There is a negative and a positive cable for all the speakers...
Do not touch the fader control as you will get everything wrong... Simply pass some new cables.

------------------
-------------------------------------
WEB Site : http://www.adamou.dpn.ch
A.S.C. 1999
-------------------------------------

Hey Lube, I just finished getting a new CD receiver and speakers for my 300 SD and figured that I'd share what I learned with you. I changed both front and back speakers to a set of 60 W Kenwood's, and all four are 4x6", at least in my car anyway. I thought that the fronts were 3.5" because of what Crutchfield told me (when I entered what kind of car I had), but when I brought the 3.5" to the shop they told me the speakers in my car were 4x6" (Kenwood 3675C).

As for the deck, it's the Kenwood 2011S model (you can look it up on Crutchfield). Overall the sound is A LOT better, but it's still nothing spectacular. If you want to put bigger speakers in the back of your car you'll have to cut holes in your car. I've heard that some people with W126 cars put 6x9" by the rear window where the first aid kits are.

Hope this helps ya! As for the speakers, I installed the back speakers myself, but I'm not sure if I hooked up the + and - wires to the right terminals. What happens if I hook them up wrong? Is the wire with the strip the - one?

Good luck on your sound system. If you have any questions feel free to ask, and I'll try to reply as soon as possible (I don't check out this site very often though). Later!

alvichang: Thank you for your input. Couple questions please.

How difficult was your instalation? Did the speakers and Deck " pop in "? Does your console fader control still work?

BTW I think if you hook up the speakers the wrong way (+/-) you will repolarize them against factory polarization and eventually lose sound quality. Not absolutly sure though. Anybody know which wires are +/- ?

Hi Lube. Actually, I had my deck and front speakers installed, and I believe that it was probably a straight forward job as it took about 45 min to do. I decided to install the back speakers myself because I had to go back to the store and exchange my 3.5" for another set of 4x6"'s. My fader control does still work. I had a little trouble installing the back speakers because the old speakers are attached to this metal plate by these goldish-coloured, two sided bracket-like things (I don't know what they're called). I couldn't separate the old speakers from the plate, so I temporarily just screwed in the new speakers to the grill and plan on taking that plate to a shop to get them to remove it for me. But besides that, it's a straight drop in.

Alvichang,

The way I usually do it, and please anybody feel free to correct me, is I check the speakers themselves for some kind of mark on one of the terminals. Usually one terminal will have a red mark or a + or something. I make that positive. I then take the striped wire to that and the non striped to the other. This is just for reference. Then on the receiver/amp end of the same wire pair I connect the striped wire to the corresponding + terminal/wire. Just be consistent on each end of your wires. Stripe to positive on each end or stripe to negative on each end doesn't matter as long as all are the same.

Speakers reproduce sound by moving their cones at varying frequencies. The cones in turn push the air around them at those frequencies. If you hook up the speakers out of phase, that is to say, one channel consistent on both ends of the wire and the other channel with one end of the wire switched, one channel's speaker cone will be moving out while the other channel is moving in and they will cancel each other out. The music will lack the punch that it should have. The cones of each speaker should be moving in the same direction at the same time.

Hope this makes sense.

__________________
Matt Camara
'83 300SD
'85 Celica
'98 Harley Springer Softail