Hi everyone,

I am interested in upgrading the sound system in my 2002 Chevy Blazer and was wondering if you could provide some insight. At this time the car is 100% stock Delco. The radio is double DIN (non-Bose w/ RDS). There are two tweeters in the dash and 4 rounds in the door. My first question would be what size would you recommend for the doors? I measure 6" from mounting bolt to bolt. What size are the speakers officially? 5 1/4 or 6 1/2? I would like to use the factory speaker mounting housing but I am not clear as to how these would fit. Do I have to scrap the plastic housings? Also, the front door speaker appears to have a piezo-electric tweeter while the rear has a whizzer cone. Would it be in my best interest to keep this the same? From my understanding the whizzer cone produces higher frequency sounds but I cannot understand how this would be advantageous as high frequencies are directional. If I did install dual voice speakers in the rear the car would then have 6 tweeters (seems like overkill) My last question in reference to the door speakers are the ohm ratings. The front speakers I believe are 4 ohm (2 perhaps?) while the rears are 10. From what i have read and seen, 10 ohm speakers are not that common. How crucial is it to keep the speaker ratings consistent? I would imagine the sound system was designed to function a specific way and deviating too much from this could either a) sound terrible or b) cause damage to the head unit.
My second question is in reference to a bass box. I just recently acquired a Q-logic bass box with 2 JL subwoofers. I plan on powering these with a JL audio 500/1 amp (this was sold with a capacitor but I do not know if this is 100% necessary?). Up until purchasing these items, I was going to try to use my factory stereo. I realize now that without preamp outputs, this is going to be rather difficult. Because of this, I plan on installing a Pioneer DEH-3400 head unit. I'm not crazy about using it, but its all I have at the moment. The Pioneer unit states it delivers 50x4 watts (whether this is RMS, I do not know). Is the Pioneer powerful enough to drive the speakers or would these need to be amplified ?
Based on what I have told you, what would you recommend for my doors and or dash? Electronics was never a strong point for me and to be perfectly honest I feel very lost! I am not searching for real high end equipment but I do not want real cheap quality either. I love listening to music and I want to do this right. I know I have thrown out a lot of information but any and all help you can provide me would me much appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

 

budget?

 

I have a JVC deck that puts out 50x4 to the factory speakers with a eclipse 600 watt amp powering one 12" eclipse sub in a 04 4 door and when i set the equalizer propery it sounds wicked if i say so myself lol

 

Good question. I'm thinking $120-150ish? for the 4 door speakers.

 

PG rsd65cs

 

Check out woofersetc.com Id go with Alpine or Infinity 6.5 coaxials in the rear doors and 6.5 components in the front doors with a 4 channel amp set at 80Hz high pass and 4x6s in the dash with 2 channel amp set at about 100 to 120 Hz high pass The Pioneer is about 14 watts rms also check out Q-Logic they have kick panels that hold 5.25 or 6.5 components

 

I would start with trying the new deck and then decide if you want to go with the speakers. I know I was thinking of swapping them out in mine, but as soon as I installed my deck the sound quality more than tripled, so I decided to save my money. I set my hi-pass filter in the front to 80hz for rock and 120hz for hip hop, the sub is doing most of the work for the bass. Sounds almost as good as my friend's $2000 system he has in his car, not much difference and he's pissed about it too because of how much less my setup cost.

Oh, whether or not you know you'll need a harness and antenna adaptor

 

I x2 that.

 

$150 for an entire new system is on the VERY low side. invest in a great deck as already mentioned. As you get more money saved up, upgrade the speakers next (powered off the deck). As you build more savings again, buy an amp to power your speakers.

 

not to hijack this thread but i have the same stock radio and was also thinking of putting a new hu in. would a new hu make a big difference using the factory speakers? also will you lose your tachometer? somewhere i head you would.