I got a radio I installed in my '82 and if I am remember right the # E3AF-19A198-AB says this radio is no older than '83. In any case I finally want to upgrade my speakers and the ones that are in the door are plain old speakers that I just picked up for the universal radio that was in the truck before I got this radio.

What I want to ask is what kind of output is this radio rated at as I want to match the speakers correctly to get the best performance.

 

You can get a close figure by measuring the voltage on the speaker with a meter. Turn the radio up as high as you can with no distortion, and measure the highest voltage reading you get. Then look on the speaker to see what ohm rating is stamped on it. Then plug those figures into the formula P=E(squared)/R. E is your voltage reading, R is the ohms on the speaker P is the power in watts.

For example if you had a peak reading of 5v, then 5 squared is 25 divided by 4ohms equals 6.25 watts of power going to the speaker. I bet it's not much more than that.

Just make sure whatever speakers you buy, they are 4 ohms. Most auto speakers are 4 ohms. That will draw the max power from the radio. You can see by the formula, if a 8 ohm speaker was used and you got the same voltage reading, you would only have 3 watts of power.

 

If its not much over 6 to 7 watts then I wont worry about it, I was looking at getting either a 2 or 3 way speaker and all of the ones I found have a RMS rating of 35w with a peak of 100w or more. I really want to get rid of the ones I have to see if I can get better sound before I go to the next stage which is installing a small discrete amp to get more power to the speakers.

Trying to do everything in steps.

 

Walmarts have a good 3 way pioneer set for right at 50 bucks. I have these hooked to a xplod deck. Works well.

 

I was looking at theses.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kicker-Cs44-4-Inch-Cs-Series-1-2-Inch-Tweeter-Coaxial-Speaker-With-50-Watt-Rms-/390977268126?pt=Car_Speakers&hash=item5b080fa99e&vxp=mtr
I need to look more to see if they have any lower than 50 Watt RMS since I might not even put a amp in the truck for a while still. But what I like about this design is the tweeter dome is below the surface of the speaker so I can get some black cloth and wrap the face so it appears factory behind the trucks door panel slats.

But I am really looking for any speaker 2 or 3 way that the tweeter sits below the surface of the speaker so I can do the cloth route.

 

You won't get very good sound from the factory radio. But it's hard to find one that picks up distant stations as well as they did. Not having much treble response sort of helps that also, you get less static with less treble response.

 

I understand that. Thats why Im in the market for a small amp nothing powerful or huge but the one I had which was a 600w amp it had adjustments for the bass and treble. If I could find a compact model that I could fit behind the dash and wire the factory radio to it I can adjust it to get better sound quality out of the orignal radio.

Im not wanting nothing crazy the radio sounds good now its just has this high pitched sound when you turn the volume up and I just dont know if its just the speakers or if its the radio and the speakers. Since I planned on doing an amp upgrade down the road I would need better speakers anyways.

 

There are a lot of good speakers available. Best bet is to listen to them in the store, or in a vehicle before you buy.

There is more to "matching" the speakers to the head unit than comparing power handling capability. The power output of a head unit is just that, a maximum rating. Even then, there is a lot of conflict usually disguised as marketing. The only meaningful rating is RMS watts, and even that term is frequently misused. A standard grade factory radio typically puts out around 8W RMS per channel, although the premium units can be much more. The rating on the speaker relates more to power handling capacity than actual requirements to operate. A 50W speaker will work with your 8W factory radio and likely will sound much the same as a lesser or greater rated speaker.

There is a spec called sensitivity which may be more meaningful if you are trying to tailor the sound from your system. If you want to know more, check here.

Speaker Sensitivity Explained - HowStuffWorks

Musicians tend to have some opinions on speaker selection that could apply here. Rule of thumb is that lower wattage ratings on speakers tend to indicate lighter voice coils and cones which translates to a crisper sound and better sensitivity. Talk to a knowledgeable guitar player about a 25W Celestion vs 50W Celestions in their Marshall cabinets, you are bound to get an earful of advice.

