I am in the process of replacing the stock headunit with Alpine ILX-W650 I plugged it It turns on but I have no sound, i am pretty sure speaker wires are correct hooked. Below is the wire guide the way I hooked up everything. The car has 810 Sound System and I got a nice sub in the back seat saying Harman Kardon so I think I have premium sound system however I don’t think this is fiber optics, the only fiber optics is the CD Changer that is in the glove box.

If you have a harmon karden then you have fiber optic . If you have a CD changer then you have fiber optic . You will need to extend those speaker wires to the rear where the amp is . unplug the harness to the amp and you will have the speaker wires there . check out my past posts I have a whole write up .

Question . where did you fit your sub ? I been trying different ways interested to see what you did .

Your thread helped me understand what am I dealing with. I just have some questions:
1. what kind of amplifier I need to power up all 7 speakers + sub?
2. Any chance I can use the power wire from the factory amp to power the new amp ?
3. I will be able to adjust the Fade / balance from the HU after the install ?

To answer your question, convertibles have a factory sub in the back seat, the “middle seat” is actually the housing for it.

I am glad it helped here are your answers

1. You can do what I said and run speaker wires to the rear amp and run the speakers off the head unit .Head unit has a built in amp 50W x 4 .If you want to put an amplifier you will need to change the speakers because most amps run at 4 OHM's of resistance and factory speakers uses 2 OHM's . Plus the factory speakers wont handle a real amp . You only have 4 speakers . the fronts are components with separate tweeter they count it as 4 but its really 2 . If your running the speakers from the head unit you just need to run right front and left front to the correct speaker wire . If your running an amplifier you will need to buy 6.5 component speakers for the front . they come with a control box that filters the mid's and highs . Mids are for the 6.5 speaker and highs are for the tweeter .then you will get 3 way speakers for the rear and just run the power directly to the speakers . You will loose the middle speaker in the front dash . Honestly its not needed but if you feel like you need it you can add a small $30 amp to run that speaker . Now if you do the amp route your speakers will overpower the factory subwoofer . so you will need to put a sub box in the trunk . in term of amps you can do 1 4 channel amp for the speakers and 1 sub amp for the sub . Or you can get a good 5 channel amp that powers all 4 channels and sub.

2.The power wire running the factory amp wont be enough and you will fry the amp or wire . You will need to run a good power wire from the battery . If your doing 2 amps I would say run a 0 Gauge wire and put a spliter . If your doing 1 amp you can do a 4 Gauge . My write up will show you how to run it .

3.Yes you will be able to fade and balance from the head unit.

Let me know which way you decide to go and I will help you set it up . BTW if your adding an amp you will need to run 5 sets of RCA cables from the Head unit to the amp and then run speaker wires from the amp to the speakers .

Thanks for answers and your help!
Snap, this Alpine unit has only 16W x 4 ... I probably should return it and get a SONY that can shoot 50W I guess this will save me from buying an additional amp.

it is 16 W RMS or 16 W total ? !6W RMS is the same as 50W Total

16 RMS , but I made a decision, I will go with the new 5channel amp Alpine S-A55V with the following specs :

• 40 watts RMS x 4 + 200 watts RMS x 1 at 4 ohms
• 60 watts RMS x 4 + 300 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms
• 120 watts RMS x 2 bridged at 4 ohms + 300 watts RMS x 1 at 2 ohms

... and I am planning to use it with the original speakers for now, and maybe planning to upgrade the sub speaker... What do you think?

Ok whatever you do do not raise the gain on the amp you will blow the speakers . Also make sure you set High pas filter on the amp . Let me know if you need any help . throw some pictures up

I think I will go crazy soon, how do you explain that the damn connector (AUDIO20) won’t give out constant 12V from the batt anymore (talking about pin 12 and 15) ... worked last time ... now no longer

Blown fuse?

You’re right! Wasn’t thinking straight last night. Anyway tomorrow I will do the install.

So finally finished, worked just few mins everyday, I went with a Kenwood Dmx957xr , I kept original speakers, bypassed the original amp, lost the subwoofer, lost the center dash speaker but still sounds great. I Replaced the microphone and kept it in the same spot where the original Teleaid panel is for an OEM look, I just don’t like hanging wires.

Everything works fine, I have steering controls working, but but I cannot find the Speed Sense wire ... some people said is a green/black wire somewhere below glove box behind the side kick panel, couldn’t find it there though...

If you have steering wheel controls working, that means the CAN bus is talking to your new headunit. If so, then you shouldn't need the Speed Sense wire, since that was only used with (oem) headunits that didn't connect to CAN. It may not even exist, since it's function has been taken over by CAN. Command 2.0 and newer do not use it, relying instead on the Interior CAN bus to do that, and other things. At least, that's my understanding of this, after studying the matter to troubleshoot some issues with my Command 2.0.

Why do you need it?

I understand what you’re saying. The CAN interface has speed sense wire but seems that its not working, I need it because at higher speeds I have to manually raise the sound volume due to the road noise.

Doesn't help you now, but I used one of these (Look under 'Vehicle Specific Steering Wheel Control Interfaces')

https://aerpro.com/vehicles/mercedes...-clk-2005-2008

Aftermarket headunit works perfect and so do steering wheel controls