Any Experience with Ford Escort Premium Sound?

[sketchman]

Particularly getting a new head unit to play with it? I have a 99 Escort sedan that had the "Premium Sound" package, and the wiring seems to be quite fruity. I followed the directions on the adapter plate kit and harness install and have gone over everything several times.

It's all accurate to the spec sheets. The issue is that the rear speakers will not play, and it's not the stereo either. I can hook the front speakers up to either front or rear wires from the head unit, and they work fine either way. But the rears will not work with either of them.

They all work fine with the stock unit in place, though. Any ideas? Think I'm just gonna rip it all out and run my own wires if I can't figure it out soon.

[FestYboy]

the rear speakers have a seperate amp if i'm not mistaken, this amp needs to be bypassed to work with an aftermarket head unit (had a similar issue with a Mustang with Premium sound).

run seperate wires.

[sketchman]

Literally just got a response on another forum that solves it. There is indeed an amp under the driver's seat that messes up your day when upgrading the head unit. Image shows the fix if anyone ever needs it.

Credit to JonsZX2SR of teamzx2.com

[sketchman]

Woohoo! I got sound all around! Wish I'd have known that yesterday. A 5 minute fix had me sweating for an hour in a hot car wondering what kind of demons got into my wiring.

Kenwood > Ford Premium Sound.

[Charlie1717]

I just finished installing an amp and sub into a 2003 Eclipse gs with Infinity premium sound. What a pain. I was able to make an adapter to allow the speakers to run off the factory amp and run another amp. The difficult part was being able to install a new head unit :s

Glad you figured it out!

[sketchman]

I'm glad too. They did a really really weird thing with it. The normal(as used in other escorts) speaker connector isn't connected to the stock stereo at all with the Premium Sound. It just loops the front and back together so you have 2 channels, one for each side. Then there is another plug that comes from the stereo to the amp and then back to connect to the rear speakers' wiring, which is again looped with the front ones.

So you get everything hooked up and wonder why you have an extra plug that the instructions don't talk about and why only the front speakers work when you clearly have it wired correctly.

[Charlie1717]

Sounds even worse than the eclipse set up! Thank goodness for the internet :p

[blkfordsedan]

I'm not positive, but I think the factory wiring is set up to only run line-level signal into the amp for the rear speakers. Sometimes the wires are not heavy enough to support the full Wattage. I would be cautious if only bridging some wires at the amp. My fear would be burning up the amp in the head unit. Honestly, my advice would be to run seperate heavy gauge speaker wire directly from the head unit to the speakers. It's not expensive or hard and you'll avoid any potential issues that way. Then again, I'm kinda neurotic about that stuff (FWIW)

[sketchman]

I didn't think of that. I may end up running the wires anyway, then. Don't know yet, though. They do make an amp bypass harness for these cars, though I don't know how it works. I had thought that it was where the idea of just looping the wires came from, but I don't know for sure.

[Charlie1717]

I didn't think of that. I may end up running the wires anyway, then. Don't know yet, though. They do make an amp bypass harness for these cars, though I don't know how it works. I had thought that it was where the idea of just looping the wires came from, but I don't know for sure.

That's what I based my wiring off of, was a harness to bypass the factory amp. Here is one that integrates the factory amp which is what I did.

http://www.parts-express.com//pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=265-846&CFID=1561361&CFTOKEN=31992150

This way you can keep all the wiring the same and still use your factory amp but with your new head unit. It worked great in the eclipse once I got it all figured out.

[blkfordsedan]

Not saying it won't be OK, I would just make sure the factory wires from the head unit to the amp are not tiny....plus, you have a ton of extra connections to go bad or come loose.

[FestYboy]

I'm not positive, but I think the factory wiring is set up to only run line-level signal into the amp for the rear speakers. Sometimes the wires are not heavy enough to support the full Wattage. I would be cautious if only bridging some wires at the amp. My fear would be burning up the amp in the head unit. Honestly, my advice would be to run seperate heavy gauge speaker wire directly from the head unit to the speakers. It's not expensive or hard and you'll avoid any potential issues that way. Then again, I'm kinda neurotic about that stuff (FWIW)

realisticaly an aftermarket head unit won't push enough to fry 18ga wire. you may have some loss through it, but not enough to make a differance for speakers used for rear fill.

[blkfordsedan]

I guess I was less worried about the wires and more worried about the amp in the head unit being damaged by not having heavy enough speaker wires.........although it probably still doesn't push enough that it would make any difference. I used to have an Alpine deck that had a switch on back to drop the rear speaker signal down to line level through the speaker wires (as opposed to RCA jacks). That was actually pretty handy when using the old "power booster/equalizers" that used a speaker wire input. Ahh.....the good old 1980's!