Now that you know the pairs, you can do the analog meter test. Plug the harness, play a bassy track, probe each pair of wires with the multi on AC Volts. If the needle jumps forward, the red lead is the positive speaker output. If it jumps backwards, then the black lead is the positive speaker output.
- Thread Starter
- #19
Mission accomplished! So, after going through the wiring diagrams and tracing wires etc. I test wired everything up and it works.
The under-seat subwoofer has a small handheld controller that lets you adjust gain etc. but what was really handy is that it allowed you to press a button and switch the polarity, so if you got your wires attached the wrong way, no big deal. So because it had that function, I decided not to bother getting the analog meter as it was unnecessary at that point, if I got the wiring wrong, the button would save me!
The only thing left to do is spend a bit of time balancing the sound levels by adjusting the head unit EQ settings and then the bass controller itself to ensure I get extra bass without the boominess or distortion.
Thanks to everyone that made an effort to help, I've learned a great deal in this last week!
For anyone interested, this is the unit I installed. Its not going to win any competitions but initial testing is positive, it does what I had hoped it would, which is to pick up the slack for the stock sound system by filling in the missing bass sound that is especially lacking at mid volume.
For anyone interested, this is the unit: Sony TS-WX130DA
The under-seat subwoofer has a small handheld controller that lets you adjust gain etc. but what was really handy is that it allowed you to press a button and switch the polarity, so if you got your wires attached the wrong way, no big deal. So because it had that function, I decided not to bother getting the analog meter as it was unnecessary at that point, if I got the wiring wrong, the button would save me!
The only thing left to do is spend a bit of time balancing the sound levels by adjusting the head unit EQ settings and then the bass controller itself to ensure I get extra bass without the boominess or distortion.
Thanks to everyone that made an effort to help, I've learned a great deal in this last week!
For anyone interested, this is the unit I installed. Its not going to win any competitions but initial testing is positive, it does what I had hoped it would, which is to pick up the slack for the stock sound system by filling in the missing bass sound that is especially lacking at mid volume.
For anyone interested, this is the unit: Sony TS-WX130DA
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Nice! Hope this becomes the start of your car audio hobby.
- Thread Starter
- #21
Funny you mention that...putting in this subwoofer was an interim activity. I've got a bunch of Alpine gear I plan on putting in soon, so this was a bit of a test of both my knowledge and patience!
I've got a few items now and getting a few more shortly to complete the package but when all is said and done, what I'll be putting in is the following:
- Head Unit: Alpine iLX-F509A
- Rear Cam: Alpine HCE-C1100
- Amplifier: Alpine KTA-450 4-Channel
- Front speakers: Alpine DM-65C - 6.5" component with 1" tweeter
- Rear speakers: Alpine S2-S69 - 6"x9" coaxial
- Subwoofer: reusing the one I just installed
Also bought a bunch of sound deadener so putting that in, should make an appreciable difference.
Having said that, it wouldn't be a euro car if it was that easy, so the issue I'm going to have is that when I wire up the head unit, I will lose parking sensors and the stalk controls for volume and track selections, as that is all integrated with the JBL factory amp, so once I get rid of that I lose some functionality.
The parking sensors I don't care about so much, as I'll have the rear cam if I really need it. (I don't even need parking sensors, I'm old school and can actually drive but my wife wants as much assistance as possible lol).
When it comes to the volume and track selection stalk controls, we don't care too much about that as the touchscreen is 9", plenty of space to easily hit the 'next' button or control the volume.
I just hope that once I completely unplug the JBL amp that I don't get an error message on the cluster, as the amp is canbus connected so I figure its possible I'll get some type of warning, we'll see!
Nice list. You did just tackle one of the more difficult tasks of car audio installation. The hardest is integrating a radio into today's OEM systems; but since you are replacing everything, that is not an issue.
Will you be splicing into the OEM wire for the speakers or are you running it all the way into each location? Should be easier since you will be removing beauty panels for sound deadening.
- Thread Starter
- #23
Yeah running new wire or using existing is something I'm thinking about now. I would rather avoid having to run new wire for every speaker if its possible, I want to just use the existing speaker wires.
Can the stock speaker wires handle the new speakers? Is there a way to calculate if the current wires in there are adequate to handle whatever power the new speakers will need?
Definitely, no need to rewire speaker locations. Hard part is deciphering the color codes.
Ha, but there may be light at the end of the tunnel. If you happen to find an aftermarket radio adapter harness, it will have the standard color codes of the aftermarket radio. You just then follow those colors to that of the OEM wires.
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