Hi all,

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

We recently bought a second-hand MY16 XE with the base spec audio, the sound is lamentable. Specifically: no bass, very low mids, highs are shrill and tinny. Overall, sounds not much better than laptop speakers. I've adjusted the in-car EQ to mitigate, but it's not a magic wand.

Obviously, I want to upgrade the audio. I'm going to make this long, and update this thread as I go, because I have not been able to find any clear / remotely complete advice for the XE so far, so I'd love to lay down a trail for the next person with the same feelings! I'd love the forum's help in building this.

Step 0: Information gathering
0.1 - Experts
I'm happy to pay if someone near London knows how to do this. I tracked Cambo down to his facebook business page and asked for advice or recommendations but no joy. Dealers are useless for this kind of thing, and I am wary of simply googling the first private jag specialist near me. Recommendations welcome.
0.2 Forum & advice sharing
I've found quite a few threads generally discussing audio quality etc. and a few upgrade stories for XFs, which are principally equivalent, but of course the specifics are not the same. I'll create a separate post to collate "references".

Question 1: What to upgrade in what order
The base spec audio has no separate amp (amp inside the AHU). It's an InControl Touch (not pro).
There is no sub
I don't know what the speakers are like

I'm confident I want to add a sub. I think that could be done using a line output converter off a speaker wire.
I don't know the extent to which the sound quality is limited by the in-AHU amp, and to what extent it's the speakers. If I only need to address one or the other, that would save money.
I expect I can identify the speaker cables from the 40-pin out of the AHU. I don't know whether it's reasonable / possible to pull these to an amp with integrated LOC and simply insert a "second" amp between AHU and speakers. If the signal is already a mess by the time it comes out of the AHU, this wouldn't help. It's hard for me to validate because I also don't know whether the speakers are any good.
I saw a couple of cool threads of people replacing the infotainment unit itself. I have no idea whether / how that changes the audio processing, and don't know whether it makes addressing the rest of the set up easier or harder.

Does anybody know which bits of the base set up are the weakest links? I might end up going after all of it, but an upgrade priority list would still be very helpful.

Question 2: How to wire and power a new set-up
For Meridian set-ups, there's wiring to an amp in the boot. That means upgrading is more about swapping parts. I don't know whether the wiring is different for the base set-up, with no amp and no sub.

Any and all advice is very welcome. I will update as I go.

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Kind request: Several of the threads I've seen on this topic have a whole load of "as far as I'm concerned the sound system is fine" (followed up with, "and you kids listen to your music too loud" or "when I listen exclusively to spoken word radio"). I'm delighted if that's you, but in my searching to work out how to approach this project, it really buries the material advice.

 

TEST post following your report of the thread going missing.

Graham

 

Hi anyone. Despite mostly talking to myself, I'm continuing to update this, trying to make the guide I wished existed when I started...

An update. I visited a Car Audio specialist in Bromley yesterday. They were extremely helpful and knowledgeable, and helped me to untangle a lot of the questions I had above. They also warned me: making everything sound as good as I'd like looks like an expensive investment...

Upgrade priority
1 Keep the head unit
I don't want to change the way the car looks. I certainly don't want to plaster it with Kenwood stickers. Also, I like the volume controls on centre console and steering wheel. I think that means I need to keep the current head unit (AHU). This relates to a problem identified in post 1: if the signal from the AHU is terrible, I will get limited benefit from improving speakers. If anything, they'll help me to hear very clearly just how poor the base signal is.

1.1 Consider signal processor / Amp with signal processor
The "signal processor" thing was very confusing to me. This helped clear it up: https://www.crutchfield.com/learn/le...rocessors.html. (more generally, I found the Crutchfield guidance very good). My understanding, in short: factory AHUs put out badly-equalised sound. Essentially, the signal output is deliberately mangled to mitigate the problems of the low-quality stock speakers. It sucks to be describing my Jaguar audio this way - two wrongs very much failing to make a right. Anyway, it's a known thing, so if you want to keep stock radio, you need to unmangle the signal before it hits the speakers (with or without an amp). That's what the signal processor does. I've read some people talking about "cleaning up" the signal (i.e. noise reduction). I think that's nonsense, it's taking the analogue signal from the AHU, re-equalising it and, in fancier models, fiddling with synchronisation. The Digital-Analogue conversion, where noise reduction could plasuibly be a thing, is happening before the signal processor. Maybe I'm over-simplifying, but to me: signal processor = corrective equaliser. Given the way the stock AHU cripples the source signal, high-end components in the processor will help to amplify a corrected signal without noise. i.e. it's potentially expensive to undo the damage done by the stock AHU. Ugh.

