On Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:25:34 -0700 (PDT), "William R. Walsh"
wrote:

HI!

So I guess it's past tense. *I'm almost positive my 72 or 73 Buick
Centurion convertible had the speakers this way.

I couldn't tell you for sure. If you wanted to be really sure, I'll
bet you could pick up a factory service manual for these cars
secondhand. There ought to be some around...

There is one around here. It's in my house somewhere!

And I spent a lot of time looking at it in the 7 years I had the car,
so that's one reason I'm so sure GM cars were done that way, although
I think I also saw stuff about it somewhere else.

I haven't found it yet, but I plan to look more. Thanks for your
reply and Sparky's.

And after that I had to buy Chryslers.

I don't think that's a bad thing. I paid $100 for a 1984 Reliant in
decent condition (if you didn't count the fact that the underbody was
so badly rusted). I and one of my brothers drove the daylights out of
that little car, and we loved it. It was a breeze to work on!

It had a monaural AM radio that was half nuts--the digital display
would try to show the time and station all at once, with jumbled
results. So I pulled it and put a cheap Best Buy car stereo in there
after adding the two front speakers. Later, I added but did not hook
up the two rear 5x7 speakers.

Before I got rid of the car, I hooked the rear speakers up temporarily
and soon realized that I should have done so a long time ago. The
bigger speakers would have improved the listening experience
considerably.

Oops. There I go on another story.

But i'm still interested in opinions about the swapped way, like
the fact that with the regular way, with 2 or more in the car
and the sound balanced left to right, people on the left hear
more of the left than the right, and people on the right hear
more of the right than the left.

I don't think I can help you much there. :-)

What I can say is that I've seen car stereos that have a feature
claiming to set the speakers up such that the listening position is
optimized for one occupant in the car--or sometimes two. I could
perceive a difference from this, although I'm not totally sure what it
did. It sounded very much like it just boosted the sound coming from
some speakers while cutting the others.

Was there any circuit logic in the 1970's?

Oh, sure. I *think* it would be correct to say that even a simple
circuit would be a simple expression of logic. Microprocessor ICs were
still very much in their infancy, but digital clocks and tuners had
already started to enter the mainstream. (I've seen 1970s Cadillacs
with digitally tuned radios. What they have is yellow LED lit seven-
segment displays, one for each major character. It looks so primitive
today but must have really been something back in the day.)

(I almost forgot...! My dad's 1979 Cadillac has its left and right
speakers on the same side for front and back. All these years later,
that electronically tuned radio and its auto stop cassette player--
yes, it's *not* an eight track!--still work like new.)

What I'm trying to say with that is "how the fader and balance
controls are wired in relation to the speakers". It would be much
easier to leave them "straight" so that balance is "left is left,
right is right" and the fader is "rear is rear, front is front".

William