I put in a Pioneer head unit and it works fine and my next course of action was going to be putting in 6 new speakers. From what I gather this will overpower my head unit as I don't have any amps available.

Can I just replace the door speakers and leave the dash ones as factory (I am not sure if those are tweeters or actual speakers) or will that still be too much for my HU? Should I completely disconnect the dash ones and just run the 4 speakers by themselves?

 

There is no overpowering your headunit. It only puts out the power it says. Usually 50w. You will be fine replacing all speakers

 

The head unit will work fine for the speakers, like Jag said you can't overpower the hu with speakers, it will always put out the same amount of power and the aftermarket speakers will draw a scant amount more power, if any, than the stock ones.

 

I believe the issue he's referring to isn't overpowering, it's under-impedance. When you have six speakers with 4 channels of amplification then some care has to be taken on how it's wired or the impedance of the speakers themselves to keep from having issues with loading the internal amplifier with too low of an impedance.

Now I've yet to see a straight up wiring diagram to know how all the speakers are wired in these trucks, but I have to assume that the dash speakers and the front speakers are wired in parallel. I assume that since I have disconnected dash/door speakers in the past without affecting the other on the same side, otherwise they would be wired in series. The factory speakers are often times rated at higher impedances such that parallel wiring does not present a bad load on an amplifier. Also knowing that they tend to use 4x6 plates with tweeters in them utilizing a capacitor as a simple high pass crossover it doesn't much matter what the impedance is on the door speaker as long as it's 4 ohms or higher.

Without verifying exactly how the wiring is done as designed by the factory I wouldn't just go toss an aftermarket set of speakers in the dash and the door and not expect some issues with the internal amp of the HU. It only figures that it would present a 2 ohm load on that tiny little IC amp chip which is only designed for a 4 to 8 ohm load. One good way around the issue is to just purchase new rear speakers and a component set for the front of the truck. Utilizing the crossover that comes with the components will prevent any worry or issues with loading on the amp and you can still fill all 6 stock locations if you so desire.

That's just my .02

 

so lets say I decide to get components and install them. Can I use the factory wire going from the head unit to the factory door speaker and connect that wire to my aftermarket crossover (and then from crossover to new door speaker and crossover to new tweeter in the dash) or do I have to run all new wire to my head unit?

I'm worried that there is a factory crossover somewhere between my head unit and the factory door speaker that will mess up the signal

 

Yes, you can do that. There's no reason that you can't.

The factory "crossover" is nothing more than a simple capacitor that is simply a 6db high pass filter for the tweeter to protect it. There's nothing more than that anywhere in the truck and when you remove or disconnect the factory tweeters that is gone.

 

Old thread i know. But I am wanting to add some Alpine sps-610c components up front. Can I just put in the woofers and then install the new tweeters in the dash with the old tweeter wiring? If I can not please inform me of what needs to be done to make that setup work.

 

was odd seeing this thread pop up in my email but yes that is how I installed my sps-610c speakers

use these connectors and it's very easy

GM Speaker Wiring Harnesses For select 1995-up General Motors-built vehicles at Crutchfield.com

There were only 2 issues, one was with the tweeters and the little mount they come with. The holes on the mount dont match up perfectly with the vehicles dash holes but they are close enough that you can just screw them in at a slight angle

for the woofers, two of the holes on the door will line up with the speakers plastic bracket and then I drilled a hole into the speakers bracket to line up with a third hole on the door. I reused the screws that were holding the OEM speaker to the door.

oh and for the tweeters you to have to put the crossover that comes with the new speakers in with the tweeter. Connect one end of the crossover to the new tweeter and the other end of the crossover to the connector I linked above and then plug em in

 

Stinz, thank you so much! I was going to just do that and cross my fingers but im so hlad you got back to me man. So I assume that connector plugs to the factory tweeter wiring? Even easier I love it.

 

I just installed new Polk Audio db651s in the rear doors of my 2000 4dr Blazer LT 4X4 and the speaker harness stinz linked is what you need for the rear door speakers (not sure if they work for the front doors too) but definitely not for the tweeters in the dash.

This is what my dash tweeters, bass blocker (high pass filter) and wiring connection (green connector) look like.












Anyone know where I could find a speaker harness (connector) like the one pictured above?

Hope this helps and good luck...