Howdy folks!

I recently inherited my wife's 97 960 Wagon. The HU was really picky about playing CD-Rs & the speakers were kinda tired so I decided to upgrade the whole system. I hadn't been able to find much info on what works, so I thought I'd share my experience. Sorry - I didn't take any pictures.

HU -
I chose a Kenwood DPX300U because it comes with the mounting sleeve (many units don't), is double-din size (like the factory) & has front & rear RCAs (plus sub outs - bonus!).
The only issue is that you'll have to shave of the factory HU side-mounting tracks to install the sleeve. A Dremel makes this easy. You will need a mounting sleeve!

Dash speakers -
The factory units look like a full range but have a bass blocker so they function as tweeters. I found a good deal on some 1" JBL GTO18Ts. They come with lots of mounting hardware & the swap is easy.
The factory speaker is a plate-type with a removable driver. I snipped the tops off of the four retaining pins & just pried the drivers out. I super-glued the JBL Starfish mounts to the plates & mounted them like factory. Note - I attached them to the tops & that makes them a tad tall the the grilles. Attach them from underneath the plates & you'll have no trouble.
I used the provided JBL bass blockers & just tied them to the bottoms of the speaker mounts. For simplicity, I grafted the factory connectors to the JBL wiring so I could just plug them in.

Door speakers -
The factory units are 5 1/4" & have a weird frame to compensate for the peculiar door holes. The factory speakers have their positive terminals marked. I was glad to see this as the wiring diagram I found online was completely wrong on the wire colors...

Not knowing if they'd fit but feeling lucky, I picked up two pairs of JBL 628s. They have a 6 1/2"-size frame but a 6 3/4" cone. The tweeters pivot so you can aim them at the listener.

In the rear doors I (self-tapping) screwed them straight to the door. I could only use 3 of the speakers' four mount tabs as there is a large cutout in the door where the wiring plugs into the factory speaker. I oriented the JBLs the same way as factories as the terminals point straight back & fit in the gaps. Once they were wired & affixed, I filled the remaining space with some dense foam insulation that's been in my shed for 10+ years. I used the factory grilles.

For the fronts, there was no way to fit this model straight to the door. As others have done, I cut the drivers out of the factory speakers & screwed the JBLs to the factory speakers' chassis. This works really well for a 5 1/4" speaker, but is a problem with the 628s. The surrounds of the JBL cones hit the lips that the factory grilles mount to. I ground the lips off with the Dremel (I love this thing!) but now I have to come up with an alternate grille mount or a different grille. I think I can cut the tabs of the factory grille, surround it in door-edge guard & glue/tape it to the interior side of the door. Stay tuned!

Moral - stick with 5 1/4" fronts!

Amp-
I used a Clarion XC-1410, mostly because it's smallish & I wanted to mount it up front & use the factory speaker wires. It didn't fit in the HU cavity as I'd hoped, but fits / sits fine on top of the drivers side knee bolster. I ran a fused wire to the battery although I could have probably tapped the big 12v+ wire in the ignition harness - 6 inches away. Regardless, I have no ignition noise. WOOT!

Wiring harness-
A Metra 70-9220 easily ties an aftermarket HU / amp to the 960s factory power & speaker wiring.


Summary-
I put all this together for about $370 & it sounds pretty darn good. It's quite a bit louder & clearer than the Premium system it replaced. A sub would make it fantastic.. Maybe next year!


I hope someone finds this useful.
bodinski