[Nimsum235]

Originally Posted by Beartato

There's a small line on the cables, the darker one is positive. I think they're red but my colorblind ass can't tell.

Oh... Well, I guess that answers my problem... I am also colorblind lol, THANKS!

[6MT4me]

So, to review, 2015 cab with rears on the side panel instead of rear deck, rear seat had to be removed to be able to remove panels. Even the pro was afraid this was going to be complicated! After a few tense moments the first panel came off without any damage and the old speakers with the the panel. There was some question of whether the JLs would the fit in the space. The pro was actually able to use the old bracket which really simplified the fit. As I had already mentioned, I had the matching component tweeters which then fit easily also, and back on went the rear panel. Lesson learned, the other side went well and both sides passed a signal without a problem.
The fronts were as previously noted, pnp, no issues.
Finally, the technicpnp harness was installed, the connection was not obvious but the radio played, so...all was going as expected.

Trunk was put back together and system tested, all ok.

The rear panels were intimidating but went better than expected. Reinstalling the back seat was complicated by pulling thru the seat belt locks, but with perseverance and plenty of sweat, successful.

I could have never done this by myself. 3.5 hours of effort, well worth the price of having a pro do it! With some effort, sounding clearly warmer than before, speakers need to breakin before final tuning

I thank all here for their help and guidance, too

[voukephalas]

Originally Posted by 6MT4me

So, to review, 2015 cab with rears on the side panel instead of rear deck, rear seat had to be removed to be able to remove panels. Even the pro was afraid this was going to be complicated! After a few tense moments the first panel came off without any damage and the old speakers with the the panel. There was some question of whether the JLs would the fit in the space. The pro was actually able to use the old bracket which really simplified the fit. As I had already mentioned, I had the matching component tweeters which then fit easily also, and back on went the rear panel. Lesson learned, the other side went well and both sides passed a signal without a problem.
The fronts were as previously noted, pnp, no issues.
Finally, the technicpnp harness was installed, the connection was not obvious but the radio played, so...all was going as expected.

Trunk was put back together and system tested, all ok.

The rear panels were intimidating but went better than expected. Reinstalling the back seat was complicated by pulling thru the seat belt locks, but with perseverance and plenty of sweat, successful.

I could have never done this by myself. 3.5 hours of effort, well worth the price of having a pro do it! With some effort, sounding clearly warmer than before, speakers need to breakin before final tuning

I thank all here for their help and guidance, too

Have any photos by chance? I also have the convertible and would like to replace the rear speakers. How much of the 3.5 hours were focused on the rear? If removing the rear seats is absolutely necessary I might just get a pro to do it also...

[6MT4me]

Again, I did not do the work and thought it no fair to the installer to take pics. However, even the installer had reservations about taking the rear panels off and it did require removing the rear seats. However, he was surprised once he figured it out, that it Wes easier than doing it in a Mercedes or other brands. No bolts, just pop in and out. The seat belt buckles were the hardest part of placing it back in. Even installers do not do rear panels very often, either.

My best advice, hire a pro, you won't be sorry. 200.00 well spent and job well done with no damage!

[Nimsum235]

I just recently installed the harness but I didn't notice that the driver's side sub woofer was no longer working after I put everything back together. It does work after I checked but its very faint. Did I install the harness incorrectly? I can't think of anything wrong because the connectors are very simple to install.

[selmeralto]

Originally Posted by Nimsum235

... It does work after I checked but its very faint. Did I install the harness incorrectly? ...

The first thing to check would be to make sure that there's really a problem.

The ASD harness does affect the overall sound, including a slight attenuation of the woofers. But the harness also cleans up the sound and the separation is more pronounced because the fake engine drone is removed. You are trying to get rid of the HK's native "blurry smear," as Solarphil nicely puts it.

If you think that only one of the woofers is problematic you might want to listen to several different recordings to test your car system out.

It's possible, for example, you were listening to a recording where the bass is predominantly on the right (passenger's) side, so naturally you would hear it coming from the right and, since the ASD harness improves clarity by reducing noise, you are just hearing the separation more clearly than before.

See if you can find a few jazz trio or quartet recordings where the stand-up or electric bass is definitely on one side or the other (well-recorded stand-up would be best). The best test would include at least one recording where the bass is clearly on the right and at least one recording where the bass is clearly on the left.

Also, have you disconnected the center channel? Doing that will enhance the sound stage, including the left-right array of instruments and voices. This will help you in your diagnosis and will also improve the sound.

[selmeralto]

Also, here is some helpful background information from Technic, by way of Orangeglim in Zooks527's harness installation thread:

Heard back from Technic. He provided two useful pieces of information:

The ASD is actually a 15W peak or so amplifier. The OEM amp inputs are those 15W peak from the ASD outputs. 15W is about 8V peak.