Common knowledge has bigger speakers better suited for low frequency sound reproduction and smaller speakers for high end. More power is required for low frequencies to produce the same sound pressure levels as higher frequencies with less power. 2 and 3 way speakers are common in car audio installations due to space limitations, but placing a small speaker in front of a larger speaker in these designs is a compromise for performance. It is better to mount them separately, especially placing the small or tweeter speakers for best sound channel separation. High frequencies tend to be more directional than low frequencies. This often means custom work in a vehicle and may interfere with keeping a stock appearance, so your needs become the guide.

One last subject is speaker phasing. With door mounted speakers which face each other, they should be connected out of phase. Reason is one cone should push while the other pulls. Speakers facing in the same direction should be wired in phase, ie pushing and pulling in the same direction. Phase will have a noticeable effect on low end sound.

 

I disagree with the above statement. You always hook multiple speakers up in phase, you will never find instructions in any stereo manual that say differently unless you have some weird multiple array that was designed that way.

You are correct, as one speaker pushes, the other one would pull if you hook them out of phase, and this cancels out your bass frequencies. You will find your bass response a lot lower with them connected out of phase.



To the original poster; A amplifier will not turn a inferior sounding radio into a one that sounds good. You will just make the inferior sound louder. The stock radios are not terrible, especially listening to it in one of these noisy trucks. And you can amplify it if you use a adapter with a amplifier and get decent quality sound. Just don't go bragging about it to a guy who knows stereos, he will see the fault in your system right away. But if you like it and it suits your needs, then go for it.

 

Well, I have a lot of practical experience that would say otherwise. You are correct in that the manuals will not tell you this and I should stress that this applies only when a single pair of speakers are directly facing each other, (i.e. door mounted speakers). Although commonplace, I think that qualifies as a weird multiple array. Physical placement makes the exception.

If you are running more than 2 speakers, yes, wire them all in the same phase. Standing waves can get pretty complex when you have 2 speakers mounted in doors facing each other and 2 more speakers facing up and into the cab from a rear deck or a behind the seat speaker box. One speaker out of phase would create some strange holes in the sound.

I used to install car stereo way back when 8 tracks were still available. We found that speakers of the day were not reliable in their labeling. We would use a 1.5V battery and connect power to the speaker terminals noting which direction the cone moved. Most times speakers were consistent, but occasionally one manufacturer would push when the other one pulled, or you would find speakers without +/- labeling. Hopefully things are better now, but we always ensured our installations were phased correctly using this method.

 

I am happy with how the radio sounds now. I just want to optimize it as best as I can.

I also had a old mono radio in my '63 it was a stereo but it was a low wattage unit and I had my 400watt amp hooked to it into some good speakers. I was able to get some very good bass out of the radio, good enough that I was very happy with it. That is the main reason why I was looking at the amps cause the one I had which is way too big to mount in the truck but it had adjustments for many areas which allowed me on one radio to get more treble and bass out of the radio than the radio could produce on its own without the amp.

But I am not expecting to have the radio rival a modern truck though, I just want it to sound as good as it can and right now I think it could sound better than it does now, I already did the antenna amplifier mod and now got better signal reception on more distant stations than I had before. My next mods I am wanting to do is the "RediRad" which plugs inline of the antenna and has a phone jack to plug in your Ipod, CD player, cassette, or what ever mobile music device you have and play through your radio. I am also wanting to do the speaker upgrade and even the amp upgrade.

I even thought about mounting a two way sub speaker in the top of the dash to have the amp power just low sounds through to improve the bass quality.

 

If you happen to have a cassette deck in your factory radio, those cassette adapters with the little cord coming out of them sound surprisingly good, and are cheap and simple to use. You will have a cord draped across from the radio to your device, but other than that they work and sound good and don't require any power sources.

 

This one has a cassette deck in it, I am not sure if it works never tried it though. The RediRad was just $100 for it and it does require to be powered up and grounded but I already have a power wire I can splice into and tee off of from my antenna amplifier. I will look into the cassette adapter though.