One of the problems I have with my Camaro is my radio. The stock radio is a cassette player. Im currently using a cassette adapter to play my iPod, the problem is the music sounds like crap. I have replaced my door speakers and removed the blown factory speakers from the sails. Has someone done an adapter to the rear of a factory unit before? How do you test the factory amp to see if its blown?

 

What did you replace the door speakers with? Did you use the proper components or just some coaxial speakers? If you used coaxial speakers, how did you wire them (considering there are two pairs of speaker wires in each door and a coaxial speaker only uses one pair)?

Making an assumption that you really meant you removed the sail panel subs (beside the rear seat) rather than the hatch area speakers, you would have eliminated most of your bass frequency output making your sound thin.

So it's quite possible that you hooked up a set of coaxial speakers in the doors to the tweeter wires there so you end up with something that sounds like an old transistor AM radio with nothing but very tinny high frequencies playing. This can be corrected in several ways. The best way is to get the proper speakers installed in both the doors and the sail panels. Our sponsors Kee Audio and Double D Mods can get you set up with replacement speakers that work well with the Monsoon system. A quick fix that will sound better than what you now have (although not great) is to make sure you use the original wire pair from the woofers in the doors - they carry unfiltered full-range signal that will work much better than the tweeter wires with coaxial speakers.

Bear in mind that a cassette adapter is limited in sound quality simply because of the cassette interface. Cassette tape units have limited dynamic range so anything played through that interface will lose sound at both ends of the spectrum (bass and treble) causing a somewhat flat sounding output. Output will sound like a strong local FM station - not bad but not nearly as good as a digital interface.

All 97-02 F-body cassette head units are capable of controlling an external CD changer so they can also be used with an interface adapter such as the GM9-AUX which lets you connect a music source (iPod, MP3 player, satellite radio, etc.) to the CD changer port on the back of the HU. This provides the best possible sound.

 

WhiteBird00,

Thank you for your help. I did not know the four wires were for tweeters and component speakers. Your post has helped me out a lot. Again thank you.