In Car stereo - options for retaining original stereo

[ian65]

My car had the OEM Clarion E950 fitted when I bought it but it's reception was sketchy, the cassette sounded dull and I missed having the option to play MP3's from a USB.





I therefore swapped it out for a modern Pioneer I had on the shelf in the garage and guess what?
I hate it. It looks crap, sounds crap and is crap. It just looks wrong in this car and I'm going to refit the Clarion.
I remember back in the 80's when car hifi was really the thing to have these Clarion E950 sounded pretty good and were quite a high end stereo..... Jaguar, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Range Rover installed them as standard.
I know time moves on but I have a couple of questions...

1. What can I do to try to restore the performance of my E950?
2. If I put the Clarion back in and connect it back up could I install a secondary bluetooth based system hidden out of sight to stream to from my Iphone via bluetooth speakers etc? This may then give me the best of both worlds.

Any thoughts?

[gt_james]

I have a neighbor who has been messing around with the stereo on his 1986 nissan 300ZX, he has the original head unit, but its basically gutted, and uses an Arduino to interface with a more modern unit hidden out of site. It could probably be done with a raspberry pi or similar. I was going to try and buy an original clarion head unit and try similar myself, but it's one of the many ideas I will not be able to get around to for a while! You could just have it there not connected, but it would be nice to use the original head unit in some way.

[Threesevens]

My car had the OEM Clarion E950 fitted when I bought it but it's reception was sketchy, the cassette sounded dull and I missed having the option to play MP3's from a USB.





I therefore swapped it out for a modern Pioneer I had on the shelf in the garage and guess what?
I hate it. It looks crap, sounds crap and is crap. It just looks wrong in this car and I'm going to refit the Clarion.
I remember back in the 80's when car hifi was really the thing to have these Clarion E950 sounded pretty good and were quite a high end stereo..... Jaguar, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Range Rover installed them as standard.
I know time moves on but I have a couple of questions...

1. What can I do to try to restore the performance of my E950?
2. If I put the Clarion back in and connect it back up could I install a secondary bluetooth based system hidden out of sight to stream to from my Iphone via bluetooth speakers etc? This may then give me the best of both worlds.

Any thoughts?

I have the same unit as yours and have the same dilemma. I know my rear speakers need replacing and think that new ones would enhance the sound but won't do anything for the reception issues. Have you swapped your speakers? I am sure that there is a solution out there but James's suggestion is probably beyond my skill set.

[Threesevens]

Hi Ian,

Just watching Salvagehunters Classic cars and they used a company called Agenta Radio to update an old tape player. Might be worth giving them a try

https://agentaaudio.com/

[ChrisR]

Hi Guys

Stereo refresh is an interesting question and is one of a few things I am researching to find a solution whilst retaining originality. If you are wanting to remain as stock as possible then starting by cleaning the heads of the cassette player, changing out the speakers behind the grills for modern alternatives and generally checking the condition of wiring will help a lot I'm sure. Also checking and cleaning up the grounding on the aerial may well make a difference to radio reception. What I'm thinking though is finding a bluetooth MP3 solution would be better still. So currently my best plan seems to be:-

1. Swap out the speakers front and rear for something like Alpine SPE-5000's (although a lot more research to be done here to establish the best option)
2. Fit bluetooth amplifier under passenger seat with dedicated direct power feed and hidden discrete power switch. see - https://www.classiccarstereo.co.uk/shop ... amplifier/
3. Maybe fit sub woofer, again hidden dsicretely under passenger seat. see- https://www.classiccarstereo.co.uk/shop ... subwoofer/
4. Wire speakers on a single toggle multiple 2 way switch, to switch them between connection to bluetooth amp and existing stereo, and fit this switch in a discrete/hidden location. In this way it should be posisble to operate the existing head unit as usual, but switch to bluetooth amp when required. This switch might be the tricky one to define/source and I may have to consider small multiple switches to achieve this. Alternatively if I simply fit a two way switch in the power feed line to switch between existing head unit and bluetooth this could work and ties in nicely with ignition live power source. A lot more research is required here to define the circuit before making any changes.

To be clear I'm not looking for pumping volume, but just good quality sound. I listen to classical as much as I listen to 80's pop! Does anyone have any experience of the Classic car stereo bluetooth amp and or sub woofer first of all though? Are they any good?

If I proceed with this in due course I will of course post a full explanation, review, parts list, and wiring diagram to this thread. And then your welcome to come and have a listen sometime!

Chris

[A7RXY]

Strange I always preferred to listen to the engine .... good luck.

[KYPREO]

If the E950 is anything like the other factory Clarion radios, it doesn't have its own internal amplifier and instead uses external amp(s) located in the rear hatch behind the taillights. The radio > amplifier communication is via Euro DIN cable. Those can be readily converted to RCA using off the shelf adapters. It is therefore possible to replace the factory amplifiers with a modern external amplifier via RCA cable. This opens up infinite possibilities.

Whilst the source input signal from FM/AM and cassette will still be average, the amplified signal will be vastly superior to anything the factory radio deck can muster.

Furthermore, many modern external amps permit auxiliary inputs and I believe some have inbuilt bluetooth native (eg amps designed for boats I recall have this), meaning you can run audio from your phone and still retain the factory radio.

Another option is a bluetooth FM transmitter. These run off 12V and are an inexpensive way to run bluetooth audio via the FM receiver.

In Australia, there are shops which can install onboard bluetooth into these old radios as a direct input. I'm certain places would also know how to do this in the UK.

Finally, the factory Mazda radios in other markets had an auxiliary DIN input. This was used to interface with the EQ and Joystick. It is actually an input, so you can splice in an external bluetooth device and have it feed into the receiver. The advantage of this approach is that when audio input is detected it will actually shut off the radio/cassette and favour the aux input! There are some writeups on this on the RXClub forum here:

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation- ... k-1090924/
https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-archive ... on-675720/
https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation- ... em-481500/
https://www.rx7club.com/1st-generation- ... k-1038817/


Although the E950 seems to be a UK specific radio, it may also have this auxiliary input DIN connector and can be adapted in a similar way.

[Casey]

If the E950 is anything like the other factory Clarion radios, it doesn't have its own internal amplifier and instead uses external amp(s) located in the rear hatch behind the taillights.

Sadly, the E950 has built in 2x 15W amplifiers (pair of Toshiba TA7240A/TA7241A Power Amp chips) driving 4 x 4ohm speakers directly, so the only way to use a modern power amp stage would be to pick up the necessary signals from the internal PCB and route them out of the casing somehow to a modern amp.

Also, there are no auxiliary inputs, everything is self-contained in the E950. Again, it is possible to get inside the circuit board and rig something up. I did briefly look at adding a BT module, but it looked like a faff, so decided to stay completely OEM.

In fixing my faulty E950 I did obtain the service manual, which contains the full E950 (and E951) circuit diagrams. The manual can be found here, should anyone want to take on the challenge: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3493&p=46243