Upgrading the Standard audio system to the Premium system
#1
12-18-2012, 12:48 PM
Upgrading the Standard audio system to the Premium system
This subject has probably been done to death in theory, so I decided to see what was actually involved in practice. My car has the Standard audio system & this has always annoyed me, so I decided to embark on a project to upgrade to the Premium audio system. As it turned out, it has been quite a big task & there are still some 'loose ends' to tidy up-but what follows is my account of the obstacles that had to be overcome to fit the Premium system, together with photos.
Firstly, much research & circuit diagram examination had to be done to establish the differences between the 2 systems & how much of the extra wiring required was already installed in my car.
The single biggest hurdle to overcome was the wiring harness requirements. This is because in the Standard system, the speakers are driven from the facia Head Unit-but in the Premium system they are driven from the extra Power Amp mounted in the boot. The door speakers themselves are connected to a socket under the rear seat LH heelboard & in the standard system are driven via a matching plug & harness from the facia Head Unit. In the Premium system the speaker drive plug & harness comes from the Power Amp in the boot.
So the first problem was the wiring-there are several different I.C.E. harnesses fitted to the X308 dependent on whether the vehicle was fitted with Standard audio, Premium audio and/or Sat-Nav as well. The wiring harness for the Standard audio system does not contain the extra wiring & plugs to connect to the extra Power Amp in the boot.
So, after sourcing a Premium system Power Amp off ebay, I mounted it on the boot Sat-Nav/CD Autochanger stack using the 2 existing stack handle bolts & a couple of new bolts to locate the 4 mounting lugs on the Power Amp. Then I read through the circuit diagrams-checked the connector plug types & wire colours-and then set about constructing the extra new wiring harness, as in the photo below:
There are 2 plugs that go into the Power Amp-both Tyco/Amp Multilock 070 type plugs. The smaller plug has the power supply connections & low-level audio input from the Sat-Nav unit. The larger plug has all the speaker drive outputs, including the 2 subwoofer drives & front tweeters.
On my car, I found a plug on the harness which already had the 4 subwoofer wires on it & thick wires for the ground & supply rails to the Power Amp. So it was relatively easy to wire up the first small plug with the power connection & Sat-Nav audio inputs. Then I made up the second plug & harness for the speaker drives. Both plugs were wired up using the same colour wires as specified on the circuit diagrams. This next photo shows the 2 white plugs ready to go in the Power Amp, the power supply connections wired in & the new speaker drive loom under partial construction:
The next photos show the wiring to the rear of the Power Amp/Sat-Nav/CD Autochanger stack-showing the 3 Sat-Nav audio connections on additional new pins (3 required) for the Tyco/Amp Multilock 040 connector on the rear of the Sat-Nav unit. Also shown are the 2 new white plugs & new harness going into the Power Amp-the red, blue, white & yellow subwoofer outputs can be seen exiting from the new speaker harness to connect to the plug on the existing vehicle wiring:
This next photo shows the completed audio stack with the power plug connected/wired up & the speaker plug connected up, with the harness awaiting extension & routing through to the vehicle interior compartment at the rear seat:
The new speaker harness was then extended & routed along the existing main I.C.E. harness through the rear wing, until it could be drawn in through the big grommet in the passenger compartment. To do this, the rear LH 'C' pillar trim piece had to come out, which meant removing the rear seat & rear shelf-as can be seen in the next photo:
The next photo shows a wider view of the passenger compartment & the new speaker harness following the route of the existing I.C.E. harness until it exits at the rear LH heelboard:
I had to extend the harness again before it finally reached the speaker socket at the LH heelboard. I unplugged the facia Head Unit speaker drive plug from the socket and, with the new plug connected to the new speaker harness, connected this to the speaker socket. The new harness can be seen coming in from the top left of the LH heelboard fusebox-as shown in the next photo:
At this point I re-checked the wiring & switched on the system. There was no sound from the radio but the CD function worked fine-I kept the volume low as I still had the standard door speakers & no subwoofer connected yet. However, the system worked on all 4 channels & the Power Amp was recognised at the Head Unit-I scrolled through the audio menu & observed the 'Subwoofer Level' as well as the 'Position' functions for the Premium system.
