charbile20

Hey guys,

i'm willing to upgrade my mercedes C230 2005 sound system and i will buy:

- pioneer d-series components for the front and the rear
- a small mid speaker for the central grill in the front
- pioneer d-series amp (the highest quality from pioneer)

i already have a pioneer d4 subwoofer 1400 watts in the trunk with an amp to power it

but my technical question is:
my stock speakers are wired to a fiber optic amp, is it safe to wire the new pioneer amp to the stock one in order to power the new speakers and keep the same original cables for the new speakers

N.B. an audio shop will make all these changes and told me that it won't damage the stock amp how about you guys i want to make sure only

thanks in advance

jkowtko

Using a line out converter should work ... although I wouldn't hold my breath on sound quality.

If you have any kind of an ear for stereo sound quality you are going to end up biting the bullet, getting a new head unit and rewiring everything anyway ... anything short of that you are going to be "hearing" issues with your sound. I have already upgaded my head unit and speakers, each of which produced a significant improvement. But it's not "perfect" so I've ordered my amp and wires and will be doing that soon.

So, even if you aren't planning to replace the head unit now, I suggest you run new speaker wires from the trunk now so that is done. (The stock speaker wires are pretty decent, but a good set of 14AWG runs will remove any doubts in your mind.) And if you have not already run a power wire from the battery to the trunk for your amp(s), definitely do that as well. That will leave only the RCA runs when you replace your head unit

Moviela

Do you have a Harmon-Kardon premium sound system? Is there an amp in the trunk on the right fender arch? If you don't have the H-K system, your amp is in the head unit, and all connected with copper wires.

You only need a center channel speaker if you have a Logic 7 DSP with premium sound. The speaker is actually mounted on the sub assembly in the rear of those cars.

You don't need to replace your speaker wires. The wires there can carry more current then the speakers will sink. It would be safe to use them with your proposed amp. You don't need a DC+ wire to the trunk to mount an amp, even a so-called 1400 watt unit (trust me it is not.) There is already an 8 awg line to the rear SAM. It will supply more power than you need. It will be so loud it could force you to exit the car.

A word about your current head unit. It is as good as, or better than anything you can buy. There are no better tuners or amplifiers available. It has an advantage over aftermarket dash units. You don't need a new bezel, brackets, or programming to make it integrate with the car controls. The head unit you have now has a superior soundfield to anything you can buy because it has been tuned to mitigate the interior imperfections caused by speaker locations and furniture in the passenger compartment. Why give that engineering up?

Now if the aftermarket headunit is tunable, and you can find a shop with the sexy microphones and instruments to do the tuning, AND it has a spout that dispenses fresh cold pineapple juice, then you would have something better than stock.

jkowtko

Yes. the stock wiring in these cars seems pretty sturdy and should be perfectly safe with a higher powered amp. I am currently running with stock wiring from my Pioneer AVIC head unit to Alpine Type S speakers, and the sound is loud, clear, crisp, punchy, etc. But it is not perfect ... and the only two things remaining are Alpine Class D amp and clean speaker wire runs.

With the non-linearity of speaker impedance at different frequencies, and the gauge and connectors introduced throughout the wiring harness, you risk affecting the sound.

Here is one example of estimating minimum gauge to use for speaker wire:
http://www.audioholics.com/education...e#.UXFE1nddylA
There is a formula for measuring the resistance in speaker wiring relative to the resistance of the speaker itself, and the 16AWG wire gets close to the threshold in a standard car wire run to the trunk. 18AWG doesn't come close to meeting the minimum requirements.

The run from the trunk to the front door speakers is > 10 feet. Most shops will run 16AWG ... since I am running cables at all I'm going to run 14AWG so I can rule this out as a source of coloration.

8AWG is probably fine for powering most external car amps ... however using the 8AWG that is connected to the SAM, I'm not so sure about. My indy Mercedes mechanic has cautioned me many times about current draw in these system and resulting electrical problems. The car's electrical system is very complex, and after going back and forth on this subject quite a few times in my mind, I've decided to play it safe and make a separate run to the battery. Again, peace of mind that I am not causing trouble for myself down the line.

This I don't understand. I have never seen a head unit that was as good as an aftermarket unit. The stock systems tend to over-EQ the sound and introduce fake bass, to make a very cheap system sound almost good. But when you have to set Bass at -3 and treble +2 just to be able to hear the vocalists, something isn't right.

