Another 8 Speaker System Thread, Differences I've noticed doing the swap Options

[Special_Edy]

Ok, so first off thank you zfjohnson07 for selling me the door panels.

Here are some of the differences I noted between th 96-97 GT convertible in the junkyard that I got the Premium 8 Speaker stereo parts from and my 94 GT Liftback that originally had the 6 speaker system




The 8 speaker door panels have extra sound insulation. They have a metal plate that covers the hole for the window regulator, as well as a plastic piece and a foam pad that support the door panel. All of this was not on my 6 speaker door cards.

The metal panels-


Installed-

Basically they just cover the big hole in the door there


Door Panels-



The door panels. The 8 speaker 8" grill is only slightly larger, probably only because it doesnt have the border that the 6 speaker grill has. The 8 speaker door panel also seems to be slightly taller(stands farther off the door).
And of course the 4" mids are pretty sexy.

Backside of the door panels-


Notice the additional foam padding near the top of the door panel, as well as the plastic piece that sits over the steel plate I mentioned before.


Speaker/Bracket


The 8" speaker bracket with a random 8" I had laying around versus the 6.5 I had which was in a bracket of unknown orgins(is it from a 4 speaker system?)


Wiring Harness-

8 speaker harness

The 6 speaker system door harness is in my hand and the 8 speaker system harness is on the door. What your looking at is a comparison of the identical shaped plug, the lower speaker uses the same connector but has different colored wires.

You are looking at the junction box under the driver's-side kickpanel. The two blue wires at the at the bottom of the middle connector, next to the white wire. These are the OEM wires for the driver's side 8" speaker on the Premium System. If you wanted to add an external amplifier, you would want to splice into these wires. blue-black stripe and blue-red stripe


Anyways, I just though that parts of this may be useful to someone somewhere...

[richee3]

The sound insulation is actually a facelift model thing. The rear speakers also have those white plastic boxes and I believe the padding under the carpet is different as well. I haven't seen the metal plate covering the window regulator though, that's a nice touch. How does it sound compared to the six speaker setup?

[njccmd2002]

i want those plates. look nice

[Special_Edy]

i want those plates. look nice

The driverside looks much better installed, its gold.

As for how the system sounds-
Much more distinct sounds. You can tell that different sounds are coming from different speakers, and so the 4" + 8" instead of a duplicate pair of 6.5's produce a much more volumous effect. Its deeper and crispier at the same time, but the 8's by your ankles are really whats phenomenal.

One drawback is that the door does rattle slightly on certain songs if the amp is cranked. Also, I believe that the 8" sub may interfere with the 4' mid sometimes, being that they both share the same door panel(aka speaker box) so the pressure waves inside the door mess with the clarity of the 4"

[zfjohnson07]

i just bought some ply 8 inch 3 way speakers... i hope they sound good