DIY stereo upgrade for under $500.00

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The Car Stereo Company

aka grumpy car stereo guy
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No I have a cap inline with the new tweets, the new tweets r 6 ohm ,I’m blocking everything below 3000 hz , with a 6 dB roll off I think lol ( I do hvac not stereos). with a 8.8 cap . Stock cap is 7.7 I measured . For the sub , Dynomat?

I hear a pretty good improvement in clarity with the new fronts . If I could improve the bass tightness I would pro be pretty happy , I’m 43 I don’t need it to crank anymore. I know sound is subjective
that sounds a little low. might want to cut off a little higher. maybe 3500hz at a 24db per octave slope.
 

greatone99

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I believe the actuall number was 3750
I used a bass blocker 5000hz @ 4 ohm
2500 at 8 ohms and 3750 at 6 ohms .im no stereo guy for sure . I’m just getting into it trying to learn the lingo.I assume the higher the octave slope ,The more drastic and quicker the cutoff?
 

The Car Stereo Company

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I believe the actuall number was 3750
I used a bass blocker 5000hz @ 4 ohm
2500 at 8 ohms and 3750 at 6 ohms .im no stereo guy for sure . I’m just getting into it trying to learn the lingo.I assume the higher the octave slope ,The more drastic and quicker the cutoff?
yes. the db per octave slope is how sharp the drop is. for a 2 way setup the tweeters play a little lower than the 3 way speakers. when i tune our higher end sound systems, i usually use a high pass filter at about 3500hz with a 24db slope. this is to protect the speaker from trying to reproduce too much bass. on the woofer side, you dont need to go as sharp, but it all depends on the volume level and personal preference. sometimes i use a lowpass at 3400 with a 12db per octave slope, other times i cut off at 3500 with a 24 db slope to start. just have to listen to it and figure what sounds best for you
 

greatone99

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So if I’m reading correctly, the zen is plug and play the b and o connectors plug right into the zen , then the zen ihooks up to the new amp either with rca or toslink . I assume the speaker wires that went to the b and o , now go to the new amp outputs to feed the speakers , except the tweeters which need wires run as they come off the head unit .
 

lateralis

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So if I’m reading correctly, the zen is plug and play the b and o connectors plug right into the zen , then the zen ihooks up to the new amp either with rca or toslink . I assume the speaker wires that went to the b and o , now go to the new amp outputs to feed the speakers , except the tweeters which need wires run as they come off the head unit .

You got it for the most part. You get a pinned connector that connects to the stock B&O speaker wire harness so that the Zen gets the CAN Bus Hi and Lo wires. If you want to utilize the stock speaker wire you need to solder up wires to that connector. They give you the pin out diagram in the instructions for it so it's really straight forward. I found it easier to pull the pins out 1st before soldering them. Just make sure to make them at the depth they are supposed to sit so that you don't solder past that point.
 

greatone99

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Yea it looks like pin 1 and 11 r can hi and low . So if I remove all the other wires in the connector then put the that to the zen either just 1 and 11.the remaining wires I remove and lengthen to the amp , as the zen does not need the speaker wires going into it correct ?
 

lateralis

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Here's a picture from my build thread to kinda show you what's going on. I pulled the pins out of the connector for the wires I wasn't going to use from the stock speaker harness.

View attachment 144965

The Can Hi Low wires have their own connector from there that plugs into the Zen and the Zen doesn't accept anything else into it from the stock B&O system. Just the A2B cable and the Can Hi Lo connector which also has power and ground on it.
 

dhmcfadin

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You got it for the most part. You get a pinned connector that connects to the stock B&O speaker wire harness so that the Zen gets the CAN Bus Hi and Lo wires. If you want to utilize the stock speaker wire you need to solder up wires to that connector. They give you the pin out diagram in the instructions for it so it's really straight forward. I found it easier to pull the pins out 1st before soldering them. Just make sure to make them at the depth they are supposed to sit so that you don't solder past that point.
No need to solder to the plug. Pick up this t harness and it’s all plug and play. Regardless, you will still need to run tweeter wires up the a-pillars but that extremely easy to do.

https://catalog.pac-audio.com/catalog/amplifier-integration-harness/aph-fd02
 

lateralis

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