well, today i spent about $100 and 4-5 hours making the stock stereo setup sound badass. i took note of what Rogue Leader did (very informative and helpful guy i might add) and followed in his footsteps seen here (his TA version of what i'm explaining):

https://ls1tech.com/forums/wiring-stereo-electronics/105043-attn-people-who-want-replace-upgrade-monsoon-speakers.html

now, the problem with the camaro over the firebird is that firebirds just suck...err, sorry i meant the problem with the STEREO in the camaro is that the front speakers are wired much differently than in the firebird. i won't take the time to explain the difference from a firebird point of view, but i will explain what the camaro wiring is (for those of you that don't know).

all i will explain is the technicalities of how the door speakers work. factory speakers are 2-way coaxial speakers at 2 ohms. the midbass portion of the speaker is powered by the amp. the amp filters out highs/lows and only permits mids to go to that portion of the speaker. the tweeters located in the center of the speaker do NOT go to the amp in the rear of the car. instead, they go directly to the head unit.

the connector that plugs into the speakers has 4 wires going into it. the blue/light blue wires hook into the midbass of the speaker, and run to the amp. the other 2 go to the tweeter in the speaker, and to the head unit of the car. MAKE NOTE OF THIS BEFORE YOU CUT THE CONNECTOR OFF OF THE SPEAKER. there is only one connection, and it connects all components of the speaker together. in other words, unless you remember which wires go to the tweeter or which to the mid (also remember the blue/light blue wires go to the amp), you will have a damn difficult time using the connector. and trust me, you don't want to cut the connectors off and splice wires. if you do that, you'll end up wishing you hadn't for several reasons; two of those reasons include lack of space to work, and inability to convert to stock easily in the future.

i used the same speakers that rogue leader did for the door speakers. the alpine's fit perfectly in the plastic casing for the door speakers - i would highly recommend these speakers because they were much easier in every aspect than other aftermarket speakers are, and i'll get to more reasons later on. i paid $97 after tax for these speakers at circuit city, where i could have gotten them online for $75 shipped. i paid more because i could go back to circuit city if i had a problem, whereas if i had bought them online, it's hard to get help. these speakers have one connection on the back of them - a negative and a positive. at this connection, both the negative/positive from the midbass and tweeter meet. this is where the work comes in.

the tweeters have a negative that connects directly onto a metal prong. the tweeter positive connects to a small capacitor (to allow NO bass or mid frequencies to reach the tweeter - if that happens, the tweet will blow - so don't leave this capacitor out of the loop!!), and then the capacitor connects to the other metal prong. what you do is clip the connection where the metal prong meets the capacitor, and likewise for the negative end of the tweeter. this is another reason that the alpine's are good speakers for this feat because they are pretty easy to dissect the wiring from, and trust me, this is a very important aspect.

now, take the long set of wires that you will have to cut from your old speaker connector and connect them. for the capacitor, i had little room to work with, so i used an actual connector. for the negative end, i had to get scissors (the wire is SUPER small) to cut the plastic casing off so that i could just old-fashion twist it together with another wire. on your same connection, use the shorter set of wires to connect the midbass portion of the speaker (the regular terminals). i used connectors for these as well. when you are finished, tape everything up well. you are finished. the first speaker i did took me quite a while to do, but the second speaker took 15 minutes or so at most. it's pretty simple, but it's tedious, and you must be careful or you can possibly destroy your brand new speaker.

when i was finished, i was pretty impressed. even at the highest volume level and at 2 ohms, the distortion was so minimal it was nearly nonexistent. the stock speakers begin distorting pretty quickly, and you don't even want to have ears by the time you get to the highest sound level it sounds so bad. it wasn't that way with the alpine's at all, and hopefully no one listens to their music that loud anyway. at regular volumes, the sound is fantastic. these are the only speakers i have in my car that aren't stock. eventually i'll get the rockford fosgate subs and put in the rear of my car. if you want a good system, but don't want to spend a large sum of money, go to circuit city and buy these speakers, come home and follow these instructions, and i think you'll be pretty impressed with the rise in quality in your system. let me know if you have any questions, myself or rogue leader will be happy to help you out

 

I've been waiting for info on this!!!!!!!!
I'll try this ASAP....

 

Glad I was able to help figure this out with ya... Like I said in other posts, I dont have a camaro so it was hard for me to answer questions on it (I had recieved conflicting info on the speaker setup there too). Just one thing as a tech note, the amplified channel is a 2 ohm channel but the speaker is 4 ohms so its running at 4 ohms which is about half the power, however since the tweeter is straight off the head unit and th head unit channels are 4 ohms, thats running at 4 ohms also.

Im very happy it worked out!!

 

and btw, sorry for the lengthy response - it's detailed, but something you should probably read all of if you are interested in doing this.


as a side note: one good thing about running the alpine midbasses at 2 ohms is the fact that you probably won't blow them at 2 ohms. the main reason the stock speakers blew so much is because they were paper coned, and these alpine's are definetely not paper, so running at 2 ohms under their peak power capability, you probably have nothing to worry about as far as them ever busting. good luck

 

Which alpines are these again? Coaxials??

