1989 Fifth Avenue sound system advice needed.

Chris in GA

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Question for you gurus. Someone put an Infinity head unit (looks like the original radio would have but says "Infinity" on it) in my 89 Fifth. The sound is horribly weak. The speakers appear to be original with no amps on any of them.

What is the easiest way to get good sound? Find a non-Infinity head unit, or find speakers that go with the Infinity system. Trying to keep original appearance.

I have the dash and back package shelf out now so it will be easy to change any of it out before I put the headliner and trim back in. (Now that's another story!)

Thanks. And...go!
 

Aspen500

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The first thing would be change the speakers. The sound will be MUCH better.:)
I put modern speakers in my Aspen and even with the original AM/FM stereo, it sounds 500% better than it did with the stock speakers. Not what you'd call good but what do you expect from 4 watts per channel, lol.
 

89.Fifth

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Mikes5thAve

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Defiantly do the speakers. Even if they were good at some point being in a car for 30 years never helps much.
Depending on what the radio is out of some infinity ones had external amps and other crazy stuff going on and it could be what the radio is sending out as sound itself.
 

Duke5A

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Some of those Infinity decks were goofy. Verify it is a 4 ohm deck before tossing speakers at it.

As for speakers, you'll get the best results from properly enclosing the backside of the speakers. Any kind of low end response is due to this. It's impossible with the front speakers, but not with the rears. The torsion bars for the deck lid interfere, but you cam work around them. I would find 5x7 buckets for those speakers.

If you really want to bump without losing truck space then this is what I did with a custom box and upward firing 12" sub mounted under the package tray.
 

SharkHead

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Question for you gurus. Someone put an Infinity head unit (looks like the original radio would have but says "Infinity" on it) in my 89 Fifth. The sound is horribly weak. The speakers appear to be original with no amps on any of them.

What is the easiest way to get good sound? Find a non-Infinity head unit, or find speakers that go with the Infinity system. Trying to keep original appearance.

I have the dash and back package shelf out now so it will be easy to change any of it out before I put the headliner and trim back in. (Now that's another story!)

Thanks. And...go!
 

SharkHead

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It is fairly easy to replace the rear speakers with an upgrade, this will help your sound a lot, also the head unit is easily replaced with a variety of single DIN units, I don't know too much about the front speakers but just replacing the rear speakers and the head unit will increase your sound quality greatly! I put a dual xhd7714 in mine-has HD radio reception which is another huge upgrade!
 

MoparDan

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The factory front speakers have very small magnets when I replaced mine the magnets on the new speakers were a lot bigger so I had to get a set of tin snips and cut the holes to make them fit, the passenger side was easy to do, but the driver's side was tricky with everything in the way
 

Aspen500

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Problem I had with my front speakers was, the magnet hit the vent duct. Heat gun and reshaping a bit, and all was well. I've got the stock AM/FM stereo so it's far from great sounding but the new speakers made a noticeable improvement, even though I hardly ever use the radio in the Aspen (engine sound is all the music I need, lol!)

I made rear speaker enclosures using foil faced "Hot Rod" insulation from Speedway Motors, and held them together with metal foil tape. Can't recall off hand how I've got them mounted to the underside of the deck though. Might be held on with more of the foil tape. It's all covered up with trunk finish panels now, or I'd run out and take a look. Anyways, they work good.
 

MoparDan

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Problem I had with my front speakers was, the magnet hit the vent duct. /QUOTE]

I forgot about that vent. I put a something in between the vent duct and the dash to push it down just a little (a socket maybe I can't remember) to make the speaker fit nine years later still fine, I also had to raise the rear deck cover a little to clear the new speakers, a couple of soda bottle caps did the trick
 
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Aspen500

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I mounted the rear speakers under the deck and made spacers out of PVC to lower them down about 1/4", so the tweeters would clear the deck finish panel.
 

Chris in GA

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I found the proper radio for the car. The Infinity deck that was in it with the non-powered speakers just had no volume. The new deck with the stock speakers is actually not all bad and for as often as I will use the radio in it, I'm going to leave it stock so that the experience is true 1989. I have the Demo Cassette that came with it as well so I can't wait to hear 1989 all over again.
 
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