Your typical 900S came with a cassette deck in dash and four speakers: two 4.5" full range speakers in the dash and two midrange 6" x 9" speakers in the rear.  All SAAB 900's came factory wired for a rear CD player.  SE models came with an amplifier mounted in the front center console and two additional low-range 6.5" speakers in the front door.  S trim level SAAB's did not get the amplifier, door speakers or the needed wiring to install either. 

Adding CD capability to your SAAB 900S:  

All SAAB 900's should be wired for CD Changer capabilities from the factory.  The stock CD changer mounted in the trunk, on the driver side.  If you pull back the trunk liner carpeting, you will find the cable zip-tied behind it.  Uncoil this cable, cut a notch for it and pull it into the trunk. 

The Clarion DC-625 or any C-BUS Clarion CD changer will work with your SAAB 900.  The nice thing about the DC625 is that it is a 6-disc changer, plays burned CD's without problem and is available for under $150 online.  Installation of the changer is plug-and-play.  Plug it into the factory cable and you should instantly have the ability to listen to CD's. 

Installing an amplifier with the stock head unit: 

Driving an amplifier with the stock unit is relatively straight forward and can be done in an afternoon.  The stock head unit does not have RCA style preouts, but does have an 8-pin DIN interface that can be used to provide pre-amp signals to an aftermarket amplifier.  This will require construction of a DIN to RCA cable.  The pin-out for the head unit is shown below. 

Using an 8-pin male DIN plug, number 1395, I purchased from Universal Radio, I manufactured my own cable.  For RCA inputs, I purchased a component RCA cable (the type you'd use to connect a DVD player to your TV) and cut it in half.  I soldered the center of each RCA plug (center wire) to the associated signal (Front Left, Front Right, etc) and connected the outer portion of the plug (braided wire) to the signal ground.  I could not get a strong enough signal from the Amp On output on the head unit to signal my amplifier to turn on. 

When assembling the cable, use enough RCA wire to reach from the head unit to where you plan to install the amplifier.  Also note, using the 1395 connector, you will have to plug the cable into the head unit after the head unit is in the dash; this is done by removing the glove box and reaching in to connect the cable. 

Once the cable has been fashioned, the amplifier can be installed.  I chose to use a Clarion APA4101 amplifier and installed it under the passenger seat.  The APA4101 is a 100W RMS/160W max power amplifier and can support 4/3/2 channels depending on the configuration you wish to use.  I decided to run it using all 4 channels: two channels feeding the front doors and two channels feeding the rear speakers.  The dash speakers would be driven by the head units built-in amplifier. 

Knowing the configuration, I chose to mount the amplifier under the passenger seat.  This proved to be the easiest location to keep a stock appearance to the interior and kept the amplifier out of sight.  With a location chosen, it's time to run the cabling for the amplifier.  I ran new wires to each speaker, an 8-guage power wire, the RCA preout cable and an AMP on sense wire.  I removed the entire center console to provide room to route wires.  Additionally, I removed the lower dash panels on both sides (driver's kick panel, glove box).  

Since the 900S came from the factory without wiring to the door speakers, I had to run new wires.  I ran wiring from the amp location, along the center tunnel, up beneath the dash and over to the doors.  To get the wire from the chassis and into the door, I removed each door and drilled holes; one in the body and one in the door.  I ran the wire through heat-shrink and added a sealing grommet to each exit/entrance point.  With the wires in the door, I continued them to the speaker location.  

For the rear speakers, I ran new wiring from the amp location, along the center tunnel to the door jambs and up through to the speaker location.  I disconnected the stock connectors and zip-tied them out of the way.  To get the amplifier to turn on with the radio, I used the antenna sense wire.  This is the wire which triggers the power antenna to cycle on and raise.  You can see the completed wiring below; the RCA connectors proved to provide a very crisp signal from the head unit.  The amplifier was installed on a steel plate to keep it off of the floor and provide air circulation. 

Replacing factory speakers: 

As mentioned above, the stock speakers are sized as follows:  dash - 4.5", door-6.5", rear-6"x9".  Any high quality 8-ohm speaker can be used to replace the original units.  Keep in mind, if you have an SE, the door speakers are only low-range and installing a full-range speaker will not improve audio quality as the stock amplifier only sends low-band frequency to these speakers.  In my 900S, I installed Kenwood speakers in the rear, JBL speakers in the door and Polk speakers in the dash.  All work extremely well.  For more information on replacing speakers, check out this site:  http://www.kolumbus.fi/richard.bevan/saab/saab93/fitting.html

Connecting an IPod to the stock head unit: 

There are a few different methods for connecting an IPod to the stock head unit.  Platonof provides the best visual method for doing this. 

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