Hi, car stereo gods. I'm a newbie, wanting to replace the OEM two-way component speakers in the front doors of a 2001 Suburban (yes OnStar, no BOSE) with a set of Infinity 6010cs components, using the factory locations and wiring, and running off the OEM Delco head unit (CD/FM/AM, remote cassette). I realize the speakers will be a bit underpowered, and I will probably end up upgrading with a matching amp, rear door speakers and subwoofer at some point, but the front door speakers are all I want to do for now.
My question is this. I assume that when I open up the door panel, I'm going to find two separate, two-line (-/+) leads running to the OEM tweeter and woofer. Do I just mate these leads together at the single input terminal for the Infinity crossover unit?
Hmm, btw, in that that Suburban is there an OEM amplifier that you know of? There could be some in-line OEM x-overs so you wouldn't want to x-over twice
No separate OEM "amp" that I'm aware of, but I haven't pulled out the Delco head unit or traced any of the lines, so I couldn't really say for sure. I don't even know what the output power is on the head unit, since I can't seem to locate any specs for the Delco system ANYWHERE.
As far as "crossing over twice," that's a big reason I posted the question. For example, I'm assuming that if there are separate woofers/tweeters in the front doors, there must be some kind of crossover feeding them somewhere ... either a stand alone (like the Infinity one) between the head unit and the speakers, or a cross-over circuit built into the head unit, which might be disabled for single speakers through use of alternate output sources on the back of the head unit ... ??
Anyone familiar with the OEM Delco (CD/FM/AM/Remote Cassette) set up in a 2001 Suburban??
Ok, since I seem to have "stumped the band" with my last question, here's a little more detailed information. The Delco head unit I'm dealing with is Model No. 09383075, with what appears to be a 20 or 21-pin main socket, and a separate, 9-pin socket in the back, apparently for the remote cassette deck. Assuming for the moment that Delco's crossover circuit for the front door speakers is built into the head unit, and that 8 of the 21-pins on the main socket feed the front door speakers (+/- leads for four separate component speakers), how do I go about modifying these feeds to put them into the single input terminal on the Infinity stand-alone crossover? Or ... should I just say "screw it," put the crossover unit aside, and connect the Infinitys to the existing wires for the factory speakers?
Well, you could do a test, just get a cheap coax full range speaker - Sony Xplod or something and connect it directly from the back of your stock HU so you can see if the signal is filtered inside the unit (which I doubt). My guess is there are OEM x-overs somewhere down the line. Well as in regards of simply connecting the Infinity components to the existing wires - yes you can do it, it won't hurt them, because signal is filtered somewhere no doubt. Pull the OEM drivers out and see if there are any resistors on them. I am not sure if it will sound great, because Infinity's have their x-overs designed for them and other x-overs might not work the way Infinity's would like it, however, I think you should give it a shot and see how it sounds
Wouldn't it just be peachy keen if there were OEM crossovers somewhere easy to find, like in the door panels? I couldn't be that lucky, could I? In that event, all I would have to do is splice in behind the x-over ... no messing around behind the head unit. Guess I'm just going to have to open the door panel to see for myself. I just didn't want to do that until I knew for sure what I was going to be doing in there, and I'd hoped that someone on this board would already know Chevy/Delco's factory set up for the front door speaker components in a 2001 Suburban. Maybe I will luck out, and the OEM x-over will be right there with the speakers ...
Well, no big surprises. I opened the driver side front door panel; the OEM component speakers are total crap, "Hecho en Mexico" ... yep ... that's OEM all right. Both the woofer and tweeter appear to be fed from a single, two- lead line out of the head unit, i.e., one gray wire (+), one tan wire (-). I'm guessing they just split a single speaker lead into a "Y" somewhere between the head unit and where the wire for the woofer exits the cable bundle coming out of the door jamb, and here's why I think that. One tan/gray lead comes out of that bundle to feed the woofer at the bottom; a second tan/gray lead comes out a little farther up the bundle line to feed the tweeter, and there's an in-line resistor (or capacitor?) installed right on the positive terminal of the tweeter ... apparently the OEM's lame substitute for a crossover circuit. Chevy couldn't possibly have spent money on a stand-alone crossover for speakers as crappy as these.