A "perfect" stereo should run flat and reproduce the source material exactly as it was recorded. I noticed a significant improvement in sound quality (in addition to all the great new features) when I upgraded my head amp, and an even greater improvement in sound quality when I replaced the speakers.

That doesn't necessarily come without a price, however. Upgrading system components can be like opening Pandora's box ... once you upgrade one component, it exposes how bad the other components are, and you will end up replacing everything over time. That is what I'm doing (amp, sub and wiring are next).

As for "tuning" the system to the car, yes I will do that. I've mentioned before that if you are a true audiophile you may go through multiple speakers and/or amps in your car before you find one that sounds best to you. But my goal is to run everything flat.

Like has been said many times, most people will not hear the difference. So if you are in the majority of those folks who just want to hear their song loud and clear, and are not so impressed by the timbre and detail of the vocals, strings and percussion, then this may not be for you.

charbile20

Means that i should keep the amp in the trunk and replace only the speakers to get louder and clearer sound or should I mount the pioneer d-series amp to my stock fiber optic amp ?

charbile20

I'm buying the best quality from pioneer in order to get a clear and loud sound and even hearing a lot of crisp details in your opinion the stock fiber optic amp would do that if I put only the speakers without wiring the pioneer amp to it?

charbile20

Why should I be biting my bullet? I'm buying the best quality of pioneer in order to hear music crispy and loud and even with more details without damaging the speakers in your opinion what's the best solution?

jkowtko

One rule of thumb I've heard from audophiles is "start upgrading from the source and move downstream". It doesn't matter how good your amp or speakers are if your source signal generator is putting out poor quality audio. The result will be that your amp and speakers will let you clearly hear how bad your head unit is. (I assume you are still talking about using the factory head unit).

Another rule of thumb I've heard is "minimize the number of links in the signal chain". The more things you have in between your source material and your ears, the more opportunity for the audio quality to be altered, usually in an undesired manner. Running one amp off another will do that. The HK amp doesn't pass through the signal untouched -- it amplifies it to drive speakers, probably EQs the hell out of it to do it's fancy surround processing, in the process modifying the source material. Your line converter is now going to shrink that back down to line level input, before passing it to your Pioneer amp? If that Pioneer amp is really that good, you should hear everything the that the HK and line converter are doing to your audio.

The good news is that none of this is set in stone. You can try it one way, then change it if you don't like the way it sounds. I would suggest either doing it yourself so the investment cost is mostly just your time -- or if you pay a shop to do it, ask them for a bargain deal so they will charge you little or nothing extra if you are not happy with the sound the first time around and want to have it further modified.

efzauner

I have done a pretty complete install in my car.
I started by adding rca outs to the OEM head unit. The HU is quite good, the DSP chip and PA chip is no different in performance that most aftermarket HU. I had to take it apart and solder wires to the pc board between the DSP chip and PA chip. Lots of delicate work. Not for amateurs.

The HU is NOT equalized! I measured it, so using line level converters would work fine, however I do highly recommend additional processing via a JBL MS8 or equivalent, especially if you are going to add a center speaker. The improvement in the soundstage makes all the difference. I have a kick *** system but it was ho hum before I added the MS8. think about that! As for the center, there is not much room under that front center air grill.. Have you removed it? You will have to make this full custom, redoing the grill with a bump to handle the large speaker.
Speaker wire size...I installed new wire and it is a PITA. Your time and effort would be better spent elswhere. Leave this to last when you have nothing else to do.
Happy to help and answer questions.

charbile20

Ok now after surfing the web in order to know more about the class d amp from pioneer this is what i've read from the specifications of the amp on the official site of pioneer :

SPEAKER LEVEL INPUTS

What, you DON'T own a Pioneer headunit? Well, we won't hold it against you. In fact we'll even help you build onto your system. The GM-D8604's speaker level inputs allow you to connect your OEM unit (or any unit that doesn't have the typical RCA-type inputs) without having to buy add-on adapters. So, the install goes faster, you save money, and you've got a Pioneer amp in your vehicle.

Does that mean that the problem is solved ? And by the way my main question was if wiring the pioneer amp to the stock fiber optic amp will harm the stock one?

I appreciate your support a lot thanks for helping

charbile20

Ok the the pioneer amp is just so good and it offers extreme efficiency and high quality sound as stated on the official site.
As for the central speaker i won't change it size and i know it isn't big. But this is not my point i just need to know if upgrading the speakers to approximately 800 watts with an appropriated amp will damage my stock fiber optic amp because i'll be wiring the new one to the stock one thanks for your support

jkowtko

Okay, so the Pioneer amp already has a speaker level inputs so you don't need a separate line out converter. Less in the signal chain.

