Not Dave

Hey all,

When I bought my car two weeks ago it had the factory AM/FM Cassette missing and in it's place was a cheap Pioneer head unit. The left driver door speaker did not work either.

After doing some research I wound up getting a refurbished head unit for cheap (I've bought lots of refurb'd stuff over the years and never had problems with them) and picked up some new . Coaxials aren't as good as components, which I've had in the past, but for ease of install it's what I chose.

Now the speakers fit in the stock location, utilizing the stock speaker mount and screw locations. They were so simple. I ran some new speaker wire to the doors through the rubber tube that goes from the chassis to the door so nothing is exposed.

I've had better sound systems back in the day, amped up components and subwoofers, but I decided not to go that route this time. I'm older and enjoy the hearing I still have. I did leave some extra speaker wire to possible hook up to an amp that I still have (Alpine 4 channel) that I haven't used in a few years. I may decide to install it or may not.

The new head unit has Bluetooth so I installed the mic on the visor, ran the mic cable down the pillar and under the dash to the head unit. Sync'd up my phone and now I get streaming music via Pandora, iHeart or Slacker (my favorite). There's an input on front for USB and another for a jack to run an MP3 player or whatever too but for now don't plan to use them. The CD player will never get used.

All in all it was about $200 for the head unit and speakers. Install was free of charge, just took a few hours (to do it right) in my garage and driveway. I'm very happy with the upgraded tunes over "stock". The mid speakers are connected too and still stock though they can't handle the head unit's power so I have it faded toward the front speakers. It ain't a sound studio or anything but much better than what it had been.

A friend of mine that used to have a 4th Gen said he put 6x9 speakers in the very rear. I may do that too and eliminate the mid speakers. I still have an amp (also Alpine) that I can run a sub from if I want at a later date. I doubt it though.

This car was pretty much the easiest to install a head unit in I've ever seen. Granted I just replaced what was already there but had to figure out the wiring on my own as the previous Pioneer had been installed wrong with the left speaker wires leading to the right and vice versa. Not that it makes much of a difference when listening but still.

I'm on a budget, my wife is allowing me to do certain things as long as I can keep it sane. Music is a big portion of my sanity so having the right tunes and sounding halfway decent was primary. Mission accomplished. I can't stand local radio, Austin stations pretty much suck except for Bob FM. I got spoiled on XM radio years ago and now Pandora/Slacker with no commercials and no DJ's yammering away about mindless garbage (KLBJ FM has no shortage of idiot DJ's). The HD portion is new to me and it does expand stations I get to listen to if not streaming music. Time will tell if it's worth it or not though sound quality seems to be a bit better on digital HD channels versus traditional analog.

I didn't take pics. I will and post them in the next day or two. There's a car show tomorrow so I was doing a lot of things to the Camaro to get it ready for that. Waxed the whole thing in the morning and tacked the sound system later.