Replacing speakers on stock Premium Sound--possible?

[onedollarbob]

Awesome and thanks for all the info. My question is really more geared toward keeping the existing head unit and amp, and just swapping out the aging speakers. I know, I know--it's old '80s factory crud and why keep it? Well, I like the stock look in the dash and "time capsule" novelty--and people are actually surprised at how decent it sounds for what it is. In previous cars just swapping the old speakers always made the biggest improvement in sound for the least money/effort.

Good to know 4 ohm will work. I guess I'll stay away from 2 ohm? I'll call Crutchfield to see what they recommend for adapting new speakers. And thanks for the tip on the 2-way Premium Sound rears. I take it mine from '83 are not the 2-way variety?

[sly]

Ask SLY what he did in my '82 Mark VI as that's got an updated head unit and 6 new speakers, sounds great.

And I thought it wasn't that great. The head unit I used didn't have enough push to drive the speakers like I wanted. Kenwood 4s in the dash, 6.5s in the doors and 6x9s in the rear deck. All using the Crutchfield adapters, no splicing. Only thing that was soldered was the harness from the stereo to the stock adapter harness.

[pantera77]

Awesome and thanks for all the info. My question is really more geared toward keeping the existing head unit and amp, and just swapping out the aging speakers. I know, I know--it's old '80s factory crud and why keep it? Well, I like the stock look in the dash and "time capsule" novelty

I agree 100%. I hate aftermarket headunits with a passion. Sure, modern ones have many more features, have much more power, and sound better, but I don't care, they always look so out of place. I'll rock my stock stuff till it dies, then I'll replace it with the same stuff. Then again, I crank cassettes and mainly listen to AM stations so overall sound quality isn't my main concern.

[HiFiMerc]

And thanks for the tip on the 2-way Premium Sound rears. I take it mine from '83 are not the 2-way variety?

I'm not sure. I have a pair that use the older connector. I got them out of an '88 Town Car with the high level (not JBL) Premium Sound. They have an E4 (1984) part number. So look for mid 80's Lincolns maybe. The newer connector is on the speakers with an E9 (1989)part number. Same speaker, different connector.


Those speakers are real troopers, btw. I have used them on everything from a 40wpc house receiver, to the 100wpc amp running a pair in the '92. Haven't smoked one yet. I'm not nice to them either.

[DerekTheGreat]

If all you want is replacement premium stuff I've got hoards since our cars no longer use the stuff. I have JBL 6x9's but they most likely won't fit since they were out of a Mark VII which the frame for the tweeter and mid was flat. Plus the surrounds for the mids are toast too. Unplug them and you're good to go minus a tad of quality. Let me know if you want dash speakers because I'll be at a yard tomorrow morning and will pull em for ya. Otherwise you'll just have to wait until I replace mine lol.

Oh and to the dude talking about frequency response... You can take two speakers that have the same response but I'll bet my 401k that they will not sound the same. The aftermarket JBL'S I listed are very affordable and will blow those pioneers and new fangled $800 focals away, trust me. The JBL'S have a very flat & true frequency response so nothing is exaggerated or left out, meaning reduced ear fatigue. I am absolutely fanatical about that sort of thing and will spend hours messing with eq and filter settings to get it right but a bad speaker is a bad speaker..

[gadget73]

I agree 100%. I hate aftermarket headunits with a passion. Sure, modern ones have many more features, have much more power, and sound better, but I don't care, they always look so out of place. I'll rock my stock stuff till it dies, then I'll replace it with the same stuff. Then again, I crank cassettes and mainly listen to AM stations so overall sound quality isn't my main concern.

I like the look of original, but I want an input for my ipod. Many of the tape decks that could run a cd changer will do this easily. I had a factory CD player in the Mark VII that I liked until it got too bitchy and too fucked to fix. Spent too much time and money on it, and it just would not anymore.

[sly]

If all you want is replacement premium stuff I've got hoards since our cars no longer use the stuff. I have JBL 6x9's but they most likely won't fit since they were out of a Mark VII which the frame for the tweeter and mid was flat. Plus the surrounds for the mids are toast too. Unplug them and you're good to go minus a tad of quality. Let me know if you want dash speakers because I'll be at a yard tomorrow morning and will pull em for ya. Otherwise you'll just have to wait until I replace mine lol.

