Installing A New OEM-Style Radio

I had to wait several months for delivery of the new radio so I fixed the Kenwood's problems while I waited. I pulled the driver door trim and fixed the silent speaker, which was cable connectors that had jarred loose from the speaker terminals. These speakers are only rated at about 20-watts RMS so they're probably too small for the new radio, but I'll try them first before buying replacements.

​Originally very small gauge speaker wire was used and was spliced in three places, so it was replaced, and grommets were also installed in the holes through the metal body where the cable passes through. The passenger side wiring was updated as well so the door wiring is ready for the new radio.
To improve reception the hidden antenna was pulled from under the metal dash and reinstalled on the edge of the windshield, which helped immensely.
After a three month wait the radio finally arrived. It's a reproduction of the original 1950's radio, but updated with AM/FM/Bluetooth. It also has an auxillary input which I will connect to a portable CD player.

​To set up the radio for its first test I installed a set of 6.5" Pioneer speakers rated for 70-watts RMS as the "rear" speakers behind the bench seat. I tried the original door speakers, and confirmed they are too small wattage-wise, so I replaced them with 5-1/4” Pioneers rated at 50-watts RMS.
I also installed a Kuerl 10" active subwoofer under the seat. There's only about 5" clearance underneath so it has to be a thin unit especially made for under-the-seat installs. It's not real expensive, as a matter of fact, it was almost the cheapest 10" active sub I could find, but it sounds fine to my 'ol ears and the build quality looks OK.
To mask out the grille around the radio I made a speaker grille cloth using course black material over heavy cardboard.
Initial tests revealed issues with the radio's volume control and audio quality. The sound is bassy and muddy requiring the tone control to be adjusted well on the treble side. Worse yet, as the volume is increased, the set will quite suddenly go from a moderate volume level to full blast distortion. And I do mean "full blast". I talked to the manufacturer's tech support and they suggested there could possibly be a broken carbon wafer in the control, so the radio is going back to the factory for testing. To me it almost sounds as if it is breaking into oscillation.
The factory claims they've tested the radio and nothing is wrong, and it goes into distortion at 3/4 of a turn by design. You can't make this stuff up. The tech I spoke with gave some reason that it was actually changed to be like this because of complaints of low volume, or something like that, but I didn't really pay much attention to their excuse. If this is on purpose it's a pretty stupid design decision.
The radio is back from the factory and reinstalled, and it's no better than it was before. The best I can say is I like that it has the look of an original, and it's about the only way I can get that look in this truck since during its rebuild the radio was relocated to the speaker grille and now an original radio won't fit.

I also had to make custom spacers for the Volume and Tuning controls in order to mount the radio at the correct angle for the grille, because the curve of the grille is different from the curve in the original location in the upper dash.
I am definitely not happy with the sound. The volume control action is terrible. I have to be very careful turning up the volume or I get blasted with distorted audio. It's like a switch, go too far and bam, it'll make your ears hurt.
As a test I installed a Sony two channel amp I already had, and it allowed me to separate out the radio issues from possible speaker problems. And it has provided a solution to the volume control issue, at least when using the CD player on the Aux input, because I can turn down the player volume to prevent overdriving the radio's preamp while keeping its volume control at or near maximum. Then I can compensate for any reduced output by turning up the Sony amp's gain to get back to full volume again without the distortion. But, I can't do this for AM and FM audio, so even with the external amp the volume action still sucks for AM/FM. The Sony is a nice little amp but I need four channels so I'll have to order a new one.
​I also found that Pioneer was fibbing when they said the rear speakers were rated at 70-watts RMS. I wonder if they did like some cheap speakers I saw online and added the wattage ratings of the two speakers in the box together and stated that as the RMS rating on the box specs? About 35-watts per speaker would seem to me to be closer to reality. I'm going to replace them with something better, and the door speakers, too.
After thinking over the test results, I don't see any way to completely solve this distortion issue except by modifying the radio. I hate to have to do this since it will probably void the warranty, but I don't see any other option.

For the 4-channel external amplifier I purchased a Rockville RVF-2 that's rated at 55-watts per channel. I'm still looking for new speakers, but at least with the external amp I can set the gain so it doesn't over drive the Pioneers, and I can use them until I find better.

