After searching around for quite a while I'm pretty confident this is the best place to ask my questions regarding installation of equipment on blazers. So here goes:

My parents feel sorry for me and they are planning on giving me their 99 blazer 4 door that has been sitting in their yard since they bought a more fuel efficient vehicle. The factory speakers are shot, I think at least one has a torn cone or surround and the cassette deck is pretty useless to me so I plan on replacing the factory headunit as well. Crutchfield filters out several headunits claiming that they will not fit in a Blazer, every unit that is not filterd out has the little yellow exclamation point indicating that modifications are required. I found a blurb somewhere saying that there's a tab that holds the factory headunit that can be easily broken off to accomodate most aftermarket headunits. Aside from this simple modification are there any other clearance issues that would keep me from using any of the headunits crutchfield claims absolutely will not fit?

I know that certain saturns that had the upgraded premium stereo have a factory installed amp that is designed to work only with the factory headunit, but can be used with an aftermarket headunit if the amp is jumpered somehow. GM was pretty clever about hidding the amp behind a trim panel in the saturn, did they attempt the same thing on any model blazer?

Finally can someone point me in the direction of a good speaker? I think I can sort out the headunit on my own, sticking with any of the big name brands it's tough to go wrong (except Sony,) but I have a hard time auditioning speakers at electronics stores filled with little kids who insist on making every adjacent stereo louder than the one you're actually considering buying. I'm looking for 6.5" speakers for the front and rear doors that cost less than $100/ pair. Most likely I won't hook up an amp to start with but eventually I'd like to add a 4 channel amp but I probabally wouldn't go above 50W RMS. Along those lines is crutchfield overly cautious reccomending speakers or will some of the deeper speakers fit as well?

 

as for the headunit crutchfield seems to filter out a lot of decks that will work just fine in your blazer. as long as your just doing a cd deck pick out whatever you like unless its an in dash dvd player then beware of size issues. I don't know enough about the saturn amp you speak of, but I do know they don't hook up like a traditional aftermarket amp.(ie rca inputs) The blazer premium Bose system may have such a thing, but don't quote me on that. As for panel speakers you can't go wrong with (in my opinion) mb quartz, infinity kappa, or kicker. I'm personally fond of Kicker and there pretty well priced, take a look at www.electronicgiant.com for all your stereo needs. Good luck and pm us if you need additional help.

 

i bought my eclipse headunit from crutch field and it fits perfect. They are great people to deal with and help you out with everything

 

Thanks Binz, I figured any headunit would fit fine, but I wanted to double check to be certain, in the past I've found Crutchfield to be pretty good at reccomending equipment that will fit and it's hard to beat their prices when you factor in the free install kits and harnesses they give you.

The Saturn amp as I understand it had line level inputs and a third wire, or a pair of wires that connected to the headunit to switch it on or off. I'm guessing it's something wierd that is specific to Saturns like polymer body panels, if it hasn't come up here then it likely doesn't exist on Blazers.

I'll let you guys know if I need any additional help.

 

i usually take what crutchfield says will fit with a grain of salt, ive put in many things they said wouldnt fit without
even altering stuff, they said my clarion DXZ955 wouldnt fit i think, but it fit no problem(didnt buy from them, they are way to costly)

for door speakers, they say alot of them will not fit cause of the tweeter protrusion will hit the grill, dont know anything about it though, ive alaways ran components which to me
are worth it

i have a trailblazer edition blazer but everything should be the same, my rainbows hit the window bracket, they are about 2.75" i think deep(the mid) i have stock tweets in the dash but i cut the wires on them because they sucked, i dont have any rear speakers in

 

I replace my stock speakers w/ eclipse all around. They sound great considering they are still hooked up to the stock deck. The ones I got may be on the upper limit of your price range but I would recommend them. I'll get a deck eventually but one hasnt caught my eye yet.