Rear speaker issues

[gr8shot]

Hi guys, first post here. Just bought a 96 cutlass supreme a couple weeks ago. Great car so far. Just shy of 200k on the 3.1 with brand new top end gaskets and it runs like a top and is in near showroom shape inside and out.

 

One thing that has me stumped is the rear speakers. All I can get out of them is treble. Like just out of the tweeters. Absolutely zero sound out of the woofer part. I tried ohm-ing the wires from the speaker to the plug at the back of the h/u but couldn't get any wires to show a connection for either of the woofers for the rear speaker. Both sets of wires for the tweeters ohm'd just fine though. So I'm kind of baffled as to what I should do next.

 

For reference I have the nice luxury interior. Has digital dual climate control, has the factory h/u with the CD player with steering wheel controls. The whole system is stock as far as I can tell. Still has the factory solders and what not. Not sure what else you'd need to know to help but I'll fill in any blanks I can. I'd rather not invest a butt load of money on aftermarket stuff if I can get the stock parts to work, as I'm sure they'll be sufficient as long as they aren't blown terribly.

 

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[xtremerevolution]

Chances are the speakers are shot. Can you post a picture of how they're wired up and what the speakers actually look like? Its a pretty common thing as they're often left in the sun and can dry rot.

[gr8shot]

Sure can. Ill be home in a couple hours and will take a pic or two n post em.

 

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[gr8shot]

I forgot to post the pics... doh.

 

Here they are.

 

 

 

 

 

If I have some time this weekend I might try and pull one and hook it up to my inside stereo and see if I can get some sound out of it. It doesn't look like the foam surround is damaged or torn up or anything. So at this point I'm still not sure what's up.

 

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[xtremerevolution]

Yep, your speakers are shot. Get another pair of cheap coaxials and call it a day.

[gr8shot]

How can you tell from the pics? I'm far from a stereo expert but they "look" to be fine? Not doubting you, just curious what you can see that I missed.

 

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[Mark 97 Cutlass Coupe]

What is the small black round thing on the right side of the speaker? I have a 97 Cutlass, with the factory cd/cassette, steering wheel controls, etc. I was wanting to update all the speakers as they are 14 years old and about shot. Mine is also stock. Can I just replace the old stuff with new? Do I need to know anything specific for replacement speakers to get them to work? And finally, is there a way to add an amplifier to the stock head unit so my dash still looks stock and lets me use the steering wheel controls. Thanks.

[xtremerevolution]

How can you tell from the pics? I'm far from a stereo expert but they "look" to be fine? Not doubting you, just curious what you can see that I missed.

 

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They're the factory speakers, and those dry rot, get old, and stop working. Plus, you ohm'd the coil and got nothing.

 

What is the small black round thing on the right side of the speaker? I have a 97 Cutlass, with the factory cd/cassette, steering wheel controls, etc. I was wanting to update all the speakers as they are 14 years old and about shot. Mine is also stock. Can I just replace the old stuff with new? Do I need to know anything specific for replacement speakers to get them to work? And finally, is there a way to add an amplifier to the stock head unit so my dash still looks stock and lets me use the steering wheel controls. Thanks.

 

You can replace the old stuff with new, but don't go too heavy on the new stuff. Just get some general replacements that are made for low power.

 

You can run an amplifier, but I wouldn't recommend it without a new head unit. The factory head units have terrible, terrible sound quality and it is very highly recommended that you replace the head unit. You can get a factory integration module to allow you to retain steering wheel controls on the new head unit.

[gr8shot]

They're the factory speakers, and those dry rot, get old, and stop working. Plus, you ohm'd the coil and got nothing.

 

All I did was ohm the wires from the speaker to the h/u. Couldn't get any connection on the woofers wires but did on the tweeters wires.

