850 Wagon Car Stereo

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850 Wagon Car Stereo[ALL/1988] posted by Chris Bettin on
Monday, 2 February 1998, at 10:43 a.m.

I've got a 1995 850 glt wagon. I just installed a new cd/tape/tuner. (The new one that comes with the the 1998 XCountry). I want to upgrade the speakers now, but everywhere i go, they want to make me pay 300 for 2 speakers! If anyone knows of a good place to buy speakers, or knows what ones i should buy i would love some advice. I think i want to replace the front speakers first. I hope someone has some advice for me.

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo[ALL/1988] posted by Nick Gidakos on
Tuesday, 3 February 1998, at 8:44 p.m.

Whow I have a 95 GLT as well and I have been thinking about installing
a cd-changer or upgrading the radio. I wonder if you can tell us how much the swap cost. I would imagine not cheap. What did you do with the other
stereo. Did you buy the new stereo from a dealership?

Any input will br appreciated.

Regarding speaker try Crutchfield. They carry a large selection and their service is first rate. They have a database with most cars' info give them a shot.

Nick

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo[ALL/1988] posted by Chris Bettin on
Tuesday, 3 February 1998, at 9:33 p.m.

Well... My parents bought a XCountry and i swapped the radio. But, i can tell you the sound is 100% better with the cd player then with a tape deck. The quality and and loudness went way up. I was surprised by how good it was. I don't know about trade-in costs, but i think the unit costs about 600-700 from Volvo itself. (Im going to the dealer tommarow and ill ask) You can fit a Double-Din stereo in there. Most double-din stereos have cd/tape/tuner and a nice lcd display for bout 700-1000. Take a look around, there might be better ones.

Hope this helps you out. Ill take a look at cruchfield...
any recommendations on a brand name or anthing?

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo V70[ALL/1988] posted by pat on
Tuesday, 3 February 1998, at 10:41 p.m.

I'm doing a stereo upgrade on my V70 and I was wondering, was it a direct swap? The plugs on the 850 match the plugs for the Cross-Country? Or did you have to cut wires?

pat

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo V70[ALL/1988] posted by Chris Bettin on
Wednesday, 4 February 1998, at 12:04 a.m.

Yep... there are 3 wires that just plug into the stereo. It was a little tough getting them in and out, but that is just a tight fit. The guy at the dealer showed me how on the Xcountry, but i did the 850. Make sure you have your Security Code for the stereo before you unplug it. You can swap them back and forth at any time, takes like 2 minutes.

Chris

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo V70[ALL/1988] posted by Erick Kobres on
Wednesday, 4 February 1998, at 7:06 a.m.

Pat,

The connectors and wires are essentially the same from the 850 to the S/V70. I got the harness from Crutchfield, but it's wired as a 4 channel thing, and not suitable for creating a loop. What I don't know is if the ASC speed input is new for the S/V70. It's not connected in the Crutchfield harness.

-Erick

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo V70[ALL/1988] posted by pat on
Wednesday, 4 February 1998, at 8:35 a.m.

I also recieved my harness from Crutchfield and it's exactly what I was looking for. You'll notice that the wires bridging the two connectors, are for the front speakers, that way any 4channel aftermarket head unit still powers the dash tweeters. The reason I was interested in the 850-S70/V70 harnesses is that now I'll call the junkyards again but look for an 850 whose harnesses I can cut out and then I'll be able to make my wiring harness for the stereo upgrade without having to cut any of my wiring. As for the speed wire, I'll just leave it off my wiring harness and assume everything keeps working. I have not noticed it doing anything anyways.

PS: The CD changer adapter is working great and with the changer just sitting in the glovebox (no screws,straps,glue,etc) it hasn't shifted yet and I only had one skip while going over railroad tracks. The alpine changer takes every CD I give it (even CDR's).

pat

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo[ALL/1988] posted by allan on
Wednesday, 4 February 1998, at 1:59 a.m.

What kind of price range are you looking for? You complained about $300 for a pair...how serious do you take your music? For a decent set of replacements, If you're going to go to Crutchfield, keep in mind that their prices are higher, though that's because of first rate service. If you do shop from them, look into the Infinity Kappa series, maybe the Pioneers. The former are pretty decent for middle-of-the-road level, and the Pioneers are very efficient (good output at low power, like the head unit amp). If you can find a car audio store, though, try and listen to the speakers before buying. I'd look at some Boston Acoustics and Eclipse. Not sure what else, as I'm not really into the coaxial speaker route...

good luck, and e-mail me if you have any questions (kaiyen@stanford.edu)

allan chen

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo[ALL/1988] posted by Dan on
Sunday, 8 February 1998, at 11:07 a.m.

A few weeks after I took delivery of my new '95 850T I had the OEM Volvo radio professionally removed and replaced with a Pioneer head unit and 12CD trunk mounted CD changer. The cost was about the same as the Volvo/Alpine 6CD changer and the sound & features are far, far superior. I am still thrilled with the sound. I doubt much has changed in the past 3 years other than improvements in aftermarket units' performance. Back then I wrote a summary of the installation to answer inquiries on another Board. It's too long to post here (3 pages), but I'd be happy to e-mail it to you (or anyone else) upon request. It's an ASCII text file readable by most any word processor. Let me know. ibinmo@aol.com (Dan)

Re: 850 Wagon Car Stereo[ALL/1988] posted by HAN CHUNG on
Monday, 9 February 1998, at 1:22 p.m.

dan,

can you send me the file? I have a 97 850 wagon model with the premium whatever in-dash cd. did you do any speaker changes?

thanks for the info...

han

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