DIY: Upgrading Sound System
Cd player, 4 speakers, and 4 channel amp.

Start by removing the stock head-unit. I had my stock casette deck. I also had an extra regular sony cd player which was not wired properly. There are two screws right above the little bridge on top of the casette deck, unscrew those. Then unscrew the 4 screws on each side of the center console that surrounds the shifter. Snap the circular frame from around the shifter up and off. If Automatic, insert your key and put your ebrake up, put the car in a gear further back from park so that pulling everything out is easier. Remove the center console trim. Continue to unscrew the 4 screws around the plastic frame of the casette deck's enclosure. Once you have those off, pull the casette deck out and unplug the cigarette lighter. Unscrew the casette deck from the rest of the enclosure by the screws on the top and sides of it. Once you have it pulled out, insert your new head unit and screw it in securely. Connect all the wires you will need for the connection to the amp and put the head-unit back into the console. I wont discuss wiring because that will take very long, but it's not all so hard. 12v constant, 12v switched, ground, remote line, pre amp outputs, and aux input (if you are connecting a changer). Once you have that in, proceed to the doors. There are 4 screws that hold the door panel in place. One is in the corner nearest to the mirrors, one is in the power door control buttons, one is in the pocket, and one is on the bottom towards the outside corner. Remove all those and life the door panel out. Do not yank it! Unplug all the plugs first and then remove it. Now you will see the stock speakers. Go ahead and unscrew them buggers out. Replace with new speakers and run wires through door (kind of difficult, but be patient), screw the speakers to the door, DRILL if you have to, it will be a more solid job!. Repeat the same for the other door panel and close up both door panels. At this point you should have both door speakers installed and wierd towards the center console, and the head unit installed with all wires out towards the center console as well. Remove your rear speakers. They are held in place by 3 10mm bolts each. That will allow you to lift them right up and out. You still have to unscrew the speakers from the enclosures themselve, proceed to do so. Install your new speakers, mine required some trimming of the stock enclosures to get a perfect fit! Secure the speakers to the enclosure and rebolt them to the rear deck. Wire them out into the trunk area and proceed to install your amplifier. Install your amplifier in the trunk and secure it with some screws. Run power wire (fused near battery) to the amp, run ground, and connect the remote line from the head unit. Then the tricky part, make sure you had all your + and - speaker terminals wired properly and connect them all to the appropriate places on the amplifier. Then connect the rca amp inputs into the amp in the appropraite places.. i.e. REAR -> REAR, FRONT > FRONT. Double check everything and start it up, see if the amp turns on and off with the key and if the amp is only on when the cd player is. Then basically all you have to do is fine tune your speakers so they dont pop. Have fun! Enjoy! Sorry if I was boring or vague. Pics will help a bit!

Cost of sound system:

Speakers in rear must be 6.5" round with less than a 2.5" depth
Speakers in front must be 6.5" round with less than a 1.9" depth.
My rear speakers were not listed in crutchfield to fit because they were 0.009mm too deep, but use of the stock plastic piece solves everything!
Do research outside of cruthfield and set a goal.
My goal was to have a nice, affordable system that wouldn't provoke thieves too much.

From:
Dirty, Oily Stock Casette Deck
Blown, Inoperative stock front speakers
Blown, Inoperative stock rear speakers.

To:
Sony CDX-FW570 mp3/cd/xm head unit. $133.00 Shipped
Sony XS-V1630A 55W RMS 220W MAX 3-Way Speakers for the Front. $53.00 Shipped
Sony XS-V1641H 65W RMS 250W RMS MAX 4-Way Speakers for the Rear. $67.00 Shipped
Sony XM-460GTX 3/4 Channel Amplifier 60W RMS x4 @4 Ohms. $78.00 Shipped

SOLD:
Stock Casette Deck $30.00 Shipped
OLD Sony CD Player $58.00 Shipped

Total Cost of New Sound System:
$243.00 Shipped!

REVIEW: 4.5/5
PRO's: All the stuff is by Sony and I love it. I didn't think it would be so good but it actually is.
Good on tight budget. Bass is good in rear and voice is crisp. They are 3 and 4 way, so no signal is unprocessed!

CON's: Once in a blue moon, front speakers (55rms) will pop, Rears however are beautiful! I wish I could have found more powerful sony speakers for the front that weren't more than 1.9" deep.

PS - Flamers: This is just a decent system that was meant to replace really bad stock material. I am not entering any sound competitions, and YES, I am broke, I'm a college student! To the rest.. ENJOY!


































Modified by prelude964 at 7:37 PM 8/7/2005

 

 

All those pixs and not one of the front speaker install. 94

 

Oh, poop you're right. I'm finding that it's difficult to take all these pics and do everythign at the same time, next DIY.. I'm just going to ask my g/f to take pics while I install stuff. If I get a chance this weekend I'll take the door panels off real quick and take some pics of the new speakers.

 

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^is that deck good..i heard sony xplod decks suck butt..

 

Sony Xplod Decks are not as bad as everyone says they are. The cd signal to noise ratio is 120db, which is pretty darn good. Not to mention for a deck of this price.. it has 3 pre-amp outputs, cd changer controls, and an aux input. So basically, I can use this for my front, rear, and sub amp outputs.. I've had a similar xplod cd player in the past, the 5700 and it served me well without any problems for over 2 years, this one is the fw570 and it hasn't given me any problems. :-D The remote control is neat too. Basically what I'm saying is, there are better head units out there, and sony is dogged all the time, but from MY experiences, I haven't had any problems.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">All those pixs and not one of the front speaker install. 94</TD></TR></TABLE>
Thats what I was looking for. Most people cut the baffle aparts and forget an important part. It serves two purposes, ones is just the baffle. The other that is just important if not more is that it keeps the water out of the speaker. Cutting it up is fine just make sure you create a way to keep water out of the speaker.

 

i have the same radio and i love it. great backage and i paid 200$ for it (CDN)

 

I've purchased aftermarket speaker baffles from crutchfield which should arrive soon, I'll post up pics. I didn't want to use the stock ones.

 

did you buy your sony deck online or from a store?

 

Thats a nice install, but sad to say sony isn't really the best to choose from. But none the less nice install. Good install for a nice price!

 

I bought it from ebay for a bargain, stores sell it for at least 179 I think. I know Sony is not the best, but it really does sound great, bass is good and hi's are decent as well, my whole point was to create a budget system that would still sound as nice as some of the newer factory systems that are offered in cars. And I believe I achieved this. You should hear it in person.. it's not bad at all. I am however planning on installin 2 10's, a mono amp, some sound deadening in the trunk and a capacitor. And yes, the subs and amp will be Sony, since I'm on a tight budget

 

I'm gonna keep my computer on this thread overnight to let it download on dial-up (even though I've already done my install). See y'all in the morning...

Dan

 

hey if you could show how you did your amp install that would be great. thanks for doing a write up on something that didn't cost a ton. i think sony speakers sound nice myself. i'm looking to replace mine that blew after three years in florida in the rear.