The next problem was to find out why there was no sound from the radio-only the CD. I couldn't find anything wrong with the wiring & installation, so I hazarded a guess that maybe there was some setting on the facia Head Unit. So I removed the Head Unit & located a switch underneath with 2 positions marked 'STD' & 'PRM'. I moved the switch across from the 'STD' position to the 'PRM' position & voila, the radio function worked
The underside of the facia Head Unit is shown in the next 2 photos:
So that was the bulk of the wiring job completed successfully. The next job was to sort out the speakers & those are my next tasks. The rear door speakers are easier to sort out as the bass & tweeter units are connected in parallel to the same channel output on both the Standard & Premium systems-the crossovers are in the speakers themselves.
The front speakers are driven differently in the Premium system though. There is a separate output for the tweeters from the Power Amp & they are also mounted in the front 'A' pillars. As a temporary solution until I get the speakers properly sorted, I took the front door trim panels off then disconnected the front tweeters from the bass units. Then I wired the front tweeters separately to the harness from the Power Amp, so they had the correct active crossover output drive from the Power Amp. Even though they're still in the door, they do sound much better with the separate drive.
The subwoofer is more of a problem as it's not a common type & there's not really much choice-but that's a task for a later day. The subwoofer outputs work & are 'live' as I connected up a couple of standard round door speakers for testing purposes & the subwoofer output worked fine.
So there you have it-it can be done, but it's a pretty big job & takes quite a bit of time!
As for the power outputs of both the Standard & Premium systems-I did some static voltage checks on the speaker drive outputs of both the facia Head Unit & the Power Amp. Every single speaker drive output on both the Standard & Premium systems was sitting at exactly half the main rail supply voltage-which is a dead giveaway for a DC-Coupled 'Bridge Amplifier' output rather than a single-ended Capacitor-coupled output. So the power output level on the door speakers is pretty much the same for both the Standard & Premium systems. However, the separate front tweeter drive & dual Subwoofer outputs provide some of the extra power on the Premium systems.
Oh, and one final point-the audio systems changed at around the 2000MY cars & are not interchangeable. Earlier Premium systems used the Harman Kardon set-up & later ones used the Alpine system, so the upgrade parts need to be chose carefully to suit your model year
Firstly, much research & circuit diagram examination had to be done to establish the differences between the 2 systems & how much of the extra wiring required was already installed in my car.
The single biggest hurdle to overcome was the wiring harness requirements. This is because in the Standard system, the speakers are driven from the facia Head Unit-but in the Premium system they are driven from the extra Power Amp mounted in the boot. The door speakers themselves are connected to a socket under the rear seat LH heelboard & in the standard system are driven via a matching plug & harness from the facia Head Unit. In the Premium system the speaker drive plug & harness comes from the Power Amp in the boot.
So the first problem was the wiring-there are several different I.C.E. harnesses fitted to the X308 dependent on whether the vehicle was fitted with Standard audio, Premium audio and/or Sat-Nav as well. The wiring harness for the Standard audio system does not contain the extra wiring & plugs to connect to the extra Power Amp in the boot.
So, after sourcing a Premium system Power Amp off ebay, I mounted it on the boot Sat-Nav/CD Autochanger stack using the 2 existing stack handle bolts & a couple of new bolts to locate the 4 mounting lugs on the Power Amp. Then I read through the circuit diagrams-checked the connector plug types & wire colours-and then set about constructing the extra new wiring harness, as in the photo below:
There are 2 plugs that go into the Power Amp-both Tyco/Amp Multilock 070 type plugs. The smaller plug has the power supply connections & low-level audio input from the Sat-Nav unit. The larger plug has all the speaker drive outputs, including the 2 subwoofer drives & front tweeters.
