Okay this might be easy but I will ask anyway. Need to replace front speakers. I know how to pop off the cover. Anything I need to know besides just unscrew it and re-hook up the wires to the new ones.

Think I will go with those 6x8 pioneers. Not the best perhaps but better than the factory garage.

 

nothing more you need to know......if they are cheapo pioneers though...stay stock...stock will have better base and midrange performance...even if it's the base stock system...

 

Have to replace because the door speaker has issues. Does anyone have a better recomendation for speakers?

 

The front door grille just pops right off to give you access to the speaker. The factory speaker connector won't fit on an after market speaker. You'll either need to buy an adapter or splice the factory harness.

The factory speakers are 6X8, 25 watt, 4 ohm with paper cones. Pretty much any aftermarket speaker will sound better. I would avoid Pioneer, Kenwood, Sony and no-name brand speakers as they tend to have a lot of high-end and very little in the way of mid-range & bass. I prefer Infinity & Bose, but the prices can be a tad steep. The Polk DB series is a pretty good choice that doesn't break the bank and sound great even with a factory head unit.

 

The pioneers will be fine. The stock speakers are 25 watt and sound like it.
First sound mod I did to my truck was put in 4 pioneers.

Lots of these guys are into VERY loud music, rap, etc. plus have huge wads of disposable income.


If you are part of the 'sound scene' 5000 bucks can get you a barely adequate sound system. 10,000 bucks can get you passable sound.


If you just want to listen to the music while you drive pioneers speakers sound vastly better than stock speakers.

Easy to put in. You may have to use adaptors or splice the front speaker wire harness as the stock ones don't hook up the way aftermarket does. Twenty minute job.
Chris

 

does anyone know where to get these adapters? As i am looking into swapping out my speakers too, every now and again i get the sense that my speakers are blown, like on some songs they sound very scratchy and like its blown, but then after a while it'll go away and be fine again, idk what it is, but i figure switching out the speakers would help.

 

www.crutchfield.com

The adpaters are free, if you order the speakers from them.

They have a no brainer ordering system, it will find everything you need.

 

The easiest way to pick speaker you like is to goto any retail store and listen to all the brands. Everyone has different tastes. I hate metal dome tweeters, others love them. I prefer silk or cloth dome tweeters. Alpine, Infinity, Polk, Boston Acoustic all make 5x7/6x8's with these tweeters, yet all 4 speakers sound different. Find the one you like.

 

You can buy them at Radio Shack, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. Any cheap stereo place will sell them to you. Or you can just cut the factory wires and put the new ends that come in the speaker box in their place. I have never heard of anyone going back to the factory speakers, but if you did you could resplice the wires. This is not as hard as repairing an extension cord...
Crutchfield is great but about twice as expensive as everyone else. You can buy the same brand and part number locally for far less, or you can buy them online for even more savings over Crutchfield.

Lots of people use Crutchields to locate the part numbers that will fit, read the reviews, then buy the stuff from vendors on e-bay for 40 cents on the dollar.

Chris

 

I swapped out my Front Speakers and just cut the factory connector off. Soldered on the new ends for my Pioneer Speakers and havent looked back.

****QUESTION******

How hard is it to access the rear speakers in the door? (2004 SuperCrew)
The Fronts simply pop off giving you easy access, the backs didnt want to do that so I gave up on it and havent haf the time to really get out there and look at. Thanks!

 

you convinced me ill throw some new 6x8's in the truck... what about the stock head unit does that need to go as well?

 

You will need to remove the entire door panel. Search and you can find the info.


Yup it's crap. If you want sound quality go with Eclipse (5V preouts for the amp). If you want something that looks cool pick whatever you want.

 

I did some testing, I had 4 stock radios from 04 up trucks,
a CD/radio
a plain radio,
a 6 changer MP3,
and a single CD mp3.

I compared them to
a Kenwood 525, (under a hundred bucks when the model came out,
a Kenwood 622 (about 250 when they came out)
a Kenwood Z910 (about 1200 bucks when they came out)
a 'generic' CD/MP3 from Wal-Mart, about 100 bucks new,
a JVC 510 CD/MP3 about 200 bucks new,
and finally my JVC AVX706.

Same speakers, same truck. Three people listing. One of is a retired professional musician, one is an audiophile, and me. I just like clear music.

The factory radios ended up on the bottom. The two MP3 models were better than the non-MP3. Of course the radio didn’t do well with no CD, but…
Oddly the most expensive Z910 was only a fraction better than the 6 changer.
Even the cheap Generic sounded better.
The Kenwood 622 sounded the best overall, three votes out of three.
The AVX706 was tied for second best with the Kenwood 525.


You can get last year’s top sounding Alpine, Pioneer or Eclipse for 150-250 every day of the week from E-bay vendors.

All of which will sound vastly better than the stock radios. Ford pays about 20-40 bucks for them (actual price, not what they will sell them to you for) and they sound like it.
Chris

 

It's funny how some on these forums just blurt out nonsense like "…the factory head unit is crap". That may have very well been the case up to the 90's, but the head units in your relatively newer vehicles are VERY good. If your looking for more volume, then most may be shy on power, but that's about it. Not sure which HU you already have, but I have the 6 CD/MP3/Sirrus unit, and it sounds just fine. Some may argue that I have narrow taste. To those of you, I say see the following :

http://www.amateurhometheater.com/Su...%20Theater.htm

I design, integrate & optimize high end home theaters as a side business, so I think my opinion can be considered a very experienced well. To each his own, but I can say that I deal with a breadth of products from hundreds of vendors and I would probably never be inclined to use the word "crap" to describe a product.

Like ChrisAdams stated "...If you just want to listen to the music while you drive pioneers speakers sound vastly better than stock speakers. " If you want to crank up the volume, then you might want to follow the recommendations from other members who chimed in here.

 

rms8, you make a good point. All the radios I tested sounded 'good'.

The differences were as you say, when you pumped up the volume, or when you played really delicate stuff like Mozart or Beethoven. I also made up some test CD’s of various music with a lot of tonal changes. Lots of vocals by talented singers, good guitar work, good woodwinds, etc.

Radio sounded like radio on all of the units.
FM radio on all units was not to bad.

You really notice differences when you add a small woofer and tweeters. Then the sound stage and fullness of the music shows the design limitations of headunits that are designed to work for decades and cost little.
The main design requirement of a factory headunit is that it be simple to operate, few or no multi-level menus, no real 'room for expansion'. The factory headunits are not intended to drive better speakers, subs, tweeters, or be customizable to any real extent.

For the guy that just plays the radio there is no reason in the world to change out the factory head unit, and the stock speakers handle A/M and even most F/M pretty well.

If you are gonna use MP3's the difference is even more noticeable. MP3's use both data compression and data reduction. That means it takes more machine to play them smoothly and strangely, it also means that they can be clearer than analog CD's.

This is because besides compressing the sound by eliminating redundancy, the MP3 process also dispenses with much of the 'white noise' that comes with CD (or live) music.

Dropping this white noise, while offending those that worship at the altar of authentic, allows you to hear the signal better.
That is, you hear the words/music without hearing the background sounds that are weeded out. So a good MP3 lets you hear the actual song better than a CD.
If the head unit and speakers are capable.
Chris