The iDrive output is about 2.8V peak low level. The ASD inputs are those iDrive 2.8V outputs. So when you bypass the ASD what you are actually doing is taking the iDrive outputs and making them the new OEM amp inputs. You are lowering the OEM amp input from ~8V to ~2.8V. That will change the volume and bass impact of the OEM amp outputs.

Raise the Bass adjustment a bit to compensate for the loss of input level. Please note that your OEM amp also has DSP and time alignment in it, so you may hear one woofer sounding louder than the other. That has nothing to do with the harness.
...

Your OEM amp takes 4 inputs and create 7 outputs -front, rear, center, woofers. if you use your balance and fader at your iDrive and the front and rear speakers sound normal to you then harness is passing the iDrive 4 outputs into your OEM amp 4 inputs correctly. Otherwise there is a problem with your harness.

If you notice that both your front and rear speakers sound normal then the harness is not the problem, it is the way the OEM amp creates the 7ch out of 4 inputs, in particular the woofer channels. All 7ch OEM HiFi amps (F3x, F1x, F0x, F2x) have DSP and time alignment. What that means is that your OEM amp is taking into consideration the input level to create and process the 7ch output level and time alignment. The bypass harness by design is changing that input level as described below. That is the cost of bypassing the ASD.

If you do not bypass the ASD then you will notice that the driver side woofer still outputs less than the passenger side. The same happens in all OEM 7ch HiFi amps, regardless of ASD. All of them. The level difference is not that apparent as bypassing the ASD but it is there, just listen closely without using the Balance or Fader adjustment. That is the OEM tuning of the OEM amp. If you replace the OEM amp with aftermarket amp (XD600/6, for example) then both woofers will sound at the same level -and much better than OEM- just because the DSP tuning will be gone with the OEM amp.

One relevant takeaway from this is that the OEM amp has a slight bias in favor of the passenger side underseat woofer. (See the passage I underlined.) But that is quite different from saying that your driver's side woofer has been seriously compromised by the harness.

Nor does this mean that the HK system has a serious difference between left and right bass response. I myself haven't had the sense that there's no - or very little - bass response from the driver side and I haven't heard complaints from other members on the basis of their actual experiences.

(Of course, now that this issue has been highlighted, people may become more attuned to the slight difference and start complaining. Sorry for corrupting your listening enjoyment, folks! )

I'm guessing there's nothing wrong with your harness. But you might want to run the tests as a first step to be sure.

NOTE: I was wrong about the harness and bass response. See Posts #248 and following, below, for information on tweaking the harness wiring.

[Nimsum235]

I tried re-installing the harness and tested the driver's side sub woofer, no luck and still very faint. I put everything back together to stock setting and my suspicions were correct. Taking the harness off brings the driver's side sub woofer back to life. I also did what you suggested and listened the the same music (with & without harness), changed the Tone settings etc... and there was still a huge difference in the bass output on the drivers side.
And yes I have also disconnected the central channel speakers, and also have eton/jl setup. The harness was supposed to be my final mod but I would rather sacrifice that than lose my driver's side sub.

[selmeralto]

Originally Posted by Nimsum235

I tried re-installing the harness and tested the driver's side sub woofer, no luck and still very faint. I put everything back together to stock setting and my suspicions were correct. Taking the harness off brings the driver's side sub woofer back to life. I also did what you suggested and listened the the same music (with & without harness), changed the Tone settings etc... and there was still a huge difference in the bass output on the drivers side.
And yes I have also disconnected the central channel speakers, and also have eton/jl setup. The harness was supposed to be my final mod but I would rather sacrifice that than lose my driver's side sub.

Thanks, Nimsum.

I think we are running up against both the inherent limitations of the HK amp and the matter of personal preferences. In the end, we'll each have to decide what balance of advantages and disadvantages we're willing to live with.

In working out the modifications in this thread I was after a natural sounding system with a strong bass and clarity throughout - without the inconvenience and expense that a 3rd-party amp entails. I think that's what the thread's recommendation, which includes noise reduction, achieves. Others may have different preferences.

For me, eliminating noise - the fake motor noise, the high-pitched noise of the HK system, resonant vibration, and road noise - was a very high priority. The harness was a huge part of that. The combination of the speakers (Eton + JL + HK woofers) replaces the awful sound of the stock HK setup with a sweet, realistic sound with a good bottom end. I don't really notice the slight bass bias toward the passenger's side when I listen to the system, though I suppose that if I put my ears close to the woofers and listened intently I'd hear the differential.

As I've said before, people will have to choose, and your report will help them. And, since the recommendations are incremental, people can certainly choose not to install the harness.

[ryem3]

Read your very interesting thread. I caught the post asking why not use 4 of the same speakers. Why not just use 2 sets of jbl speakers? Maybe I just didn't understand the answer, so pardon for the repetition.

