How to hook up speakers to Monsoon? (Updated with pics)

[mjparme]

I have the 6 speaker monsoon system in my car. The front two speakers blew, so I went to the local car audio place and they suggested some Alpines for my car. When I went to install them I saw that the new speakers only has two hookups and the stock speakers has four (I guess two for low sounds and two for the tweeters).

I did a search in this forum and came across a post leading to this thread on ls1tech.com:

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126979

However, I don't understand what the guy is talking about (he doesn't have pics). Is he suggesting cutting something on the speaker? I dont' get it.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[ August 08, 2005, 10:56 PM: Message edited by: mjparme ]

[Gallstaff]

Do a simple test. Hook up the two wires to where two wires were previously and see what happens. I've never heard of this before and I've seen speakers installed on f-bodies of various years but then again I wasn't paying extremely close attention.

[nda0602v6]

Coaxial speakers are actually two separate speakers into one (the tweeter in the middle and the woofer). If you look closely at the 2 terminals on the back of your Alpine speakers, you should be able to see 2 wires that run from the tweeter to those terminals. Sometimes the tweeter wires come out through the middle of the magnet assembly.

What that guy did was he separated/cut those connections so he could hook up the two sets of wires he had hanging out of his door, one set to the tweeter and the other set to the woofer.

NOTE: If you are going to do this to your Alpines, make sure you do not cut the "bare/silver" wires that go from the speaker terminal to the woofer. The wires you need to cut, the tweeter wires, will be actuall insulated wires, one wire will usually be solid in color and the other will have a black or white tracer indicating polarity.

[mjparme]

Originally posted by nda0602v6:
Coaxial speakers are actually two separate speakers into one (the tweeter in the middle and the woofer). If you look closely at the 2 terminals on the back of your Alpine speakers, you should be able to see 2 wires that run from the tweeter to those terminals. Sometimes the tweeter wires come out through the middle of the magnet assembly.

What that guy did was he separated/cut those connections so he could hook up the two sets of wires he had hanging out of his door, one set to the tweeter and the other set to the woofer.

NOTE: If you are going to do this to your Alpines, make sure you do not cut the "bare/silver" wires that go from the speaker terminal to the woofer. The wires you need to cut, the tweeter wires, will be actuall insulated wires, one wire will usually be solid in color and the other will have a black or white tracer indicating polarity.

Thank for the info, that really helps alot!

I think the only issue I have now is I didn't mark the wires so I don't know which set went to the tweeter and which one went to the other one...doh! The tweeters ones were the shorter of the set so maybe I will be able to tell that way.

[nda0602v6]

HERE is a chart with color codes for the Monsoon Amp for a Camaro.

The Monsoon amp only powers the "woofers" in the doors, the "tweeters" in the doors are powered off the head unit in the dash.

On the Passesnger side door, you should see these color wires:
Right Front Speaker "woofer" (+)...Orange
Right Front Speaker "woofer" (-)...Dark Green
Hook these wires up to the "woofer" on your Alpines.


On the Drivers side door, there should be these color wires:
Left Front speaker "woofer" (+)...Dark Blue
Left Front Speaker "woofer" (-)...Light Blue
Hook these wires up to the "woofer" on your Alpines. Hope all this makes sense.


Then you will be left with two wires on each door, these are the tweeter wires. I don't know for sure what the colors are for those. Take a look and let me know.

[mjparme]

I finally got around to hooking up my speakers with the above information. I bought Alpine-170A's and the tweeter wires do indeed come out of the middle of the magnet.

Wires I cut:



I cut them up by the terminals.

My woofer and speaker wires weren't color coded like described above. So to determine which were which I simply held each pair of wires to the woofer terminals. The woofer wires will deliver a full sound like you would expect from a speaker. The tweeter wires will deliver a faint sound. You won't have any trouble determining which are which.

Then I simply connected my tweeter wires in my door to the tweeter wires on the speaker (the tweeter wires on the speaker only had 3-4 strands of wire, so they were a little annoying to work with). Then the woofer wires to the terminals on the speaker.

Here is what it looked like when I was done (used heat shrink over the tweeter wire connections):



BTW, I am real happy with these speakers. I was perfectly happy with the stock Monsoon speakers...apparently because I just didn't have anything to compare them too. These speakers make the stock Monsoon speakers sound like Sparkomatics (are they even still around? haven't really messed with car audio stuff since I was 16...sort of depressing to think about how long ago that was).

[nda0602v6]

You did a nice job on the wiring, I like how you used heat shrink on the wires that go to the tweeter.

Out of curiosity, are the red and black wires in the picture wires you added or were those the factory wires? I know when I took out my 6-3/4" monsoon speakers in the back, they had red and black wires but at a plug that was close by, they changed to the colors as listed on that color code chart. Anyway, looks like you figured it out.

p.s. haven't seen Sparko's in years and I hope I never do again lol

[mjparme]

Out of curiosity, are the red and black wires in the picture wires you added or were those the factory wires? I know when I took out my 6-3/4" monsoon speakers in the back, they had red and black wires but at a plug that was close by, they changed to the colors as listed on that color code chart. Anyway, looks like you figured it out.

Those are the factory wires. Maybe they were out of the other colors of wire when they built my car [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks for you help above, wouldn't have had a clue without it!

Wouldn't hurt my feelings if Sparko's were gone. [img]smile.gif[/img]