On Mon, 04 Dec 2017 11:35:37 -0500, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 4 Dec 2017 13:14:31 +0000 (UTC), harry
newton wrote:

I haven't worked on speakers in decades.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/12/04/speakers1.jpg

How do we debug a scratchy sound?
We can isolate it with the balance to a single speaker.

Then it's the speaker. I'm assuming you used both the left-to-right
balance and the front-to-rear fader so you were really listening to only
one speaker at a time. If there is a problem in the left channel, it
will be heard in both the front and rear speaker.

But is it the speaker?

Yes.

Or something else?

No.

If it's the speaker, where is a good place (other than the dealer) to get

The dealer is a terrible place. Do they even sell speakers? ;;


WEhy is it a terrible place"? -0 and of course they sell speakers.
The right ones, that bolt in properly, even. Yes, they cost abit more
than the ones that don't fit.

speakers to fit a car rear deck? Are they all standard sizes nowadays? Or
is each unique?

Crutchfield. Very reliable. Very helpful on the phone with real
people. They're in Charlotte, Va. and I'm in Baltimore and I ordered
something and I wasn't in a hurry but I got it the next day.

They will likely have "universal" speakers and adapter brackets -
which usually work OK - - - - -

I recommend them highly despite that they did make a mistake, like other
vendors do, wrt the inputs on my 2005 Solara radio. This is the E7001
radio, but I don't think E7002 is any different. These are both
Navigation radios that only hold one CD, and with some such radio, if
you press the CD button twice, it goes to the CD deck, and it does have
a jack for a CD deck (or satellite) and they sell devices that will use
such a jack for USB/AUX input. Well that doesn't work on these radios,
but they took my word for it, sent me a paid-mailing label, I sent it
back as if it were new, dropped it off at a UPS place, and I got my
refund the next day.

I've also bought speakers from them more than once in the past. No one
else has a better list of cars and their dimensions.

You SHOULD NOT MESS with dash speakers. There was a recall on
dashboards from that year and a couple others, on the Solara but I'm
pretty sure on the Camry too, and some of them have deteriorated so bad
they replaced the dash for free. My dash has a few hairline cracks,
but when I tried to lift the 3 digital gauges above the center AC
outlets, I put a tiny nick in the dash, behind the gauges. Plainly my
dash, also a 2005, is softer than when it was made. (But I'm prettty
sure it's nowhere near bad enough to get them to replace it for free,
plus the recall has expired anyhow.) I had to go at the gauges from
another direction and I did get them up, to reach the radio bolts and
remove the radio (long enough to unplug that device above that didn't
work. I had been able to plug it in from the bottom without removing
the radio.) So there is a tiny nick there

Since you refer to the deck, I assume this is really a Camry and not a
Solara, which some people call a Camry Solara. And that it's a sedan
and not a convertible, because the convertibles also have a woofer
behind the rear seat. I don't think it's even mentioned in the owners
manual or anywhere but the wiring diagram, but it's there.

I'm helping the neighbor's kid refurbish a beat-up 2005 Camry where I
helped her kid put in new speaker covers this weekend but the scratch sound
persisted (we thought it might have been the crud or vibration from the
crumbling melted-in covers).

For crud, I would have washed the covers in the dishwasher. It does a
great job on things like this.

The scratchy sound persisted even with the newly replaced covers.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/12/04/speakers2.jpg

Any suggestion on how to debug the cause of the scratchiness?
If it's the speakers themselves, are these things standard sizes nowadays?

Yes, but there are lots of sizes, especially when you consider depth.