 

 

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[Jonathan_C]

What is the small black round thing on the right side of the speaker? I have a 97 Cutlass, with the factory cd/cassette, steering wheel controls, etc. I was wanting to update all the speakers as they are 14 years old and about shot. Mine is also stock. Can I just replace the old stuff with new? Do I need to know anything specific for replacement speakers to get them to work? And finally, is there a way to add an amplifier to the stock head unit so my dash still looks stock and lets me use the steering wheel controls. Thanks.

 

The small round thing to the right is called a capacitor. It is used a passive high pass circuit to protect the tweeter from bass frequencies that would harm the tweeter. If they appear to be 'blown out' (bursting at the seams), and you don't have sound coming from the tweeter, the capacitor is likely the culprit.

[xtremerevolution]

All I did was ohm the wires from the speaker to the h/u. Couldn't get any connection on the woofers wires but did on the tweeters wires.

 

 

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Ok, let me go through this again.

 

You don't get a connection on the woofer wires but you do on the tweeter wires.

You don't hear the woofer but you hear the tweeter when you play music.

 

The woofer has a voice coil, and if you test it with a DMM and you get nothing, there's a short somewhere in the coil, or its severed. Either way, its toast.

[Garrett Powered]

not sure why this would be hard to figure out. about a million of these speakers in the junk yard, right?

 

 

5 minutes to swap out with lower mileage ones for 5 bucks. that is all they would charge me probably. they might give em to me for free, but I got a few friends working there.

[95 vert]

Gonna agree with xtreme. Speakers are done. That is the "upper level" stereo system for the Cutlass. It has a factory amp mounted on the knee bolster to the right of the steering column. Mark97, if your speakers are identical to these, you have the factory amp also.

Don't put "regular" speakers in if you want to retain the "stock" system. They sound like shit. Very hard to find used speakers like these that don't have the same problem. I don't know if they are still available new or if a proper replacement can be had.

[gr8shot]

Ya I'm curious what I can do for replacement speakers since these have two separate connections. Can I just buy some cheap generic 6x9s and only hook up the wires going to the woofer part? Does that set of wires carry the full range or is it only lows and mids? Every set I've ever replaced before only had one set of wires going to it so it was a direct swap, easy as pie.

 

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[95 vert]

Ya I'm curious what I can do for replacement speakers since these have two separate connections. Can I just buy some cheap generic 6x9s and only hook up the wires going to the woofer part? Does that set of wires carry the full range or is it only lows and mids? Every set I've ever replaced before only had one set of wires going to it so it was a direct swap, easy as pie.

 

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I tried regular 6x9's and IIRC, tried both connections and the sound quality just wasn't very good.

[gr8shot]

Do both connections carry all the frequencies? That was my concern. Maybe one was his and one lows. I don't expect anything to sound amazing, I just want it to function correctly is all.

 

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[xtremerevolution]

Do both connections carry all the frequencies? That was my concern. Maybe one was his and one lows. I don't expect anything to sound amazing, I just want it to function correctly is all.

 

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You should be able to wire up a set of standard coaxials the same way the factory speakers were wired up. Just clip the tweeter wire and hook it up to the wire that fed the old tweeters.

 

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[95 vert]

You should be able to wire up a set of standard coaxials the same way the factory speakers were wired up. Just clip the tweeter wire and hook it up to the wire that fed the old tweeters.

 

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Never thought about trying that. Let me know how that works out.

[hailukah]

Sorry for resurrecting a 3 week old thread, but one of my rear speakers in my 95 Cutlass just blew. I have the premium sound system in mine. Here's some things I've noticed after a day of playing with the speakers.

 

1. The back of the speaker lists two different impedance ratings. 4 ohm and 10 ohm. The capacitor is on the 10 ohm side. The cap is rated at 68 uf. Consulting a crossover calculator that puts the crossover point on that set of terminals at around 234 hz. Way too low to be just for the tweeter.

 

2. I played around with the speakers being plugged in with only one set of wires, then the other. The wires that go to the 10 ohm side seem to provide full range sound. I say this because I can here midbass on up through the speaker with those wires hooked up. The other set of wires seem to have a low pass crossover and only provide bass.