On my car, I found a plug on the harness which already had the 4 subwoofer wires on it & thick wires for the ground & supply rails to the Power Amp. So it was relatively easy to wire up the first small plug with the power connection & Sat-Nav audio inputs. Then I made up the second plug & harness for the speaker drives. Both plugs were wired up using the same colour wires as specified on the circuit diagrams. This next photo shows the 2 white plugs ready to go in the Power Amp, the power supply connections wired in & the new speaker drive loom under partial construction:
The next photos show the wiring to the rear of the Power Amp/Sat-Nav/CD Autochanger stack-showing the 3 Sat-Nav audio connections on additional new pins (3 required) for the Tyco/Amp Multilock 040 connector on the rear of the Sat-Nav unit. Also shown are the 2 new white plugs & new harness going into the Power Amp-the red, blue, white & yellow subwoofer outputs can be seen exiting from the new speaker harness to connect to the plug on the existing vehicle wiring:
This next photo shows the completed audio stack with the power plug connected/wired up & the speaker plug connected up, with the harness awaiting extension & routing through to the vehicle interior compartment at the rear seat:
The new speaker harness was then extended & routed along the existing main I.C.E. harness through the rear wing, until it could be drawn in through the big grommet in the passenger compartment. To do this, the rear LH 'C' pillar trim piece had to come out, which meant removing the rear seat & rear shelf-as can be seen in the next photo:
The next photo shows a wider view of the passenger compartment & the new speaker harness following the route of the existing I.C.E. harness until it exits at the rear LH heelboard:
I had to extend the harness again before it finally reached the speaker socket at the LH heelboard. I unplugged the facia Head Unit speaker drive plug from the socket and, with the new plug connected to the new speaker harness, connected this to the speaker socket. The new harness can be seen coming in from the top left of the LH heelboard fusebox-as shown in the next photo:
At this point I re-checked the wiring & switched on the system. There was no sound from the radio but the CD function worked fine-I kept the volume low as I still had the standard door speakers & no subwoofer connected yet. However, the system worked on all 4 channels & the Power Amp was recognised at the Head Unit-I scrolled through the audio menu & observed the 'Subwoofer Level' as well as the 'Position' functions for the Premium system.
The next problem was to find out why there was no sound from the radio-only the CD. I couldn't find anything wrong with the wiring & installation, so I hazarded a guess that maybe there was some setting on the facia Head Unit. So I removed the Head Unit & located a switch underneath with 2 positions marked 'STD' & 'PRM'. I moved the switch across from the 'STD' position to the 'PRM' position & voila, the radio function worked
The underside of the facia Head Unit is shown in the next 2 photos:
So that was the bulk of the wiring job completed successfully. The next job was to sort out the speakers & those are my next tasks. The rear door speakers are easier to sort out as the bass & tweeter units are connected in parallel to the same channel output on both the Standard & Premium systems-the crossovers are in the speakers themselves.
The front speakers are driven differently in the Premium system though. There is a separate output for the tweeters from the Power Amp & they are also mounted in the front 'A' pillars. As a temporary solution until I get the speakers properly sorted, I took the front door trim panels off then disconnected the front tweeters from the bass units. Then I wired the front tweeters separately to the harness from the Power Amp, so they had the correct active crossover output drive from the Power Amp. Even though they're still in the door, they do sound much better with the separate drive.
The subwoofer is more of a problem as it's not a common type & there's not really much choice-but that's a task for a later day. The subwoofer outputs work & are 'live' as I connected up a couple of standard round door speakers for testing purposes & the subwoofer output worked fine.
So there you have it-it can be done, but it's a pretty big job & takes quite a bit of time!
As for the power outputs of both the Standard & Premium systems-I did some static voltage checks on the speaker drive outputs of both the facia Head Unit & the Power Amp. Every single speaker drive output on both the Standard & Premium systems was sitting at exactly half the main rail supply voltage-which is a dead giveaway for a DC-Coupled 'Bridge Amplifier' output rather than a single-ended Capacitor-coupled output. So the power output level on the door speakers is pretty much the same for both the Standard & Premium systems. However, the separate front tweeter drive & dual Subwoofer outputs provide some of the extra power on the Premium systems.
Oh, and one final point-the audio systems changed at around the 2000MY cars & are not interchangeable. Earlier Premium systems used the Harman Kardon set-up & later ones used the Alpine system, so the upgrade parts need to be chose carefully to suit your model year
The following 3 users liked this post by Red October:
#3
12-19-2012, 11:27 AM
The cost wasn't too great-I got the Premium system Power Amp from a breakers on ebay for £70 GBP. The wires & special Multilock 070 plugs to go in the Power Amp cost around £30 GBP. So the Power Amp & wiring cost £100 GBP, or around $160 in your money
To but the Power Amp & harness brand new from Jaguar is around £900 ($1500ish)!!!
The sound quality from the front is definately better now, since the bass drivers & tweeters are now driven separately from the Power Amp via it's internal active crossover. The treble is very clear & the bass quite punchy-that's with the speakers from the Standard system.
All 4 door tweeters have an integral 4.7uf passive crossover capacitor so, to boost the treble & lower the crossover frequency a bit, I wired an additional 2.2uf non-polarised capacitor in parallel with the integral 4.7uf units.
