I'm back with some more questions about my monsoon system. I have an '05 Sunfire with the monsoon stereo. Now, according to Pontiac, the monsoon system on Sunfires is a whopping 400 watts. What exactly does this mean? Is the head unit 400 watts, or are the speakers? Or are both? After riding in several other cars with 200 watt (or less) systems, I am beginning to get the feeling my system is not 400 watts as advertised. I took the car back to the dealer once already, to make sure my back speakers are working 100% because the bass can barely even rattle the car, and they said they are. So is my stereo really supposed to sound just average? Or are my speakers malfunctioning? The speakers have popped and reset the clock and everything about 7 times in the year I've had the car. And the dealership could not find the source of that problem either. I don't know much about stereos, but I would imagine a 400 watt system would have some punch to it. Don't get me wrong, my system sounds good....but I was expecting better. Plus, I've only been able to locate 6 of my 8 speakers....so where are the other 2? The dealership has been no help. Is this how my stereo is supposed to sound? Or should I demand that they replace it?
my friend has the monsoon in her grand am and it sounds really nice in there. it is 400W. i only think theres 6 speakers in the sunfires 2 on the back 2 in the front then the tweeters. my car dont have the monsoon radio in it and if i put my bass all the way to +6 my rear deck vibrates and they speakers sound nice and clear. how do u have your speackers set. do u have the back speakers on all the way?
According to Pontiac, my system has 8 speakers. The standard mp3 cd player that comes with the ISC trim had 6 speakers. I think my monsoon package was just something they did the last year of production. My car rolled out of the factory only a couple months before they ceased production. But yeah, I've tried several different settings. I've tried different equalizer set-ups...turning the bass all the way up.....I've tried shifting the sound more to the back, instead of being toward the center. I've tried everything I can think of. I listen to all types of music, but basically the only time I can really get the car to rattle is when I put in the Gorillaz or something hip-hop like that. I sorta wish they still had some Sunfires left on the lots around here, so I could listen to another one with the monsoon.
According to GM the Monsoon system has a 200 watts amplifier and it peaks at 400 watts. And in total you have 2 front tweater, front speakers, and 2 rear 2-way.
All in all it is one of the best sounding stock systems for the econobox class.
And there is a big difference when you listen from radio to CD/MP3.
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-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----
Monsoon = 8 drivers, all amplified. There's an amp in the trunk that drives the speakers.
Premium Amplified = 6 drivers, front two door speakers powered by the deck, the rear 4 (the 6x9's are two-way, four wires which they count as two speakers) are amplified by the amp in the trunk.
Base model = 4 drivers... all powered by the deck.
Thanks for the info everyone! I'm probably going to take my car back to the dealer to see if the stereo needs servicing. I don't think its as powerful as it should be. And the speakers popping concerns me. I'm just afraid they still won't be able to find the cause of the popping/clock reset. Anyone have any ideas of what I should tell them to check for? Has anyone else had/heard of this problem? Most of the time, they will pop when I'm sitting in my car, listening to a cd with the key turned to accessory...and as soon as I go to start the car, they'll pop. But it doesn't happen every time. Most of the time, its fine. And then the other day, I was driving down the road and they just popped in the middle of a song. So, I don't really see any common denominator. Each time they pop, it sounds like several speakers are popping at once. And there's a couple seconds of silence, and then the radio comes on....even though I had been listening to a cd. It happened about 5 times before I took it to the dealer last time. And then it stopped for months after they looked at it. And now, recently it started up again, and keeps popping every couple days.
I would think that if the speakers are popping then you are overdriving them. It is really hard to compare a factory 200 watt system to an aftermarket one. The factory amps are not the cleanest nor the loudest. One measure of how clean and loud a system is gonna be is by the Signal to Noise rating of the Amp and the Sensitivity of the speakers.
A good after market Amplifier will have a signal to noise rating of 100 Db or higher. The stock amp is probably 85-90 Db at best.
A good set of aftermarket speakers will have a sensitivity rating of 90 Db or higher where as the stock speakers are lucky if they are 80-85 db.
If you want a super loud but clean sounding system you are most likely gonna have to go aftermarket.
Lenko, John Lenko wrote:Monsoon = 8 drivers, all amplified. There's an amp in the trunk that drives the speakers.
Premium Amplified = 6 drivers, front two door speakers powered by the deck, the rear 4 (the 6x9's are two-way, four wires which they count as two speakers) are amplified by the amp in the trunk.
Base model = 4 drivers... all powered by the deck.
I'm probably foolish for questioning this, but I have an '04 with the MP3 player and 6 speakers the tweeters are spliced from the 4x6 lines, there is no amp, and the 6x9s are 1-way.
Not foolish at all... I left out that one. That's a mid-level Sunfire, no amp.
