hey got a 96 fairmont ghia and the front right hand side stock speaker is damaged any point replacing them without upgrading the head unit. or am i looking at having to upgrade the whole system

you can replace them with aftermarkets on the factory head unit fine... However they wont sound nearly as good as with the factory head unit... Do these first seeing as they are needed and do the head unit at a later date when you have the spare money there or the factory one plays up...

Cheers,
Tim

ive personally replaced my front stock speakers with panasonic 30W rms units and i still use stock headunit sounds good lil soft but plenty of quality

i personally dont like the look of the aftermarket headunits they just dont match

as to reason i am currently in the middle of amping up my car and upgrading to the ford premium headunit i will then tap into the signal cable for the sub and put a amp at under a front seat and having a extra amp running my front speakers while having a amp running my back speakers and sub or using the ford stock signal cable and have it connected to a 4 channel aftermaket amp at the back and a 2 channel bridge (small one) running the parcel shelf sub as well

idk what setup im going with yet

just some ideas

Hey Mate,

Yeah as others have said you don't need to replace the factory head unit, it will run the speakers no worries at all. They may not sound as good as an afternarket head unit but some people are happy with that.

Cheers,

My opinion, it seems time to go aftermarket. You can get a stock speaker from the wreckers but its been used for 14 years so dont expect anything excellent. For the moment leave the stock head unit if its working ok and grab a good pair of speakers for the front. Just in case you dont know, when your shopping for speakers dont go the PMPO power. Thats what the speaker will do in one millisecond before exploding. Go by the RMS. If the 96 fairmont ghia's have tweeters in the Dash then go either dual cones or 2 ways. If not go either 3 ways or 4 ways. You could go splits but if your not 100% then you could make a mess when installing the tweeters. Another personal opinion, unless your going to go to the extent of sound deadening the doors I would go no higher than 80watt's rms. Anything higher and it will sound great in the car but outside you will be able to hear the door shaking and thats not too cool. Definately spend the extra money for decent speakers though or you will be only replaceing them in 6 months time. Also there are alot of aftermarket head units that will look better than the stock head unit, you just have to shop for the right style to suit.