9000 Amplifier question

[Sam]

At the junkyard meet i was able to pick up bits and pieces to upgrade the stereo in my 900. I had bought off of ebay a stock radio for 1990-92 head unit with an aux in installed.

Since I have an 89, i have a different harness, so at the junkyard meet i grabbed a harness off of a 92 9000 with the factory amplifier.
What is weird about it is that there is a speaker out from the head unit connector which runs my front speakers. However the pins for the rear speakers are missing on the connector. My guess is that in the 9000 version of the system, the head unit itself runs only the small dashboard speakers. Anyone know if thats accurate?

I also grabbed an early 9000 equalizer and amplifier which is compatible with the clarion connectors of other years, so I plan to use that amplifier to drive the rear speakers. The question is, in this case I have outputs for 6 speakers? Did the 9000 have separate door speakers? EPC gives only a vague insight, and i can see 3 sets of woofers but they look like they are hooked up in series there and there is no depiction of where the speakers are actually located.

If the setup is what I think it is, I will take the extra outputs and bi-amp the rear 6x9s with a coil to output only the bass regions, then some caps to run the tweeter section.

The difference in sound quality is huge on the later head units. Running only the front speakers sounds better than all 4 with the previous late 80's 900 radio. This newer one looks identical to the stock one which is perfect, definitely a recommended upgrade.

[DeLorean]

the system goes like this

900 / 9000 are both similar.

85 - its own thing, w/ a highly optioned SPG or turbo you would have a head unit, and an EQ with slide bars and no fancy lights on the EQ. the amp in this unit is in the head unit. base model or 900-S have a much more basic unit with less power and a lower end head unit, which was not compatible with the EQ. no CD option period.

86-87 high end cars, turbo & SPG, 9000 turbo. these have clarion head units with the big square buttons for the volume display, and either a "cubbie" which contained an amplifier, OR an equalizer / amplifier combination, which had the nifty light up display. - this is what you got at the yard. These have pretty good power, but very rarely work correctly.
No CD option.

88 89 90 & 91, all cars got the head unit where every component between this year rage is compatible with the accesories from the catalog. If you wanted a cartridge loading CD player for $1398 for the head unit in your 88 900- base, it would work unlike the old systems. There are 3 different head units with various trim leveles - base ass models had manual elect and FF buttons, higher end car had "full logic" cassette, and an optional cartridge load dash mounted CD player, as well as an equalizer. the amplifier is located in the head unit on these.


92 93 94 900 & 9000 (except for 94NG900)
This system seems to be the absolute worse for reliability for all the systems. The head units in these cars look a lot like the 88-91 units, but are actually very different. They are designed to have output to the front speakers only (this why only 4 wires coming off the head unit), and a DIN cable runs under the passenger side seat in 9000's or the rear seat in 900's to an amp, which powers only the rear speakers. Optional CD/EQ combination units, optional EQ only, optional CD only. Can also use a CD changer on these.

The components between the years (85) (86-87) (88-91) (92-94) are not interchangeable except inside those year ranges.

Also... these systems all suck. You should just get a $100 unit from walmart, and you will be far better off, especially for a daily driver. It can be a very frustrating experience trying to mix and match this stuff until you find a set that "sort of, mostly, works, most of the time" and then once you have it, it will quit working 3 months later. Anyway, that's my opinion. I had a stack of CD players, I kid you not, 10+ I had collected from the junk yard when these cars were like sand at the beach in the yards. last year, I tried to get a working set together. I ended up with 1 fully functioning CD / head unit out of the stack.

[Sam]

Ha thanks DeLorean. You're right that i'm trying to combine a 86-87 amp+equializer and a 92-94 harness. The amp from these years looks nelson pass inspired (he designed some of the best stereo equipment of the 80's for companies like adcom, nakamichi), etc. My head unit seems to have been rebuilt with new backlights and aux in, but I can hear a slow start on the left channel so I may do a capacitor upgrade in the near future. That's a pretty common to do on equipment this age and it says more about quality of the capacitor runs at the time. Companies like apple, dell etc still struggle with bad cap issues that affect reliability.

I actually have a new gaudy looking clarion unit that came with my spg but i hate the look of it, so i'm going to persist against what I suspect is good advice. I hacked an aux in on my 9-5 radio, and it was totally worth it on that car. The system sounds awesome and i'm able to use the phone integration.

To get the setup to work, i'm going to have to make a splitter for the power harness to run both the amp and the head unit. At first I thought i had to daisy chain everything, only to blow out 3 fuses in one shot. The clarion din connector appears to be standard, though I may need to find the extension to route to the center console in the 900.

[saabfan9]

anyone end up with a scrap radio that would fit in a 1984 900 let me know...I have an empty space and wires...does not have to work (I do not listen to the radio...lucky enough to find a delete plate on the 99)...just want to fill the hole in the dash

[Crazyswede]

I have the stock amplifier with the cubby in the front that would block the hole....if you want it.