I read this with so much interest because it is so stunningly similar to my own Porsche relayed thread, which you might find an interesting read at least.
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/997/316478-my-budget-audio-install-updated-3-22-15-a.html

[selmeralto]

Originally Posted by ryem3

Read your very interesting thread. I caught the post asking why not use 4 of the same speakers. Why not just use 2 sets of jbl speakers? Maybe I just didn't understand the answer, so pardon for the repetition.

I read this with so much interest because it is so stunningly similar to my own Porsche relayed thread, which you might find an interesting read at least.
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...3-22-15-a.html

Thanks, Ryem3, for the fascinating Porsche link! It was interesting to see many of the same issues and solutions arising. I was also struck by your determination to make a significant difference in the audio without dropping thousands of dollars for what will always be a compromising environment - the inside of a high performance car.

As for using sets of JL speakers all around. I personally think the Eton speakers are much better speakers. They are smooth and sophisticated, approaching the quality of some home audio equipment in terms of accuracy and effortlessness. If I were forced to use the same speakers all around, I'd go for the Etons over the JL, which are a little peakier. I grant that the soundstage would probably be a little more defined if I had used the same speaker all around.

But the Eton high end is just a tad attenuated for my tastes and if I had Etons all around I'd probably find myself missing the extra zip that comes from a more pronounced high end. The JL makes up for that as well as providing more bass slam. So I'm willing to forgo the bit of soundstage improvement I'd have with the same speakers all around for the extra sparkle.

I should add that when I fool around with the fader I'm not just looking for maximum bass but also the best balance I can get across the whole audio spectrum, taking into account the different signatures of the two systems.

All of this is driven by a kind of seat-of-the-pants experimentation where my ears are the final judge. This is a habit I've been enjoying ever since I was a kid when I first hooked up a little Emerson transistor radio to a behemoth Bozak B-300 speaker system to see what it would sound like.

The transistor radio was about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

Hope that brings a smile to lovers of old gear.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by ryem3

Read your very interesting thread. I caught the post asking why not use 4 of the same speakers. Why not just use 2 sets of jbl speakers? Maybe I just didn't understand the answer, so pardon for the repetition.

Ideally, yes: all speakers should match as closely as possible. A cut-and-paste from a previous post of mine discussing speaker replacement:

<<For similar speaker sizes, the drivers should match as closely as possible -- the ideal is the same make, series, and model in all locations.

Every driver design -- full-range, woofer, tweeter, sub, headphone, computer, transducer, and so on -- has a sonic 'signature': a reproduction pattern throughout the audible spectrum that the driver is designed to cover. Some of that signature refers to the peaks and valleys of volume as a tone goes up or down in frequency. Other parts of that signature are less subjective; put simply, bass 'fullness', low-midrange 'punch', midrange 'articulation', treble 'crispness', etc. This is what audiophiles generally refer to as 'timbre'.

Many factors create a 'timbre', from speaker size, cone stiffness, and excursion length to magnet strength, material composition, transducer efficiency, and much more. The bottom line of all this is that nearly every unique driver design reproduces similarly if the materials and fundamental parameters are similar -- i.e., the same make, series, and size of a driver. The next best choice is a driver set of a different size -- say, a 6.5-inch driver paired with a 4-inch driver -- but with similar materials, the latter of which generally makes the largest difference in how a driver will sound regarding its 'timbre'.

Timbre-matching is precisely why you see shared tweeter, midrange, and woofer designs across a model line of not only car speakers, but home speakers as well. Case in point: a home speaker maker will use a specific tweeter and small woofer in a small bookshelf and/or satellite speaker, and use that same tweeter and small woofer alongside larger -- but still relatively similar -- midrange and woofer driver designs in a range's large floorstanding mains.>>

Background regarding the Etons: That company does not sell a 4-inch coaxial set. When selmeralto and a couple of others ran across the Eton component set for BMWs, I was asked which 4-inch coaxial might be a good match for it. I recommended the JL Audio CX100 because the materials, design, and specs were relatively similar. And the rest is this subforum's history.

That said, matching drivers as explained above is a better general practice unless a combination of drivers works to offset perceived deficiencies at minimal cost to sound quality. That is precisely what the CX coaxials do in concert (pun only slightly intended) with the Eton component set.

[ryem3]

Thanks!
The installs we did were very similar. I kept with Focal throughout the car and I think it really helped - even though I cheated too because I used 2 different focal speaker series!

Another difference is that while the Porsche center speaker was also a cheap, glaring mid range, I solved the problem by dropping in a matching tweeter. While the sound stage seems better without the center, the stage is still there but the overall fill was much better with the tweeter in the center.

I have a car on order, so I'm not in a real place to experiment, but hopefully soon!

Also, I note the Etons appear to be out of stock.

