[23109VC]

my car is a 2000 base.

it came with a "hifi" stereo option, but did NOT come with rear speakers. the prior owner added a rear speaker kit, but I don't think it was the porsche kit - it looks like a custom job.

My car appears to have speakers up on top of the dash and in the doors. I have the factory CDR-220 head unit. There is what appears to be an amplifier in the front trunk up against the firewall just behind the spare tire.

when I turn up the volume on the stereo - I feel like the sound quality is great. it goes plenty loud for my needs. sound quality if great too. I really don't have any complaints.

i do, however, notice that I never really can tell that the rear speakers are even there. I started playing with the fader/balance controls and have shut off the front speakers and run the car SOLELY throught eh rear speakers.

the sound volume coming out of these rear speakers must be 1/4 of what comes from the fronts. it sounds like they are not getting much power. is this a sign of blown speakers? even if I flip the seats forward, so there is absolutely nothing obstructing the sound - they don't sound very loud at all. if I turn up the strereo volume as far as I can - it gets louder - but the sound quality is not that good. it almost sounds like the sound is muffled....

I do NOT know how these cars were wired from teh factory - but I do know that my front speakers are all "tied' together. in that the door speakers and the dash speakers fade/balance together - so they are all coming from the same source. if I fade to front left - both the front left door AND dash speaker play. I can't isolate them.

I wondered if it was possible that the amp in the trunk is running all the front speakers (door and dash) but that the rears are running only off the deck and getting not enough power??

i have no idea how the factory amp is wired/setup - so I don't even know if that is possible or not.

i also don't know how I could check for this - without taking it to a stereo shop and having them look at it...

for those of you who have added the rear speaker kits - do you run the rears off the factory amp? just the deck? do you feel the rear sound volume to be a LOT less than the fronts?

on my car isn't not even close - the fronts speakes are so much louder than the rear shelf speakers - that to make the rears loud enough to really hear - the fronts wind up so loud that they start distorting... so basically, to make the stereo sound "right" you have to keep the volume at a point that you can't even really hear the rear speakerrs at all...i'm sure they are making sound, but it's so low that they might as well not even be there.

any suggestions on how to rewire my system or fix this?

w/out getting an "expert" to look at it - i figure it could jsut be how it was wired? it could be that the rears need to be amplfied? or they are not wired up right - maybe they are not getting any power from tyhe amp?

i figurd since I have an OEM headunit and amp - those of you famliar with those setups would be able to figure out the most likely way these speakers were added - and it might speed up the diagnosis...

my honest gut is that the amp is running the fronts AND the rears and maybe my rears blew out? i honestly don't know the symptoms of blown speakers - so maybe that's not it?

thanks for any pointers...