I think I got this thing licked. I'll just put the existing tweeter lead aside, or tape it to the door frame, and use the woofer lead as the main input to the Infinity crossover. Then I'll run fresh lines to the Infinity woofer and tweeter from the appropriate output terminals on the Infinity crossover. That ought to do the trick. Any thoughts?
LOL, yeah Chevy's OEM sound is cheap allright. Hmm, I could be wrong but I think those indeed are resistors not capacitors (just like you thought), I simply don't see how a cap could filter a frequency. I hope those OEM wires are not too light of a gauge, however, it should not be a big deal, since it's not a high power application. Just make sure you mount the Infinity x-over in a nice spot and make sure it's getting some air for cooling purposes and that's it, you are set to go. Pls let us know how it works out
Just to satisfy my morbid curiosity (and because I'm a total puss about screwing around with the factory sound system in this car), I did a little more digging in some other forums. I'm glad I did before I made any changes.
Yikes ... as cheap as the individual components may be, the factory system in this car, as a whole, is far more complex than I previously realized. There's actually a total of seven cabin speakers included in the OEM system, a woofer and tweeter in each of the front doors (4), a two-way in each of the rear doors (2 more), a tweeter in each pillar on opposite sides of the rear hatch (2 more) and an 8" subwoofer (1 more) in the rear cargo area, on the driver's side.
Further, these components are not powered directly from the head unit, but rather, they all pass through a factory amp/filter, located behind the glove compartment.
The problem I'm trying to remedy is some intermittent distortion in the driver side front door speakers. I previously assumed the distortion was due to the speakers in this location being blown, and needing replacement. Now I'm thinking the real problem could be hiding in the factory amp. I'm even more suspicious about this since the distortion seems more pronounced at low volume, and seems to diminish, or disappear entirely, at higher volumes.
I still want to change out the factory speakers in this location, but I'm not going to do that until I understand more about what I'm dealing with here ... thanks for your input!
There we go, that's what I thought - there is a factory amp there. Well, there are 2 options that you can do: 1 Tear out that amp and see whats happening, swap the amp's output L and R and see if that distortion starts coming from the passenger side spks, so you can find out if amp is the one that's causing the problem.
2 You can call Chevy and see if they could shine some light on this, maybe you could even get the OEM wiring diagram e-mailed to you. You have to find out the specs on the amp etc.
BTW, that system only looks complicated, in reality all it is is 2 sets of spks + 1 set of extra tweets (???for some reason) + 1 sub. I would love to see how they are running them! Plus, if you say they are all running from the amp, then there is definately some wiring in parallel goin on, it's not like the amp has got 8 channels
Hmm ... I wouldn't be so sure. I've been digging and digging for technical information on this system for days now, and what I'm gathering is that there's an amp in the head unit, and a second amp in the unit behind the glove compartment. There's some filtering and redistribution going on between the two units, e.g., to power the total of nine (count em, NINE ... to correct my lame arithmetic from the last post) separate speakers in the Suburban's cabin. 4 in the front doors; 2 in the rear doors; 2 in the rear hatch pillars and 1 subwoofer in the cargo area.
My guess is the head unit has a four-channel amp used to power the door speakers, and the aux amp/filter behind the glove compartment includes a three channel amp that takes a mono feed from the head unit, which it filters and uses to run the rear hatch pillar speakers and subwoofer.
In any event, because I really don't want to start tearing out any of the stock equipment (which I am generally satisfied with overall) or going crazy with mega-power aftermarket components, I think I'm just going to try changing out the speakers first, to see if that eliminates the problem. If it doesn't, then I'll go to "Plan B," which would look a lot like some of the diagnostics you suggest. Thanks so much for your input!
Well yeah, swap the spks and see how it works. However, I wouldn't play no games and just tear all that stuff out, drop in a nice comp set, one sub, HU, and off I would go
Well, it's done, and the new speakers DEFINITELY solved the distortion problem. These Infinitys totally kick butt, and they seem to run just fine off the factory head unit/amp combo, at least for someone who doesn't want to end up deaf ... more than enough clean volume for my taste.
Now all I need to do is change out the rear door speakers and that piece of junk subwoofer in the cargo area ... but that'll be a much easier task, and another post ...