[selmeralto]

Originally Posted by ryem3

Thanks!
The installs we did were very similar. I kept with Focal throughout the car and I think it really helped - even though I cheated too because I used 2 different focal speaker series!

Another difference is that while the Porsche center speaker was also a cheap, glaring mid range, I solved the problem by dropping in a matching tweeter. While the sound stage seems better without the center, the stage is still there but the overall fill was much better with the tweeter in the center.

I have a car on order, so I'm not in a real place to experiment, but hopefully soon!

Also, I note the Etons appear to be out of stock.

Thanks, Ryem3.

The speakers might be available via this link: http://www.extremeaudio.de/gb/eton-b...n-b-100-w.html .

[Robimplicit]

Originally Posted by Robimplicit

I installed the bypass harness several months ago with a marked reduction of the dull drone of the ASD.

Disconnected the center channel about 6 weeks ago and got an immediate reduction of harshness with better distribution of sound.

Last weekend replaced the OEM speakers in the rear with the recommended JL Audio speakers. So far, this has been the most significant change with much enhanced mid range and a further reduction of higher end harshness. It it so much better that think I might have been satisfied enough to stop at this point. But, there is some remaining harshness with some music at volume and I have the Etons. Planning to install those in the next week or two and looking forward to another improvement.

Question re sound deadening. I purchased some weather seal (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) and Dynamat for the Eton installation. I assume the weather seal should be used around the perimeter of the speakers to enhance the seal? Correct?
I am planning to place Dynamat on the outer door metal behind the speakers. Any other advice about how and where to use this when the door panels are off?

As many have said this is one of the most useful threads on the Forum. Thanks again to all who have contributed.

Finally got time this weekend to install the Eton tweeters and mid-range speakers in the doors. First door took a bit more than 2 hours, the second just 45 minutes. The only unexpected thing was the need to trim a small plastic tab on the connector from the Eton tweeter wire to the Eton mid-range (odd that it didn't fit properly, especially when the OEM connector on the line from the amp fit the Eton mid-range perfectly). I also placed some Dynamat, as instructed, with the mid-range speakers and may add some in the trunk but I don't like to add weight.

As I mentioned above, I was tempted to stop after replacing the rear speakers but decided to install the Etons. I'm very glad I did. The difference with this last upgrade is at least as great as I heard when replacing the rears. Now there is no harshness at all, even at higher volumes. I can hear subtle things in the vocals and instrumentation that were garbled before. Also, the low end punch is fantastic. On most songs I can hear everything the bass and drums are doing.

So, I can recommend going all the way with the recommended speaker swaps. Each step is a meaningful change for the better.
Thanks again to all who contributed to this thread.

[selmeralto]

Originally Posted by Robimplicit

As I mentioned above, I was tempted to stop after replacing the rear speakers but decided to install the Etons. I'm very glad I did. The difference with this last upgrade is at least as great as I heard when replacing the rears. Now there is no harshness at all, even at higher volumes. I can hear subtle things in the vocals and instrumentation that were garbled before. Also, the low end punch is fantastic. On most songs I can hear everything the bass and drums are doing.

So, I can recommend going all the way with the recommended speaker swaps. Each step is a meaningful change for the better.
Thanks again to all who contributed to this thread.

So glad you took the final step. The Etons are sweet speakers. As you say, they are really musical and they are exceptionally clear.

[BentZero]

Originally Posted by kocengmalek

And you're going to do it more Often, right?
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Lol, ad bot much?

[selmeralto]

Personal note.

A hit-and-run driver side-swiped my car while I was away from it. A new replacement door is on order from Germany. The body shop will also have to repair the rear and front quarter panels and replace the left front tire and rim. Sure hope the shop takes as much care removing and reinstalling the Eton and adding Dynamat as I took putting them in.

Rental Altima for 3 weeks.

Not a happy camper.

[Robimplicit]

Originally Posted by selmeralto

Personal note.

A hit-and-run driver side-swiped my car while I was away from it. A new replacement door is on order from Germany. The body shop will also have to repair the rear and front quarter panels and replace the left front tire and rim. Sure hope the shop takes as much care removing and reinstalling the Eton and adding Dynamat as I took putting them in.

Rental Altima for 3 weeks.

Not a happy camper.

This stinks! Very sorry you have to go through this. The only glimmer is that it you were not in the car when hit.
Good luck getting it back on the road in good shape and with the proper speakers.

[rjd598]

has anyone compared this to the hk in an f30? thoughts?

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by rjd598

has anyone compared this to the hk in an f30? thoughts?

Dude,

Yes.



You're welcome.

- Mr. #F30ThreadsAreUselessHere

[rjd598]

Originally Posted by Viffermike

Dude,

Yes.



You're welcome.

- Mr. #F30ThreadsAreUselessHere