1.2 I would need to accept speaker level inputs
A quality (i.e. not stock) AHU will come with line-level outputs which can go straight to an amp. By keeping the stock AHU I need to capture the outputs from the wires driving the current speakers i.e. much higher (and more variable) power than line-level. That's what line output converters do - turn a speaker signal into a line signal. I currently cannot work out whether this undermines the in-car volume controls. Logically, it must. Alternatively, some amps accept speaker level inputs. Again, I think this means they undermine the stock volume controls. Any clarification / correction warmly received.

2 Speakers first
After more research and discussion, I've come to the conclusion that the stock speakers will be not good enough for me. Why is this important? I don't need to replace the speakers if they are fine and the real problems are elsewhere in the set-up. If I know they are bad, I can replace them first, then consider whether the improvement in quality is good enough for me or if I need to do more. The only problem / question this comes with is whether I match the speaker sensitivity and power handling to the stock AHU...

2.1 Speaker power
The stock audio head unit is listed as 80W (I assume RMS, but it's not specified). That means 20W per channel. That's not very much. That means I need sensitive speakers to get sound out of the low-power outputs from the head unit. If I later decide I want to put a signal processor and proper amp in, then I'd either need something "small", or to upgrade the speakers I only just installed to handle the higher power output from the new amp. I do not want a "loud" system. My problem is sound quality, so on that basis, my current plan is to find high-sensitivity higher-quality component speakers. The general problem with this is that higher quality tends to go with higher power, both in amplification and speaker tolerance.
Recommendations gladly received.

2.2 Speaker size
Annoyingly, I can't find out what size the stock speakers are. I expect 6.5in mids... but navigating Jaguar's "guidance" is a disaster. So I guess I'm going to have to take the door trim off just to have a look, then put it back together while I wait for the right speakers to arrive. If anyone can tell me that, it would really help!!

 

Good news, me! I found this:

https://www.meridian-audio.com/media...t-a-glance.pdf

Although it's for the 11-speaker Meridian set-up, it gives me enough confidence regarding the sizes of the speakers for me to buy examples that are likely to fit in the holes in the car.

 

There have been more discussions of this sort of thing on the F-type forum. But I think you’ll find it’s a digital bus (MOST on earlier cars, I think) between the head unit and the amp.

 

There is no separate amp on the stock XE set up :'(

That means intercepting speaker signals and doing what I can with them

 

I stand corrected. Good to know.

 

Just add an amplifier and a subwoofer to the factory system.Adjust the balance to your preference and the sound will be so much better.

 

You wouldn't go for the speakers first? Can you let me know your reasoning?

 

Changing the speakers will not make the system any louder.Its still the same headunit.The base system just needs a subwoofer.

 

Ah, got it. Volume is not my problem. My problem is entirely to do with sound quality.

I agree it needs a sub (and a sub needs an amp), but I think I need more than that to improve the overall sound quality.

 

I think you will have a very difficult time upgrading the headunit. Switching to a Pro touch will be almost impossible.I think the speaker change will make your highs sound better but you will lose some bass.

 

I have the same problem have you found a solution yet?

 

If you go thru all that trouble. you may as well get better aftermarket stuff and a nice fat sub lol. I have two JL w3 10s or 12s and they hit hard as f.

 

The audio in my XKR was so bad I considered using headphones from my phone and skipping the car audio altogether. Decent headphones are generally going to trump car audio for sound quality, though the surround sound in our new XE is pretty good.

Over here it is legal to use them while driving, as long as you can hear sirens.