Thanks for the info!

 

Did this today....I am very happy.

Later,
Bart

 

Alpine SPS-170A

and yes, 2 way coaxials. the tweeter is in the middle. you can buy some of these at circuit city.

eventually, to get the best sound out of your system, you will need to upgrade the rear subwoofers. the stock system can't support too much bass because a. the stock subs suck, and b. the amp is at 2 ohms, and at 2 ohms, not much sounds good. but i imagine (and rogue leader can confirm) that the rockford fosgate subs sound better than the stock subs, even at 2 ohms.

even though rogue leader may disagree, i think the rear hatch speakers need to eventually be upgraded also. they are not very good. you can get a good pair of these for under $50 locally.

 

If youre keeping the factory setup then by all means if you want to you can upgrade the rear hatch speakers, but IMO if anyone out there plans on adding an external sub to the system, I would cut the rear factory speakers, and run the wires back to where the subs are in the sail panels and do another setup like the front doors (bi amping a set of 6.5 coaxials) and dont use the sub channels on the amp... This would sound 100% better and you wouldnt muddle your bass sounds.

As for "at 2 ohms not much sounds good"... Thats not true at all. Lower resistance allows you to DOUBLE your power out of the amp and as long as you have a clean amp will sound better. The speakers youre running are not running at 2 ohms, nor will the rockford subs run at 2 ohms. They are all 4 ohm speakers, the channel runs at 2 ohms, but the resistance is measured by what its at at the speaker. So for example running a 2 ohm channel that RMS at 100watts to a 4 ohm speaker, RMS's now at at 50watts. HOWEVER the advantage of using these higher resistance speakers is that even though you have half the wattage the speakers are MUCH more efficent and therefore sound better.

just my $1.50

 

I replaced only the front speakers in my 99 Camaro (equipped the Monsoon). I used Kenwood KFC-1679ie 6.5 inch coaxil speakers. I am very happy with the results, but now I am going to replace the rest of the speakers because now I notice more than ever how much more is left to be desired. Here is the stats on the speakers I used:

6.5 Woofer (8.1 oz magnet)
1 3/16 tweeter
Peak Power 160 watts
RMS 40 watts
Frequency Response 35Hz-25,000 Hz
Sensitivity 92dB

I am happy with my choice but it really shows how much I need to replace the other speakers.

Later,
Bart

 

good information sorry i messed that up. regardless, the alpine's are being underpowered, so it's not a worry on blowing them

 

Actually power isnt what kills a speaker, distortion does. and you CAN blow a speaker by underpowering it. If you send too much power to a speaker as long as its playing at a level that it doesnt distort, while you wont be realizing your amplifiers full potential it will play forever. If you underpower a speaker its basically the same, it will distort just as easily as an overpowered speaker at too high of a volume and it can easily damage the VC. Distortion is your enemy

Im filled with useless information! hehehe

 

i was told (this is something i'm not sure of) by a local audio specialist that the monsoon 2 ohm system distorts a lot, regardless of what speakers you have playing. even at high volumes, i couldn't hear *much* distortion on the alpine's (if any at all), but i'm sure that if the 2 ohm monsoon theory is true, the distortion, regardless of speaker type, is still there. is there anything to do about this? or is this theory untrue? or do you not know? i don't know enough about the monsoon system to even make a guess at whether or not that's true, although i did believe most of what the person who was telling me said.

 

Yeah it has a lot of distortion... Not because its 2 Ohms, but because its a cheap factory amp. I'll hook my oscilliscope up to the am one day when its not 16 degrees out to check but, theres a lot of disrtion, a lot of it is inaudable, and some people just think its the music, but try using the EQ and isolating each frequency, turn up the volume, and you'll hear it much more noticeably.

As for doing something about it, theres nothing you can do except buy a new aftermarket amp LOL. The distortion is caused by the amp, it has its internal gains set at a certain unchangeable level, it will pla the same way all the time, regardless of what you have hooked to it.

 

Great info! I just wish you had a picture of the connections you made to the new speaker tuffluck. I guess I'll have a better understanding of it when I have the speaker in my hand.

 

this is awesome info, and it comes in the nick of time. one of my front speakers just blew.
is it at all possible to put up some pix of the wiring?.. i just can't picture it without looking at pics.

thanks a million..

 

I have a quick question, can the Monsoon head unit be used w/ aftermarket amp & speakers?

 

sorry guys. i would have loved to have taken pictures, but i don't have a digital camera. once you see the speaker, i think for the most part everything will make sense. and if it doesn't make sense to you, just put the speaker back in the box and return it to circuit city and you're done.

 

and yes, it can, but i'm not sure how that pertains to this thread?

 

Yes but thats like running your LS1 on 87 Octane, yeah it works but theres a lot of potential your elosing. Running an amp with your Stock Monsoon headunit if youre just adding subs is OK, but if youre gonna run all your speakers, you're gonna wanna have clean power going in to get the best sound available.

 

Damn, could a newbie do this? I mean, I'm a bit scared when it comes to messing with wires and what not, the main reason I got the extended warranty was mainly for electrical.