The front tweeters probably don't need their series crossover capacitor as the Premium system Power Amp has an internal active crossover that stops the pounding bass getting to the tweeters anyway-but I left the integral 4.7uf capacitors in place & wired the extra 2.2uf capacitors in anyway.
So the front speakers definately sound noticeably better now-the rears have a bit more treble now too. The Premium system Power Amp has a bit more power on the door speakers too-it has more headroom at high volumes than the Standard system.
I'm not sure how much better the system would sound using the actual Premium sound system speakers-if I see a set on ebay for a sensible price then I might try them out in the future. At the moment though I'm happy with the results using the speakers from the Standard system.
I can't find the electrical specs for the Standard or Premium system speakers, so I don't know what the detail differences are for either the bass drivers or tweeters-or what the crossover points have been set to & the power handling capability etc.
I've yet to sort out the subwoofer-there's not much room under the rear shelf so the choices are quite limited. I'm going to try a standard round door speaker first-I've mounted it on an MDF spacer ring & then cut a 6x9 plastic plate with a hole in the middle for the round speaker.
It's purely for experimental purposes so I can see how much difference it makes to the overall quality of the sound inside the car. I know the proper subwoofer is a dual-voice coil 6x9 unit, so I'm not expecting miracles from a single voice coil smaller round speaker
I might decide to go for 2 round speakers on the rear shelf as subwoofers, since there are 2 outputs from the Power Amp-I'll need to see how much clearance & space there is for a second speaker under the rear shelf, as there's a bloody great electrical harness plug under the other side of the rear shelf right where the speaker voice coil needs to go! I'll try another round MDF spacer again for experimentation, I think
The whole job has taken a fair bit of time though, but it hasn't cost very much so far. The most important part was to get the wiring in place for the Power Amp in the boot, and the have the speakers driven from the Power Amp.
I have learned quite a lot about how the Jag interior all fits together though-so it's been useful in that respect. I can get the door trims off & the seats out now in very short order
To but the Power Amp & harness brand new from Jaguar is around £900 ($1500ish)!!!
The sound quality from the front is definately better now, since the bass drivers & tweeters are now driven separately from the Power Amp via it's internal active crossover. The treble is very clear & the bass quite punchy-that's with the speakers from the Standard system.
All 4 door tweeters have an integral 4.7uf passive crossover capacitor so, to boost the treble & lower the crossover frequency a bit, I wired an additional 2.2uf non-polarised capacitor in parallel with the integral 4.7uf units.
The front tweeters probably don't need their series crossover capacitor as the Premium system Power Amp has an internal active crossover that stops the pounding bass getting to the tweeters anyway-but I left the integral 4.7uf capacitors in place & wired the extra 2.2uf capacitors in anyway.
So the front speakers definately sound noticeably better now-the rears have a bit more treble now too. The Premium system Power Amp has a bit more power on the door speakers too-it has more headroom at high volumes than the Standard system.
I'm not sure how much better the system would sound using the actual Premium sound system speakers-if I see a set on ebay for a sensible price then I might try them out in the future. At the moment though I'm happy with the results using the speakers from the Standard system.
I can't find the electrical specs for the Standard or Premium system speakers, so I don't know what the detail differences are for either the bass drivers or tweeters-or what the crossover points have been set to & the power handling capability etc.
I've yet to sort out the subwoofer-there's not much room under the rear shelf so the choices are quite limited. I'm going to try a standard round door speaker first-I've mounted it on an MDF spacer ring & then cut a 6x9 plastic plate with a hole in the middle for the round speaker.
It's purely for experimental purposes so I can see how much difference it makes to the overall quality of the sound inside the car. I know the proper subwoofer is a dual-voice coil 6x9 unit, so I'm not expecting miracles from a single voice coil smaller round speaker
I might decide to go for 2 round speakers on the rear shelf as subwoofers, since there are 2 outputs from the Power Amp-I'll need to see how much clearance & space there is for a second speaker under the rear shelf, as there's a bloody great electrical harness plug under the other side of the rear shelf right where the speaker voice coil needs to go! I'll try another round MDF spacer again for experimentation, I think
The whole job has taken a fair bit of time though, but it hasn't cost very much so far. The most important part was to get the wiring in place for the Power Amp in the boot, and the have the speakers driven from the Power Amp.
I have learned quite a lot about how the Jag interior all fits together though-so it's been useful in that respect. I can get the door trims off & the seats out now in very short order
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