Oh and to the dude talking about frequency response... You can take two speakers that have the same response but I'll bet my 401k that they will not sound the same. The aftermarket JBL'S I listed are very affordable and will blow those pioneers and new fangled $800 focals away, trust me. The JBL'S have a very flat & true frequency response so nothing is exaggerated or left out, meaning reduced ear fatigue. I am absolutely fanatical about that sort of thing and will spend hours messing with eq and filter settings to get it right but a bad speaker is a bad speaker..

The Pioneers I used are pretty good. The Kenwood speakers in the Mark are better. Both are enough for me. The JBL's are better yet for sure. My problem is matching the speakers to the amp to reduce distortion from clipping when I crank it up. I can make moderate speakers sound pretty good with proper matching. But as has been stated before, a car, and especially these cars, are not the best environment for audiophile stuff. This brings me to another issue. Most aftermarket speakers are rated for higher nominal power than stock amps. So even though I can get the higher quality speakers for a stock stereo, the cheaper ones tend to match up better. Plus the clarity of stock systems doesn't usually lend itself to using the better speakers.

[DerekTheGreat]

Pioneers would be my second pic, especially the ones with Basalt cones or whatever, very similar to what JBL runs. The JBL'S are also slightly on the warm side. As a fan of vinyl, I can appreciate that. I prefer my tones laid back and thumpy rather than in your face and boomy..
I go by RMS power vs peak power. I've found that speakers have a higher tolerance to being over powered than under powered. Getting distortion out of the picture is tough but usually can be traced back to two things, either the speakers can't handle the bass or you're not feeding them enough power. If your amp or deck have high pass cross over settings try them out. Start at 60hz & -12 dB. If you notice an improvement go higher with the frequency until it goes away.

Gadget, I prefer the look of stock hands down but like you said, you get lots of control and flexibility out of an aftermarket deck. Ashleys 89 TC had the cheapest pioneer installed by the PO. Compared to my 88 with the factory deck it was a total blow out. Can't believe how bad the factory ford decks are, just sound so muddy and they exaggerate treble.

[turbo2256b]

wHILE i HAD THE sONY XPODS with the stock premium head it sounded unbelievably bettr than the stock speakers. Reason betting the speakers had no low end frequency. Looking at crutchfield The pioneers had about the best low end almost any speaker hits high frequencys. Looked at some high end 6x9s that were not as good at low end than the 5 1/4 pioneers. The Sony x pods ratings went down the tubes also. Sensitivity was also a lot better with the pioneers than some of the pricer stuff.

There are some tricks to installing the 6x9s in the rear that help a lot while keeping it stock looking. Posed it in here somewere.

[DerekTheGreat]

Huh? The stock premium stuff was decent enough in Ashleys TC and mine as well, especially the 6x9's. JBL stuff was much better. For grins we put JBL speaks in then powered them with the premium amp. Ooh.... Then we put in the big fat JBL amp and whoa. So much farkin better, tons of low end, excellent mids and great clarity. Then we used the bypass harness that was originally there with her bottom barrel Pioneer, almost as bad as the factory deck. Right now her set up utilizes that Pioneer deck sending speaker level inputs to the JBL amp. No issues yet and she's been running it that way for ten months or so. At the loudest levels there's some distortion but that's probably because the JBL amp doesn't like speaker level inputs. I've got mine set up the same way except I'm using the highest single din Sony had to offer, feeding my JBL amp with line level inputs. I'm underwhelmed. Sound quality is there but volume is just too soft, especially if I'm using any input aside from the iPod. So once I get through paying the body shop I'll see what I have left over and put all modern JBL stuff in there. To have the mids reconed on the JBL 6x9's would cost almost as much as the P963's.. I don't think I'll have an issue with the rubber band thingy Ford used. Gotta admit, I like that compared to having to rip the rear seat out, package shelf and then get at the rear screws with a stubby screw driver and then have to clean the smudges off the rear window...

