Starting my stereo upgrade

Hello Everyone,

Thanks to this forum and a few YouTube videos I have decided to upgrade my stereo (20 802A B&O).
Stage one:

Infinity Reference REF-6532ex 6-1/2" Front and rear Doors

Infinity Reference REF-375TX Reference Series 3/4" Front Tweeters

Infinity Reference REF-3032cfx Reference Series 3-1/2" (might add resistor if overpowering.)

AudioControl ACM-1.300

Kicker CompRT 43CWRT81

I am hoping for a little more volume with the 3ohm’s and a nice bass. Not looking to rattle the neighbor’s windows. If I don’t get the quality of sound and volume I want stage 2 kicks in:

ZEN-A2B / DSP12A-A2B

Alpine PXE-0850S

So here is my questions. I found a nice post from “The Car Stereo Company” listing all the speaker wire colors and polarity. If I understand this correctly, I will need to run new speaker wires from the amp to the front pillar tweeters? Is there an adapter that will plug into the factory speaker side harness with leads I can run to the amp or is everyone cut/soldering? I am considering just going ahead and doing it all at once. I think that may just be the best way to get a clean balanced sound and the volume I want. Thoughts?

They make a plug someone shared the link on upgrade under 500 thread

I’m doing the upgrade to 19 b and o

not for the tweeters. they are at the head unit.

I don’t think your stage 2 is ambitious enough to be cost effective. 25w rms is what the factory Sony puts out, which is I think a little less than the b&o

300w is an adequate match to 25w rms for a sub, and I know you say you’re not trying to rattle your neighbor’s windows, but it’s not enough to hear the stereo at 70 with the windows down.

I’d suggest you shoot for somewhere between 40-75w rms for the main amp and about 500w for the sub and go with a 10” sub - MTI makes a behind the seat enclosure for 10”, 12” and 13.5” by JL Audio.

Even if you don’t play music that loud, you’ll have the benefit of cleaner sound in the range that you do listen to music at.

The only thing you would gain with your current plan is clarity and the ability to tune the sound to more true to life. But you won’t be hearing it with the windows down at 60+.

I would suggest you revisit the plan and kick it up a notch or 2. You won’t spend much more, if any, you’ll get the ability to play louder but more importantly cleaner and more precisely for the volumes that are practical.

smurfslayer said:

I don’t think your stage 2 is ambitious enough to be cost effective. 25w rms is what the factory Sony puts out, which is I think a little less than the b&o

300w is an adequate match to 25w rms for a sub, and I know you say you’re not trying to rattle your neighbor’s windows, but it’s not enough to hear the stereo at 70 with the windows down.

I’d suggest you shoot for somewhere between 40-75w rms for the main amp and about 500w for the sub and go with a 10” sub - MTI makes a behind the seat enclosure for 10”, 12” and 13.5” by JL Audio.

Even if you don’t play music that loud, you’ll have the benefit of cleaner sound in the range that you do listen to music at.

The only thing you would gain with your current plan is clarity and the ability to tune the sound to more true to life. But you won’t be hearing it with the windows down at 60+.

I would suggest you revisit the plan and kick it up a notch or 2. You won’t spend much more, if any, you’ll get the ability to play louder but more importantly cleaner and more precisely for the volumes that are practical.

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Smurfslayer thanks for the input! I figured if I did not get enough bass I would get another kicker and amp then build a enclosure a lot like the MTI's you mentioned. Can you suggest an amp or two to look at for the main amp? I have just enough knowledge to be dangerous at this point. I was thinking I needed at least 7 channels if I want to keep the center front speaker and that was my plan, hence the 850S. I think my error was in looking at the speaker rating of 55 watts RMS and not realizing that was 55 watts each speaker, I was thinking 55 watts/pair or 27.5 watts each. With the amp at 25 watts/channel seamed like a good match. I am sharing my error so any other noobs learning about stereos might learn from my potential mistake. I think you just saved me some serious disappointment. Thanks again.

dont need to worry too much about matching rms power on speakers. generally you want to overdrive the speakers to give more dynamic headroom, however just need to make sure your crossover points are set correctly before turning it on.

NV Paul said:

Can you suggest an amp or two to look at for the main amp?

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I’m going to defer to one of the more knowledgeable and talented supporting vendors here for a rec. I’d suggest an rms power range at least 50w - 75w per channel for the main channel. At that power, you’re going to need about 450-500 on the sub for balance.

NV Paul said:

I was thinking I needed at least 7 channels if I want to keep the center front speaker and that was my plan, hence the 850S.

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I’m going to channel my inner @dhmcfadin here and warn you off of keeping the (so called) center channel. it’s really just a mishmash of the 2 front channels, which creates a lot of “unclean” counter-noise, if that makes sense. It muddies up the front stage. Don’t do it.

NV Paul said:

I think my error was in looking at the speaker rating of 55 watts RMS and not realizing that was 55 watts each speaker, I was thinking 55 watts/pair or 27.5 watts each. With the amp at 25 watts/channel seamed like a good match. I am sharing my error so any other noobs learning about stereos might learn from my potential mistake.

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#Respect for admitting what you don’t know. We are all there at some point.

You -need- 5 channels; 4 main channels for the door speakers + 1 sub channel.
Using this method, you can install component front speakers, front channel wire will go from amp to cross overs. from cross overs, the door speakers connect directly, the tweeters you place in the factory location, run a new wire from x-over to pillars. Connect your tweets to the new wire from the crossover. run this wire at the same time you pull power / ground home runs to the battery to save some time.

You may also do 6 channels + 1 with tweeters as a separate channel, but they’re not needed for this unless you’re pulling out all the stops and maybe putting some midrange speakers in the pillars ;-)

There is a lot of noise in the “under 500” thread in the audio forum, but it does have some good combinations shown, and chronicles some user’s previous efforts. See also work from @lawdog, @goblues38 & @Guy

NV Paul said:

I think you just saved me some serious disappointment. Thanks again.

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Others on here did the same for me. Sometimes I listened, sometimes I did my own thing and fixed it later.

Good luck

Thanks for all the great information. I have a plan, and to quote smurfslayer “I may fix it later.” For me this is fun. I know a lot of people drop the center I want to try it both ways. I am in sales drive 50K miles a year and spend a lot of time on the phone, how calls sound will really factor into my final setup just as much as music. So here is the setup.

Alpine PXE-0850S:

For signal processing and front center speaker amp easy to turn on and off and play with, expensive but I am a tech junkie and like the interface.

Infinity Reference 4555A:

500W for the sub and separate channels for the tweeters

Infinity Reference 3004A

75+W x 4 for front and rear door speakers.

Not an Infinity fanboy, but the amp was on sale and seamed like a fair entry-level place to start.

If anyone has a part number for the adapter that plugs into the factory speaker wiring harness where it plugged into the B&O amp so I don’t have solder all those that would be great. I searched the under 500 thread for a while, talks about it but no #’s or links, kinda like Sasquatch.

Thanks for all the input guys it will be a few weeks I will let you know how it turns out.

whats your plan for the sub? removing the center channel speaker wont affect your phone calls. the sound comes through the front stage so even if your center channel is gone, the front door speakers and tweeters play just fine. adding a center channel will affect sound staging though