speakers in yet, the time of year and being the primary for our four year old has gotten in the way. Hopefully soon!

Wow, so I finally got time to install the front speakers and tweeters the other day (after multiple sicknesses in the household, thanks to the pre school kids' parents who send them to school sick!).

What an amazing difference! I thought I'd put speakers in this car but I must be thinking of my Formula. I took the door panels off and what a nasty mess of wiring it was.

The previous owner was a mechanic who worked for Toyota, not sure if he did this wiring or what but it was a hodge podge of epic proportions as you can see in the pix below. I did everything up proper.

I had an intermittent speaker going out issue on the drivers' side since the weather got cold and traced it to a really terrible soldering job on a couple of wires (which were connected in a redundant fashion that would makes sense only to an insane person).

So anyhow, the stereo sounds amazing now- I mean phenomenal compared to how it ever sounded since I bought the car. I haven't had time to do the rears yet and I can hear them struggling with the stereo in contrast with the new speakers that are just doing an amazing job.

Oddly, the speakers in the lower door were only rated to 35 watts and weren't actually blown just seem to have been straining.

I'd like to add an under seat subwoofer next, we'll have to see how money goes, damn kids are expensive!

Oh, and I put LED bulbs in the door panel lights while I had them off- damn that's a nice difference. I have bulbs for the rest of the interior as well, looking forward to getting time to get them all installed

Originally Posted by nox

That doesn't look like the stock speaker to me, not sure where it is from. A good aftermarket head unit can put out 40+ a channel so it would explain why they sounded bad. How was wiring the tweeter? Can be a pain to feed it down imo.

Also, remember if the speaker you bought is a coaxial the lower speaker will have a tweeter as well.

Sent from my ASUS_Z00TD using Tapatalk

Hmm, not sure how to tell if it's got a tweeter. I had no issues with feeding the wires for the upper door tweeters, it was very straightforward.

Is it less desirable if the lower door speaker includes a tweeter or more? I'm no audiophile, but to my ear this is the clearest and best sounding setup I've had in a car. Once I put the 400 watt 6 by 9's in the back I'll be able to really tell how good it sounds. Looking forward to getting a few minutes this weekend perhaps to do those

Metra is an aftermarket brand, so the speaker have been replaced before.

Originally Posted by Bronco Boy

Metra is an aftermarket brand, so the speaker have been replaced before.

I figured, based on the hacked up wiring. There was just no reason for the hack job that was done. It would have been super simple to splice in the new speakers, no need for the mess of crap I found.

I had time to do the rear speakers today and man it made a huge difference. The sound is perfect, at least for me. I'm amazed at what an inexpensive stereo like mine can make such power, clearly leaps and bounds above the stock setup.

Also put in an LED for the license plate bulb and for the footwell bulbs and a new set of LED's for the cluster in red and man are they bright!

I cut the wire for the dimming of the stereo to match the LEDs' but now I want to prevent the DIC and HVAC controls from dimming. Would love to make them LEDs as well, it makes such a huge difference.

Originally Posted by Bronco Boy

Cut it or disconnect it.

2000 Pontiac Grand Prix Car Stereo Wiring Guide
Car Radio Illumination Wire: Brown

For reference, it's a brown wire with a white stripe.

So here's a few shots of the interior with LED's and the lights on at night with the brown with white stripe wire (illumination) cut. I like it a lot.







The LED interior lights make a huge difference as well