New Speakers

I had new rear speakers installed in my 98 GP GT. The old AC Delco's gave out. One was just rattling instead of making sound. Anyway, the new rear speakers, a name brand which I can't think of at the moment, are very weak sounding. Instead of having the knob centered for even sound between the front and back speakers, now I have to turn the button way to the left in order to even hear the rear speakers. I brought it back to Circuit City where the speakers were installed, and complained. The guy looked again and said the wires were not connected properly and he switched something around. He said something about male and female wires which I didn't quite understand. But he switched the wiring around. I also told him my old speakers had a separate midrange speaker and wondered if that had something to do with it because the new ones don't have separate midrange. He tried to sell me a $250 amplifier. I said no thanks, not right now. Does this sound normal? Gosh, I'd rather get AC Delco speakers if my new brand name speakers are going to sound like crap. The demos sounded good on the wall in the store!

The ac delco where a two part speaker... Get the specifications of the speakers you have currently and I will see what I can find out about them.

I replaced mine with three way infinity speakers (not exactly very expensive) but the give a nice bass and will almost sound like you have a pair of say 10". I have never heard of wires being refered to as male and female I have however heard posi/ neg, and hi/low and it does matter on some speakers. I hope this in some way helps.

i currently only have the factory 8speaker bose system in my car but i put in a alpine iva-d300 multi-media deck.it added a bunch of power and just gives the car a sweet look.it took abit to get the bypass for the e-brake safety feature though.

Hi Red99GPGT, and everyone! The speakers I purchased are PolkAudio 6 x 9 3-way speakers. 300 watts peak, 100 watts RMS. They sounded great on the demo wall in the store! I was looking for something with more base, but not that loud subwoofer sound. These speakers sounded the best in the store, but the worst in my car! I bought them at Circuit City and they installed them too. I believe the comment about the male/female being hooked up wrong initially had something to do with "connectors". But even after that change, the new speakers in the back have a very weak sound. The installer said the new speakers these days require more power than the old AC Delco's and I need to have a $250 amplifier installed. I want my old AC Delco's back! If anyone has advice, about how they should be wired, or how to improve the sound, please let me know. Thanks!

Those Polks probably do need more power to get them started and the tech should have told you that before they installed them. As long as Circuit city did everything I would go back and tell them the sound is unacceptable, hook me up with the speakers that will work with what I have in my car or take them out and refund my money.

The polks recommended power range is 10 watts min-100 watts max RMS....so yes they needed an amp for them to sound any good.What 10-100 means is that you should at least have 10 watts of minimum wattage to push the speaker and they will handle a maximum of a 100 watts..For stock applacation you should look for speakers rated at 2 watts minimum like 2-70,2-75 or 2-100 and so on....as long as the first # is 2 they should work well.I agree that you tell them your not happy with them and try and have them replace them with a lower wattage minimum speaker.

Good Luck

~Larry~

Thanks BIG-L! Adding this task to my to-do list, return to Circuit City.

Question for GTP Warrior - regarding those infinity 3-way speakers you've got, what are the numbers on those? Are they 2-watts min? And did you replace the front speakers too, or just the back speakers?

Circuit City has some Infinity 6" x 9" Speakers (9603I) which are rated at 2-100 watts RMS power range which should work out great for 149 bucks!

~Larry~