 

So it seems to me that what GM did here was use a dual voice coil 6x9. They're pushing more wattage on one coil (the 4 ohm one) with just the bass, and then a lot less wattage on the other coil plus the tweeter.

 

The problem is that if you want to replace the speakers you're only have the options of: a) very low power, full range audio; or probably much better power low passed audio. That's why hooking up replacement speakers to either wireset will give "crappy" sound.

 

Now for the fun part.

 

For any of you teenage (or teen at heart) types that want a ghetto boomin' ride, if your stock speakers are still working, then you can unplug the wires that go to the 10 ohm side of the speakers and have bass only out of the rear. Then your friends will ask if you have a sub back there . I'm running just one speaker this way for now and I'm actually quite pleased, even with just one crappy stock speaker. At comfortable volumes the thing produces a surprising bit of bass. Plus the overall sound is more bottom filled now with the mids and highs removed from the back.

 

I will be getting a new set of 6x9s in the next couple of days and I'll be hooking them up to just the low pass wires and I'm hoping that the bottom end will be even more pronounced.

 

And for the good news (i am not entirely sure about this though): All may not be lost if you want full range sound from the replacement rear speakers. If you get a small amp with speaker level inputs the full range set of wires ought to be able to provide the signal. And amplified 6x9s in the back should produce a good bit of sound. And you wouldn't have to get a monster amp to do that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but most new head units put out something in the neighborhood of 20-25 watts rms, so you should be able to get as much or more volume from a 35 x 2 watts rms amp. It does kinda stink thought that you'd have to go through that just to replace some speakers, but that's the way it seems to me.

 

Now, please keep in mind that I am by no means an expert on this, and I'm really hoping someone on these boards has some more specs on the factory amp in these cars. But if nothing else, in a few days I'll report back with my experiment with the new speakers.

 

Hope this helps.

[hailukah]

Well I got some new Scosche 6x9s from wally world. I have them hooked up to the wires from the 4ohm side of the factory speaker and all I can say is WOW! The power from the amp is awesome. I now have a solid bottom end coming from the rear of my car. And yes it's just bass. So I've confirmed that one set of wires is low-pass and amplified. I'll be doing some more research with this system in the near future and will be posting my progress. So far I'm thoroughly impressed.

[alec_b]

According to the diagram I see, the amplifier takes an input from all 4 channels, and sends out two low-frequency signals to the rear speakers. About the same setup as my '96 SSEi had.

[Galaxie500XL]

Not meaning to hijack the thread, but I'm confused. My '95 Cutlass convertible has the separate speakers in the doors (woofer, tweeter), and two in the back. Thought this meant it had the uprated system. But, when I had the dash apart a few weeks ago, there was nothing where I expected to find the small factory amplifier--no amp, no wires....

 

Does that mean I do not have the uprated system, and is it possible/worthwhile to add the factory amp? I can get the amp from a local junkyard for maybe 5 bucks...

 

Since it's a convertible, I prefer to leave things as stock-looking as possible--way too easy to break into a convertible, and mess stuff up...

[hailukah]

I think the amplifier is only a 2-channel low pass amplifier, it's not amplifying the signals to the other speakers. And from reading other threads on this forum it doesn't look like the convertible had the 6x9s in the rear, only 5 1/4s. The amplifier wouldn't do much good on those small speakers.

[alec_b]

You are correct, the amplifier take signal IN from all 4 channels, but only outputs left and right low-frequency to the rear "subwoofers".

[gr8shot]

So you guys are running aftermarket speakers and only hooking up the low frequency set of wires? Doesn't that sound muddy and crappy or is it strictly bass without any midrange at all? I've been holding off on buying a set of 6x9's because I don't want it to sound like crap. Full range would be ideal. It doesn't have to sound better than stock, but I don't want it to sound horrible and muddy either.

 

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