I recently ordered myself a Boss and found out that she will be coming with the base stereo system, which of course needs to be upgraded. I just got rid of my 2007 V6 with the Shaker 500 system(which sounded good enough to me with just the front and rear speakers replaced with Infinity's).

First question is... what actually comes with the standard system (dealerships can never answer questions about audio stuff)

Second... How hard would it be to replace the standard system with a Shaker 500 System and infinitys in the front and rear? I want to try and keep this baby as close to stock inside as possible...

Third... while utilizing the stock head unit... could i build a decent system around it? and what wold you recommend?

Thanks for your help!!!! I would hate to have this wonderful beast of a stang... and not be able to enjoy the tunage as i cruise the country!!!

 

Base is 4 speakers, shaker 500 is 2 additional door subs, shaker 1000 adds 2 subs to the trunk in addition to the doors.
With the base system you will not have even the cut-outs for the door subs.

To replace it you would need to get an 2010-2012 model year shaker unit, as the the newer model mustangs are not standard double-din cut-outs as the 05-09´s were.
I´m unsure why you´d wish to though. Unless you want sat. or nav functionality there is no difference in the units themselves. The slightly extra volume and hit, if it can be called that from the low RMS, is from the factory amps to the subs, not from the unit itself. RMS power to the base 4 speakers will be the same.

Any replacement head-unit not specifically made for the center dash insert would either have to be altered or replaced, currently only 1 pre-made one is available that I know of.
The speaker dimensions/housings have not changed that I´m aware of from the 05-09´s. So you should be fine for speaker replacement.

Sound wise? Sure. As for speaker, amp and such recommendations, I´m far out of touch in recent years..

 

Thanks for the reply... one re-question... with the regular head unit... you said the funcionality is the same as long as I dont want nav... does that mean that I could basically turn it into the shaker 500 by just adding the amps and subs to the doors? because that is basically what i was trying to accomplish!!!

 

Yes and no. As I said, since you didn´t get it from the factory the doors will not have the factory cut-outs. So, yes, you can get the 2 little factory amps and the 2 subs for the usual shaker 500 install, but that would be missing. As would the 8-pin wiring harness and the factory harness wiring from the amps.

So to be as factory as possible it would require door panels, all of the wiring mentioned, the 2 amps, and subs.

My personal opinion is that is far from worth it. If it´s possible, and not insanely expensive, getting replacement door panels from FORD might be worth it. Then you can put some good or at least decent shallow mount 8´ subs there. But getting the factory stuff for the sake of being factory.. You can do much better with it looking factory still.

 

First off, congrats you lucky son gun.... love the Boss.
I myself have the Shaker 1000 and have torn it all apart finding the correct wires to install an amp, replace speakers, and install a sub. It is a headache. Now I wish I had just the base stereo to build on. The 8" speakers in the door is nice to have to uprade so you dont have to cut out a hole in your door. I totally agree with Wayne, it is not worth it. Not worth the homework, the time, or the ridiculous amount of money you will spend. I went with Kicker all around, 6x8's and added a 10" CVR powered by a 500w Alpine sub. The "best speakers" argument will go on forever and will change with new products. Your budget will dictate what you get. I have used Soundstream components, subs and amps in all but two of my many cars over the years. I believe they are the best for my sound taste, and they are low priced. Another personal favorite is Boston Acoustics, and years ago I had a very expensive MBquart system that was mind blowing. I'm not sure if they make anything worth a crap anymore. Alpine is iffy, i dont think they make the same quality product they once did as far as speakers. I've always used their HU's. I really like the Kicker's that I have now. They sound better than I thought they would. Just make sure you stick with the same brand for the mids/tweets. Subs, amps and HU's you can mix up.

 

Kappo,

First of congrats on the new pony! I myself just picked up a base V6 with the base stereo system. I had an Infinity 7541a from a previous car that I wanted to install so here are the things that I ran into.

First of all, I am a former employee of Harman Kardon (Electrical Engineer), so what I am about to describe was of little concern to me, but may prove too risky for the average joe out there.

The first problem I encountered was that there is NO switched 12+ line coming out of the stock unit. My amp doesn't have the newer audio sense switching so I had to go digging. When you tear apart the dash, you will discover that the whole system is using cann (differential serial communication). Because of this, each unit is responsible for listening to the cmds on the wire and turning it's self on and off. The unit that houses the cd player contains most of the logic and the amplifiers. In order to get switched 12+, I had to solder a wire to external connector (The largest one which contains power, ground, speakers and I believe cann). Soldering wouldn't be required except for the fact that there isn't a wire in the connector where it needs to be. (Be sure to put an external fuse on the wire near the head unit with a 1A fast blow fuse otherwise you run the risk of burning up your factory head unit).

This worked fine and I thought all would work well using high level inputs on the amp (since the factory unit lacks pre-outs). This all worked except my system had a horrible 10khz alternator whine from the get go. All attempts to eliminate this were futile (I made sure grounds were solid, and even ground the head unit at the same point as the amp).

So my last resort was to tap into the signal just before it went into the amp chip in the main unit. When you take the main unit apart (be careful with the flex cable that connects the CD with the main board), there is a group of 8 capacitors that decouples the input to the main amp (google TDA7562B for reference design specs). The inputs are on pins 16,15,13,12 with signal ground being on pin 14. The tricky part is that you can't connect directly to the amp chip because it has it's own DC voltage levels (which you wouldn't want to send to your external amp). What you have to do is connect to the decoupling caps that are near the center of the chip. The other trick is that everything is surface mount and a bit small so a jewelers magnifier is really helpful (if your over 40 like I am).

If you are interested, I can send pictures (sorry it was late last night and I was not particularly proud of the connection job I ended up with). In the near future I will get some smaller coax wire and do it right (and take pictures for those interested).

Anyway, bottom line the only issue I have now is that there is a turn-on / turn-off thump, but other than that, no wine and pristine sound.

 

Newer shaker amp turn-ons are natively 2.5v, hence the thump. The same solution as before should work, bringing it down the 5v or less for those turn-ons via a resistor or a regulator.

 

Wayne613,

I'm not sure what you mean. As far as I can tell the thump is actually on the audio line. If I don't turn the radio on until after the car is started, then everything starts up just fine (no thump). This is due to the fact that the Infinity amp has a delayed turn on (about 2 seconds from applying the remote turn on voltage). If I turn the radio on (from the Acc key position) and then start the car, this causes the head unit to momentarily turn off during starting and then turn back on. Either the turn off or back on causes the thump. I am suspecting the turn-off as regardless the system provides a good thump on turn-off as well.

As a point of reference, if I simply remove the turn-on voltage, the amp does not thump on power down, hence my suspicion that the audio is generating the thump prior to the remote power signal dropping.

 

Yeah, never-mind, I read this just before leaving work last night. I did not see that you have the base stereo system, rather than the factory installed amps to work with.