I cut out the radio wiring I had previously installed and started all over again, rewiring the radio to be a head unit only. The speaker cables were rerun and routed under the bench seat where the amp and active subwoofer are installed. RCA cables for the radio's line outputs, and the subwoofer output, plus the radio's accessory output wire, were also run under the seat. And a piece of plywood was installed on the floor under the seat as a base for mounting everything.

​Power for both the amp and subwoofer comes from the battery compartment under the cab floor. I installed a 55-Amp switch in the front center of the skirt on the seat base so I can easily disconnect the battery power if needed. I didn't like the thought of having live wires going straight from the battery to the amps (through a 40-Amp fuse) if I ever needed to work on them in the future.

To kill the power without the switch I'd need to unscrew the carpet trim piece on the floor by the passenger door, lift the carpet, remove the insulation and pull the battery compartment lid just to get to the fuse.
I removed the radio from the dash for at least the fourth time so I can mod it. The mod is very simple: I added a resistor inline with the high side of the pot to lower the audio input level. This only required removing the cover from the volume control to access the pot, so no need to open the actual radio chassis.

​The resistor value was determined by setting the control at the 3/4 of-a-turn point where the volume suddenly goes full blast, and measuring the resistance from the center wiper to the top of the control. The value measured was ~4KΩ, so this is the value of the resistor I inserted inline with the 20KΩ pot.​ I meant to take pictures, but completely forgot until everything was already back together.
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First tests after the modification went well, and it appears the volume control issue is finally solved, no thanks to the factory.
It's the middle of May and I've finally achieved what I set out to do way back in January: simply upgrade the radio to something that looks correct for this model truck and has better sound. I thought I'd be done a day or two after receiving the radio, I had no idea what an expensive debacle it would turn into.

I can't imagine how a company selling an expensive custom radio like this could possibly think such poor audio quality would be acceptable. I don't know what other's experiences are with this radio, but I absolutely would not recommend it to anyone, at least not until they fully understand the issues with it.
I did finally come across a review online where a fellow installed a radio from this company in his vehicle and basically said he almost cried the first time he turned it on and heard how bad it sounded. I know exactly how he felt.

​Now that the problems have been worked out, the radio, amplifier and subwoofer are working well together, and the system sounds pretty good, although I think the fidelity could/should still be better. But this is a great improvement over what it was putting out, so I'm not going to stress out over it.

Despite the issues with the radio I am happy to see how nice it looks in the dash, which was the primary reason for buying it over the competition, and I feel a lot better about the money spent now that it sounds better, too.
At this point I should be done but I'm not. The amplified hidden antenna, which worked with the Kenwood, is not working right with this radio, so I ordered a new amplified "Marine" AM/FM antenna from Crutchfield made for use on boats. It has good reviews so I decided to give it a try. But it only has a short coax cable and won't reach under the seat to the coax extension from the radio, so I installed a longer extension.

​I also ordered from Crutchfield a set of Infinity Reference 6"x9" 100-watt RMS 2-way speakers for behind the bench seat, and a set of Kenwood 5-1/4" 75-watt RMS 2-way speakers for the doors. And I put foam speaker baffles in the doors when I mounted the Kenwoods, mostly to protect them from the elements.

​​​​I was planning to build a new speaker enclosure behind the seat, but then I found a nice set of ready-made 6"x9" speaker boxes that will fit back there, so I just ordered those instead. Less work for me.
​I packed up both sets of Pioneer speakers and returned them to Walmart. They said I could return them and I was happy to do so. In the future I'll stick with buying at Crutchfield.
Now I think I'm finished. This is one of the 6"x9" Infinity speakers installed behind the seat. Pretty much a perfect fit for the space. Both the Infinity and the Kenwood speakers in the doors are able to handle the power from the amp and allowed me to increase the amp's gain over what the Pioneer speakers could handle.

I was hoping the new amplified antenna would fix my reception problems, but after driving around and testing it, it's worse than a just a plain unamplified whip. It's not that it doesn't work at all, it just isn't very sensitive. So much for "hidden" antennas. I'm really considering installing an original style whip antenna. I just have to talk myself into drilling a hole in the truck first.

I haven't even tried out the Bluetooth connectivity yet, so I suppose I'll check that out next.

Until I come up with a solution to the antenna problem, I guess I'm not quite finished after all.
Page created 4/29/2024
Last update 5/29/2024