To answer a few questions about my recent instalation of an oem delco in my car, I happened to come by one real cheap and it'll have to do for now.Does anyone know of a good sounding oem delco for these cars? How about the Delco Bose gold series from the 1992 model year? Any good ?

 

Exactly what kind of Delco deck do you have in there now...what kind of car did it come from? There were some Delco radios in the early '80s that didn't have very much power at all.

How come your current setup doesn't sound good? What kind of speakers do you have? Maybe they're blown, or wired out of phase.

The Delco/bose decks contain no internal amplifier, so they can't be hooked up directly to speakers. If you wanted to, though, you could hook up one up to a separate amplifier.

 

Chris, the previous owner had an aftermarket system and took it with him. I'm trying to put back a delco system, I have purchased a used deck and I'm in the process of getting speakers.When I posted a question about the speakers I got a few negative responses about the delco decks, questioning why I wanted to put one back in when there were perfectly good aftermarket systems that sounded much better. So i did a little research and found that there was a delco bose gold series in the 1992 camaro. I was wondering if this was a more powerfull or better sounding deck?

 

The delco/Bose system is a pretty nice setup and sounds good when working properly.The problem is, is that you need to find the delco/bose deck along with all the bose speakers and it maybe very expensive.Next thing is, is that if any of those speakers/amps go bad, most shops like ours will charge around $125 just to repair each one.Nice system, but beware of costly repairs.

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Zedder, for whatever reason, everyone in the car stereo field seems to like to make fun of factory stereo equipment. In my opinion, almost all aftermarket decks are junk. They might sound better, and they usually give you more features that you need, but they never achieve the proper fit and appearance of a factory radio.

The main drawbacks of keeping a Delco radio mean you usually get a little less power, no pre-amp outputs, no CD changer controls, no CD player, and other stuff like that. But if you still enjoy cassettes, you should be just fine.

You asked if the Delco/Bose system was "more powerful" than stock. Well, yes and no. Here's how it works. The Delco/Bose radio has no "power" at all. It simply plays radio and tapes. The car has four special Bose speakers (mounted in unique locations), and built into each speaker housing is a special Bose amplifier, custom tailored to the interior of the car.

I've never seen or heard a Bose setup in a Camaro, but I've listened to them in a few other cars. They do sound better and louder than stock, but to put the entire Bose system in you car, you'd have to buy the radio, all four speaker/amp pods, the correct interior panels to mount them to the car, plus you'd probably have to do some extra wiring. And it would only sound a little better, so basically it wouldn't be worth it. There are many other choices that would sound better for far less money.

You could buy just the Bose radio, four aftermarket speakers of you choice, and an aftermarket four-channel amplifier. You could mount the speakers behind your factory grilles, hide the amp someplace maybe with the spare tire...you'd have great sound and a very factory look to your car. Again, to use the Bose deck, a separate amplifier is a requirement.

Another option, which would cost you less money and sound almost as good, would be to go on eBay or to a junkyard or whatever and buy yourself one of the newer, nicer Delco decks out of a 3-5 year old GM car. You could even get one with a CD player, or a cassette radio with CD changer controls. Then simply add four aftermarket speakers of your choosing, and again, you'll get the factory look. Also, you could still use Delco speakers if you liked the sound or wanted to save money.

Oh, and a little info on the Delco decks. The very newest GM cars use an extra-large radio that won't easily fit in your car, so forget about that. The older ones from the '80s are all the same, but they use different mounting brackets depending on what kind of car they're going into. You can simply obtain some Camaro brackets at the junkyard and attach them to your new radio. The Delco decks of the early to mid '90s are the correct size, but their mounting brackets are permanently mounted. It should be easy to get them to fit into your car, though.

Also, around the late '80s-early '90s, GM switched over to a new wiring plug, and a smaller antenna plug. Your 1990 car should have the newer style, but adapters are available nevertheless.

 

Chris, thanks alot for the info. I just got the car and the entertainment system I'm most interested in investing in right now is under the hood.The delco deck I bought (For 20 bux)will do for now. I'm very interested in keeping the factory look.I'm also interested in keeping a stereo in the car, a delco deck may be less appealing to a thief than an aftermarket system. Plan on adding a 10 pack cd changer next year.Besides I had the Delco deck all apart and thanx to its large size it was relaticvely easy to put back together.

Steve

 

Steve, you're very welcome. Let me know if I can help any more.

If you someday decide to get an aftermarket deck and you're worried about theft, you could make a custom mounting kit and set it back into the hole a little bit. Then remove the front panel from an old Delco deck, trim the sides a little bit to match the size of the hole exactly. Next, glue the original ***** and buttons into their proper places, and affix some velcro or something to the back. You can place this over your aftermarket radio, and it will look factory if you're parking in a bad neighborhood, or at a car show.

 

I used to have the Delco/Bose system in my 88 IROC. That system is way better than any factory system of the time. I agree with what was said before about them being costly. I needed to replace a crack speaker and it was going to cost a couple hundred bucks from the chevy dealer. I figured why spend the money on that and just upgrade to a completely new system.

I know that factory systems are better nowadays, but I will still put money on the Bose sounding way better. They are just made so nice and power and sound quality are all very good (but probably not worth the money for a new Bose setup). Hope you get what you want and are looking for.

Matt

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