Still I would argue not as clean sound as if you ran pre-outs directly from your headunit to the Pioneer amp. But since your head unit likely doesn't have pre-outs, your suggested configuration is probably the best you can do in this first step.

This should not hurt your HK amp. From the HK amp's perspective it will look like a very high ohm set of speakers have been connected, which makes the HK amp work far less than it is currently working.

Just looked at the specs for the GM-D8604 ... that's a lot of power for a $250 retail amp. I am a bit suspicious. The Alpines are reportedly the best quality amps out there, and they are quite a bit more expensive for the claimed power levels. If you haven't bought the amp yet, you might want to do some comparison research before you buy.

efzauner

So you already have a center speaker? It this the HK suround sound system with Logic 7? That is a pretty good system btw.

regardless of what you have, no you should not be worried about connecting speaker line level adaptors (or the ones build into any amp) to the stock amp. The fact it is fed by the MOST fiber link is irrelevant as that is just between the HU and the amp.
And btw... your speakers wont handle 800 watts...that is marketing hype....and if they did, you would go deaf.

And as an aside, all the PowerAmp chips in any modern HU are fully protected against thermal or shorts. Pretty bullet proof.

as an aside you can get MOST fiber optic to RCA out converters. not cheap...

charbile20

Oh alright, that's something good! As for the alpine amps they are quite expensive, the class d does cost 450$ at retail, on the other hand the pioneer costs 250 which is an awesome price for such quality and power and yes i do agree the GM-D8604 is the best one.
Again thanks for your support i enjoyed reading your opinion and the helpful topics in this forum

phister

dunno if alpines are the best quality amps out there, maybe by main stream but what you should look into is a 5 channel amp to power up everything, 4 channel for speakers and one channgel for the sub. You can look for an older JL 500/5 amp that ranges from 150-350 on ebay/craigslist. Or you can look at the Alpine PDX-V9 which is around the 400 range but a lot of audio guys like this for a 5 channel amp but you can also get the alpine MRX-V70 that ranges around the 250 area.

I personally have the Memphis Car Audio 16-MRA5.750 which powers my whole system and works great. I also have the Memphis Big Belle 16-MCH1300 which is a beast, but havent installed it yet. I'll probably switch it out with the MRA5 and put that one in the Audi.

Also another brand I like is Eclipse, I'd had there titanium subs and amps and they have never faild me, they are a bit pricey but I think its well worth it. *

charbile20

I have the surround option but not with logic 7 i think my system was highly customized before because i have:
1 speaker in the central grill
2 front tweeters
2 front mids
2 rear mid
2 tweeters on the back of the rear passenger
1 factory subwoofer also on the back of the passanger side

But i listen to music on high volume for long periods so i prefer to put aftermarket high power speakers and power them with an appropriated amp so i won't hurt nor the speakers nor the stock amp and i've found the best components for my budget, the pioneer d series

jkowtko

Those speaker positions that you mention are the factory upgraded system. There were two upgrades -- Bose and HK. Since I don't have either I wouldn't know how to check which one you have. People seem to think its the HK system though.

So based on the fact that you are wanting to upgrade what is supposed to already be a great sounding stereo upgrade, must mean that the stereo upgrade isn't that great after all. I would ask others who are proponents of the HK system to chime in again ... If the system should sound good but doesn't, maybe some of the speakers are just getting worn out and should be replaced (e.g. with used ones in newer condition from eBay)

If the HK system IS lacking in sound quality at volume or the speakers are breakingup, then the upgrade is justified. It was noted above that the HK amp is a surround processing amp ... If your goal is to amplify each of the 7 channels coming out of the HK and leaving all of the processing as is, then I would suggest getting 6 channels of equal power plus a sub channel. This means two amps, but you can re-amplify every channel coming out of the HK and have agood chance of louder and cleaner sound without disturbing the surround processing already designed into the system. In effect you will be turning the HK into a surround processor preamp.

charbile20

The sound system is very good and sounds amazing. However I don't think it's an integrated HK ss or maybe it was but it has been modified to a less extraordinary ss. I've asked a technician if it was HK and he denied.
My amp is fiber optic my stock sub is marked as H/K and on the rear deck on the back of the passanger it's written harman kardon
But I don't have logic 7 and I doubt that my speakers are close to what harman kardon sounds like
Any help? Because if it was a H/K I'd upgrade my speakers only with hk ones