i just bought a used 1995 850 wagon and its going great except for the tired radio/cassette player and a dead speaker. i am going to upgrade with my 4 channel amp and cd/mp3 player unit.

what size speaker has everyone been able to fit into the doors, the dash, the rear pillars, etc. the factory speakers look like an odd size and the crutchfield site says 4" only in the doors and nothing in the dash.

i have put in several car stereos before but i am looking for advice before i buy speaker to try and squeeze into this car.

thanks a bunch!
:liebe011:

Well, I too am looking for the speaker size for the rear pillars. I guess I am too lazy to pull the covers off and see for myself:P

As for the rest, I will let you know what I have found out, but have not personally verified yet. First off, all speakers are metric sized, so for simplicity you will have to find the closest equivilent in inches.

Dash: 3-1/2"will fit, however the mounting holes will not mount up, so without any modifications you will only be able to use one mounting screw, unless you drill a new hole to mount the second screw with. I have seen pictures on the web of people showing how a 3-1/2" speaker fits in the provided holes and the original volvo speaker grill still fits over them just fine.

Front and Rear Doors: 5-1/4"speakers are what I am finding to be the prefered size. Again, the mounting holes will not match up.I have not verified this myself or with pictures. Also, make sure your choosen speaker is not too deep (i dont know the allowable size just yet either)

Rear Pillars: I am still searching.

I have purchased a pair of Infinity Kappa 3-1/2" inch speakers for the dash and 2 pairs of Infinity Kappa 5-1/4" speakers for the front and rear doors and plan to install them this weekend. At which point I can give better sizing details.


CRUTCHFIELD: They have good products, good service and ok prices for a normal retailer (you can find better prices at other places though). However, I have found that with my 850 Volvo Wagon, that their information on speaker sizes and especially the size of the head unit itself are wrong. Mine allows for a full double din sized head unit and crutchfield says it does not. Going on what everyone else I have found has done, 5-1/4" speakers fit in the doors and not 4" ones as Crutchfield says. It is possible that 4" are the largest that can fit without minor modifications, but everywhere I have found people have redone their stereos with modifications, none have mentioned anything about having to modify the doors for their 5-1/4" speakers, and most are quite in depth about everything they have done to produce their system.

So take it for what it is worth, but hopefully this may help.

A little additional information, in case you are not too familiar with car stereo systems.

Volvo uses a slightly different means of using their speakers and amplifiers from many others.

If you get to the point of replacing speakers in your volvo,keep in mind the following.

As an eample, my 95 850 wagon has 8 speakers (2 dash, 4 doors, and 2rear pillars). Volvo uses a 4channel amplifier to power all 8 speakers. To do this at the stanard car amplifier 4 Ohm rating, they are using 8 ohm speakers, which is not common for use in a car. Most aftermarket car speakers you will buy will be 4 ohm or 2 ohm speakers.

Wiring a pair of 8 ohm speakers correctly will produce a pair of 4 ohm speakers, which will them properly match the amplifier. However, if you were to only replace the front door speakers and not the dash speaker then you will most likely be pairing up a pair of 8 ohm dash speakers and a pair of 4 ohm door speakers. This will no longer produce a 4 ohm combination, instead it would produce a3 to 3.5 ohm combination. This would not be a major problem, however it would make the new speakers seem louder than the remaining dash speakers with no means of adjusting the difference, because an 8 ohm speaker will rewuire more power to sound a loud as a 4 ohm speaker.

It appears volvo is pairing the dash and front door speakers together and the read door and rear pillar speakers together, so I would suggest replacing these sets together to maintain equal speaker ohm ratings in order to maintain similar volume levels between the speakers as you are used to hearing now.

A side note to this. The Volvo amplifier is a 4 ohm amplifier. Again your original setup with paired 8ohm speakers will produce the 4 ohm rating the amplifier is rated for. Again most aftermarket speakers are 4 or 2 ohm. if you retain the same wiring and replace the speakers with 4 ohm speakers then you will be creating a 2 ohm rating on the amplifier which will in essence make the amplifier twice the power it used to be(if it was a 100watt amplifier at 4 ohms, it will act as a 200 watt amplifier at 2ohms). Most 4 ohm amplifiers are stable at 2 ohms (but not all, and you will need to verify this or you could cause damage to your amplifier or speakers). Only higher end after market amplifiers are stable below the 2 ohm rating (that being 1 ohm or 1/2 ohm). So if you happen to purchase some aftermarket Infinity speakers (many of which are 2 ohm speakers) you would be producing a 1 ohm rating on the amplifier which would most likely damage the OEM Volvo amplifier.

In this event, your choices on installing such speakers will change and not bejust simple speaker swaps. You would have to do one of the following:

1. Do not use the Volvo Amplifier and instead wire the speakers to your head unit (this will most likely leave you to 4 speaker connections only)

2. Purchase an aftermarket amplifier capable of the proper wattage and ohm rating for your speak combinations.

3. Properly match your speaker choice ohm ratings to match the ohm rating of the Volvo 4 channel amplifier. Below is a brief explanation.

Volvo is using parallel wiring to make a pair of 8 ohm seakers a pair of 4 ohm speakers. Parallel wiring involves taking the positive speaker wire to both speakers directly and the negative speaker wire to both speakers directly. Wiring speakers in parallel basically halves the ohm rating of a pair of speakers.

The alternative is Series Wiring. Series wiring will double the ohm rating of a pair of speakers. With this you can take a pair of 2 ohm speakers and turn them into a pair of 4 ohm speakers, which would match the ohm rating of your OEM Volvo amplifier.Series wiring takes the positive speaker wire to one speaker, then the negative connection from that speaker is wired to the positive wire of the second speaker and then you connect the negative speaker wire to the negative connection on the second speaker.

For either means of wiring, you would connect the left front door and left dash speaker to one channel and the leftrear door and left rear pillar to another channel (repeat for right side). This way you maintain the same fader/balance controls as youdid before.

Hope this help a little and is not too confusing. Feel free to PM me if you want a better explanation.

I finally did the full system upgrade in my 850 wagon, although I havent provided any pictures yet.

Here is a link to the post in the forums about it with motthe detail on what I found to fit where and what modifications were necesary (if any).

http://www.volvo-forums.com/t21128-stereo-...5-850-wagon.htm