99 Grand Prix GT (Stereo)

[god910]

Okay, my G/F's (Hot) cousin just bought a 99 GT, w/ a ton of shit on it. It's only got 50K, it has the right number of doors, black leather interior, yada, yada, yada, anyhow, it has a delco CD player and a super fancy stereo. What I'm wondering is this: are ALL the speakers powered by there own amps, anyone w/ a newer car did you do as typically expected and replace all your speakers or did you *talk* them into turning on w/ the aftermarket player. She claims the cd player skips, and that is why she wants to replace it. She could probably live w/ it if not all the speakers were powered by themselves, and they ran off the h/u. She already has the h/u from her old car, and doesn't have the money to buy aftermarket speakers (yet). Final note... It's in perfect shape (Xcept the pass. side GT emblem is gone, I told her to take the other one off ) She paid $8,800 for it. Is that about right? (P.S. her 95 Cutty coupe chewed pickup truck, and sacrificed it'self, so she could drive a Prix )

[sl3196]

Is it a bose stereo? If so it's a big pain in the ass cause the bose wont work with aftermarket cd players. I ran all new wires to the speakers and everything works great. I recommend taking out the back seat to do the rear speakers, makes it easier to run wires.

[god910]

I don't honestly know if it's bose or not (but I would assume so, I also forgot to mention, this car is quite loaded, power heated seats, power sunroof, I doubt they skimped on the radio) I haven't actually gotten to ride in it, just looked in through a locked tinted window . So did you just bypass the amps, or what, I don't really understand

I ran all new wires to the speakers and everything works great.

[sl3196]

Yeah ran speaker wire straight from the deck to all speakers. There is an ohm difference or something with the bose and causes it not to work with aftermarket cd players. Look for the bose emblem on the front speaker grills. Also the amp is in the middle of the trunk, mounted up top.

 

If no bose then should just plug right in I believe.

[LukeZ34]

You can install an aftermarket headunit on a Bose system in a Grand Prix, and you don't need one of those expensive adapters either, read why below.

There's 4 types of stereo options the GP could come with.

 

1. Standard 4 speaker stereo. 6x9 speakers in the rear deck, and the 5 1/4" speakers in the front doors. (No tweeters in the sail panels)

 

2. Standard 6 speaker system. Same as the 4 speaker setup, but with the tweeters in the sail panels. All speakers are powered directly from the headunit.

 

2. 8 Speaker Premium sound system. 6x9's, and 4" speakers in the rear deck, and the 5 1/4" door speakers with the tweeters in the sail panels. The headunit ONLY powers the door speakers (including tweeters), and the rear 4" speakers. The 6x9's are powered by a small amplifier right under the glove compartment and put out low end (bass) only.

 

4. 8 Speaker Bose system. You know you have the Bose system if the door speaker grille's are labeled 'BOSE', or you see a large, out of place amplifier hanging down from the rear deck in the trunk. Has the exact same speaker setup as the 8 Speaker Premium system, but all of the speakers are powered by the Bose amp in the trunk. The nice thing about this system is the amplifier works off of high level inputs for it's signal. Which means that you can install an aftermarket CD Player without many ill effects as some of the older Bose systems did (they ran off of pre-amp inputs). The only thing you will notice with a newer CD Player is it will be slightly louder, and this is because of the higher output of the aftermarket vs. the factory headunit. Since the stock Bose system sounds like shit (Trust me, I know it does), you can upgrade the headunit to the stock CD Player w/ the Equalizer. Doing this makes a HUGE improvement of the sound, and works exactly the same. It's all kind of hard to explain, but just know that the Bose system uses the same kind of stock headunits that all of the other setups can use.

 

She can install her aftermarket CD Player with no problems, except losing the steering wheel controls, but even that can be fixed. Hope that helps.