OK, OK, they kill everyone?s bass guitar, and tubas and even cellos. That is if they are played on my car stereo.
I recently had a new stereo put in my car (2003 Saturn Vue). The guy at Best Buy told me the increase in the power of the new stereo (52 watts per channel Sony CTX GT-200) might blow my old speakers. I asked about installing fuses, he said that wasn’t done anymore. (?!) He said I should upgrade my speakers (the old ones were loud enough) or have the “speaker Savers” installed. They are supposed to limit low frequencies, which are what blow speakers. In fact they filter out Completely all bass sounds. I?m pretty sure the speakers would have been OK (especially with fuses), and I?d like to remove the Speaker Savers and put some fuses in their place. I would like to do this myself, just on principle: I think Best Buy?s advice was bogus, and they broke my heater knob while installing the stereo. I didn?t figure it out until it got cold.
So, I have 2 questions:
1) How do you get the door panel off a Saturn Vue. I don?t want to go prying around on the wrong thing. If I get that off, I can remove the Speaker Savers, and put a couple of fuses in there. If they aren?t in the door, how do I get to the stereo. Do I have to remove the dash?
2) What Size fuses are needed? I thought I?d start with 5-10 amp fuses, and if that?s too low, go up a little.
Remove the “speaker savers” and just use your original car speakers. You will not blow the speakers unless they are distorting for periods of time.
How, oh How do I get the door pannel off to remove them?
Pry gently along the bottom of the panel, at the rear corner, and it will start to pop off. There are a dozen or so “pop” fasteners holding the panel to the door, plus a few screws through the armrest.
If you have manual windows you will have to remove the window cranks, too, and in some cases the inside door handle has to come off.
Forget fuses, just eliminate the bass blockers.
5 amp fuses would allow your amp to deliver 200 watts to each of your speakers (P=IIR) assuming your speakers are 8 ohms. That’s likely too much.
If you know the wattage of your speakers, use the formula I(amps)= Square root of (power in watts divided by resistance of speakers).
Or just look below:
5 amp fuse … 200 watts
4 amp fuse … 128 watts
3 amp fuse … 72 watts
2 amp fuse … 32 watts
1 amp fuse … 8 watts
Don’t forget to make that a “fast blow” fuse.
Further on the above … I’ll bet 32 watts is more than enough to blow out standard 8 ohm speakers.
Your car speakers are likely 4 ohm (the above table is for 8 ohm speakers are usually home sterio speakers). For 4 ohm speakers just divide the Power (watts) by 2 in the above table.