Hello.

I'm trying to put a radio in a 1989 560SEL. This car has no factory amp. I was told that if you do not bypass the fader when installing an after market radio that you can have it faded to the front and it will sound ok, have it faded to the rear and it will sound ok but if you have the fader in the center, it's not going to sound very good. I was also told that you can either run new speaker wires from the front speakers or the rear speakers and that will take care of the fader problem. I ran new wires directly from the rear speakers today and they sound amazing. The problem that I'm having now is with the front speakers. Coming out of the back of the factory radio I have a three pin connector with four wires in it. I know that these are my front speakers. The problem that I am having is that they sound awlful. I've tried running the front speakers off of the after market deck to each one of these wires several different ways. It's either the left one sounds really good and the left one sounds like crap. I'm assuming that all of the four wires are + because when I only hook a positive wire from the deck harness the speaker turns on. I really am trying to avoid running new speaker wires from the front because it just looks like it's going to be a headache. I have a total of four speakers in the front and it looks as if I need to disassemble the entire dash to get to the dash speaker. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Marc

If you have 4 speakers in the front, then you have 8 wires, or 4 pairs. Older MB's have 8 ohm speakers, and used a 'common' wire arrangement, so at some point in the harness, the + leads to a pair of speakers are joined, so you start with 4 wires to 2 speakers at the speakers, but end up with 3 wires at the radio/head unit, or at the fader. You need to get the instructions for your year/model for removing the speaker grilles first. Then, you can trace the wires from each one if you're going to use these. You MUST have separate pairs of wires from the HU to each speaker. No need IMO to run new wires, just make sure that they are distinct pairs. If you're just putting in a standard aftermarket HU, the stock wires are plenty big enough.
I'm not sure what you mean by 4 front speakers though. I thought 1989 SEL's only had 2 dash speakers. You must have 2 in the doors?

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1986 560SL
2002 Toyota Camry
1993 Lexus

resolved

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