Upgrading stereo and speakers on 5085M deluxe cab

daugen · Nov 23, 2012

one man's Willie Nelson is another man's headache.

But if you know what a Thorens is, then you will understand why the pursuit of higher quality sound
is somewhat normal for many folk. I'm sure some wives consider it a disease, like gambling. Sigh.
Put simply real music has a lot more bass than what the tiny, low quality
stock speakers can reproduce. We're not talking thumpa thumpa here, or someone else's whumpa whumpa...,
just being able to hear the beat and timbre of the drum. Yeah, and pay attention to driving too...

Wait until you see the first genuine Bose setup with eight speakers in an oem cab. Not if but when.
With huge onboard memory storing loads of music effortlessly. And get Pandora Internet radio, for free....
There's a market out there for a nicer sound experience while operating. Particularly if the system could incorporate
its own noise cancelling capability for a nice quiet cab.

Perhaps OSHA could require lower operating db levels for tractor cabs, gosh, all that din for years and years...
And the only way to get it was electronically. Free Bose for everyone.

Put too much insulation in the cab and you'll have all the mice in the neighborhood coming in for a munch...
And the people driving the "big rigs" are getting younger all the time, with different tastes in music.
Nice sound systems are in planes, boats, cars, why not tractors?

well, I think I beat that to death, sorry to be longwinded. Drew.

foreman Etexas · Nov 23, 2012

Yeah I guess should have added with each task its different on the levels radio is up,and it doesnt have to be loud to be able to hear it. Heck when I am baling you can barely hear anything,now say i am changing the oil in barn or something,yes if you are my neighbor you may hear alittle Texas country artist playing. No serious side just cause it in there,its not blarring loud so you cant hear whats going on around you,think maybe you just got the wrong idea on why we are installing better equipment and how we are using it...

murphy1244 · Nov 23, 2012

foreman Etexas said:
Having a great sounding stereo in your tractor is not considered a boom box,that would be what you hear in the trunk of someones car,rattling the rearview mirror. But spending countless hours a year in the cab of my tractor,i would atleast like to hear quilty sounding music while I work. Just like someone would have a BOSE wave radio in there office,I do not have an 120outlet in mine...

View attachment 290072

gotcha..

JD3520Turbo · Feb 18, 2013

How hard was the headliner to get down? I just got a new 5083, and am adding my Alpine head unit, but would like to swap out the speaks before I button everything up. It looks like the headliner needs to come down to get at all the screws. This tractor has what looks like a speaker grille down from the fuse panel on the left side. There is nothing in there, but looks like you could put a little 6 inch sub in there. That would be pretty cool, if you could do that.

dstacy · Feb 22, 2013

pclausen said:
I'm having my cab frame replaced due to an incident that involved my GN trailer. I'm doing a lot of the labor myself, and I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to upgrade the stereo and speakers.

Here's a shot of the cab after removing the headliner:

Closeup showing the stereo connectors. The colorful one is for the Bluetooth mike (red arrow) and aux connector (yellow arrow). The black connector is for power and speakers. And then there is the antenna connector.

Here are some shots of the OEM 4x6 speakers:

Nothing to write home about for sure!

Here's where the right speaker is locate above the radio. The red arrow points to one of the mounting holes for the speaker.

Close up. The sound is almost 100% obscured by the radio!

The left speaker location is much better, but the sound still has to penetrate the headliner.

I should be able to plug the OEM mic into the female plug on the new stereo head unit, and I will also run a USB cable down to the right console so that I can connect my ipod via USB instead of the analog aux connection. This is the cable I plan to use which should make for a very OEM look. I plan to drill a whole, or use an existing hole for a flush mount.

Here's the radio I picked up:

I'm still trying to decide which 4x6 speakers to go with or perhaps pick up 6.5" speakers and use 4x6 to 6.5 adapters like these:

Well, that's pretty much it for now until I get tractor back from the shop with a new cab frame on it. Hopefully that will be by the end of next week!