Help with upgrading sound system

[Booty900]

I bought my brothers car from him a while ago and now I am thinking of putting new speakers in it. It has the factory head unit with a cassette player and CD player and a 6 disc CD changer in the arm rest. It has 2 front door speakers, 2 back door speakers and 1 in the trunk. Does that mean that this is a MACH audio system? When my brother had the car the one in he trunk either blew or just stopped working and now no sound comes out of that one. The 4 others have sound coming from them. He also put in a dual channel 1600 watt amp and two 12" subs. Now I want to replace the 4 speakers that are in the doors since I don't care about the speaker in the trunk. If the car does have a MACH audio system does that mean it is going to be difficult to install? And just to make sure, I am going to have to buy a 4 channel amp and 4 speakers right?

Also I am thinking of putting a new head unit in since the display on the factory one only works 10% of the time the car is on. But my brother told me that I will lose the steering wheel control for the head unit and the CD changer won't work. Is there anything I could but to make this not happen? I don't really care that much about replacing it but I'm just curious. thanks

 

[rileyrs]

if you replace the head unit, i believe you will lose the cd changer.
to replace the door speakers, you shouldnt need to buy an amp, the HU is capable of powering door speakers just fine.
if you want better sound, new speaker wires will make a bit difference along with the new speakers.

 

[xplorer03]

u can retain the steering wheel controls, i think the parts a little pricey though. u will lose the cd changer, but almost all new hu come ipod ready which is way easier than cd. and a 4 channel amp would be a good idea, u will be much happier than just runnning the speakers off the hu.

 

[celly]

u can retain the steering wheel controls, i think the parts a little pricey though. u will lose the cd changer, but almost all new hu come ipod ready which is way easier than cd. and a 4 channel amp would be a good idea, u will be much happier than just runnning the speakers off the hu.

As you mentioned, there are aftermarket wiring kits out there that allow you to retain the steering wheel controls. I didn't think the price or hassle was worth it. My Pioneer HU comes with a steering wheel remote that I prefer to the built in one anyhow. I hear ya re: CD player/changer. I haven't played a CD in my truck in years. Between XM radio and my iPod, I'm covered and then some. Sure was handy during a recent 5,000 mile round trip road trip. If I'm really desperate, I'll do FM, but I don't even bother with presets because I rarely listen to regular radio anymore.

Aftermarket head units, speakers, wiring and amps are definitely the way to go and sound WAY better than any OEM solution Ford offered. I've had four Explorers. Only my '97 Sport retained the OEM system and that was because it was a 2 year lease and I didn't want to deal with ripping out a stereo after such a short while to put the original one back in. I had the top-end offering in that Sport and it was adequate, but hardly earth shattering on the sound quality front.

 

[pepaudio]

If you want to retain steering wheel controls, check out an item like this from PAC

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_127SWIX/PAC-SWI-X.html?search=pac

I'm not sure what vehicle you're referring to, but you'll be able to find one that will retain the controls.

If you're just putting 4 new 6x8" speakers in the car, you won't necessarily need an amplifier. The right way to do it would be to run new speaker wire from the new head unit to the speaker positions in the doors. This can be time consuming an complicated, as you'll have to feed them through the molexes in the doors (pain in the butt), but it's worth the extra effort.

The problem with adding an amplifier and not replacing the speaker wire is that you're pushing more current through the same high resistance wire, so you're going to get a lot of power drop to your new speakers, so you won't get the benefit from the amp that you think that you should get.

I'd start with the new head, new speakers and new speaker wire and see what it sounds like.