[gadget73]

roughly double the wattage out of the JBL amp vs the premium sound amp. The JBL amp makes an honest 40 watts per channel, and I think the premium sound amp is closer to 25.

I'm actually using an old Sony in my Mark VII with the stock JBL amp. It does quite decently, much to my surprise. It use the line level inputs, with this cool RCA to square connector adapter that makes it all work together. The Sony is old too, won't even play mp3 files on a cd-r, but with the help of a $15 adapter to fake it into thinking that it has a cd changer in the trunk, my ipod works fine on it. The stereo was free, only reason its in there.

[turbo2256b]

Understand 40 watts per channel on most all aftermarket automotive stereos is rated at 13+ volts. So if its hooked to a wire only producing less volts wattage to the speakers is less so 40 watts per channel could end up 30 or 35 maybe less.

[turbo2256b]

The rubber band thingh just ends up being just a bit rougher to get around the magnet then all is ok. Big jump in sound is trimming thr partical board away from the cloth in the rear deck.

[DerekTheGreat]

gadget,
I'm using that same square connector to RCA adaptor in my car, I hate cutting into factory wiring and will go out of my way to avoid it if I can. The one I found in a yard is color coded & appears to be gold plated, woo! Being that her car already had a radio in it I'm afraid to swap it out for fear of what hack job we might find but they used the bypass harness in the trunk so perhaps that's a good sign. I like her mounting kit as her radio sits flush in the hole with no gaps and allows her to use the radio's trim bezel. The one I got from the car in the yard isn't so good, it causes my radio to stick out about 1/4" more and I can't use the radio's bezel unless I trim away at the sides of my trim panel. F that noise. So I've been living with a ghetto-ish installation. You have a TC.. Did you put an aftermarket radio in it? Does it sit nice and flush with no gaps and visible nastiness? If so, which kit did you use?

turbo,
I'm using what mother Ford supplied. I've read through that cars with the JBL amp got a thicker gauge wire for power supply but all donor cars we pulled our parts from showed it was the same gauge, premium or JBL, so I imagine it's getting the power it needs. Makes sense, can't imagine why Ford would want to carry two part numbers when they don't have to. We originally pilfered the JBL stuff on a whim. Was walking past a TC when I saw unique looking black fins from behind some particle trim board in the trunk. Said whoa... and then picked it all. Didn't think any of the connectors would interchange but they did and it all worked, was very happy about that! So was Ash. Thats when we did the comparison between the amps, we did so using some Johnny Cash & T. Rex. Both sounded great, especially T. Rex. Anywho, with my set-up depending on what song the ipod throws at the amp it can end up being just loud enough but most times like when Alice Cooper comes along it's pretty soft. Back when I had aftermarket amps I'd set up the gain levels using Alice as the standard; if I got that to rattle my ears then everything else would too. As far as I can tell there's no gain adjustment with the JBL amp. If there was I'd probably be able to get by with that and a seperate amp for my subwoofer but no dice. I'm going to throw money on JBL's 5 channel amp, mount it where the old one, mount my sub off to the right rear of the trunk, replace all speakers with Power Series stuff from JBL and see what that does.

[gadget73]

It sits close to right. Couldn't tell you what kit it was though, I bought it probably 10 years ago and just don't remember anymore. The old radio didn't sit right, the trim piece was fatter and I couldn't put it on there. The current radio sits in there OK though.


The JBL and Premium sound stuff is all the same except for the amplifier itself and the speakers. I've clocked them at 40 watts per channel with all 4 channels driven to full wattage on a 13.5 volt supply. It actually doesn't drop very much until you get under 12. The amplifier has an internal step-up supply that compensates for changes in input voltage. Its a split rail internal supply that I want to say runs at +/- 22 volts.

No adjustment, you gets what you gets. They are fairly sensitive though. One that works right should do full power to the rear speakers with a little under a volt of input, and front speakers hit full about 1.5 volts if memory serves. When they don't work right, you tend to get no output from a channel, or heavily distorted output, depending how the amplifier barfed. The weak point seems to be the chip itself. The rest of the unit seems to age fairly well.