Amping..Looking for those who ripped mylinks out

[KillaX 7]

Im needing to know, if theres a schematic out there for the mylink connector. I plan to pull the unit out, and spliace some wires. Its pretty easy to know what ones are speaker wires, and they can be double-checked by using a multimeter, and checking the pin to the speaker ( continuity ). Im assuming theres no 'audio out' pre-amp signal wires, on the mylink system.

I have zero desires, to put a METRA kit in my car. I installed one in my friends base model spark. And flat out hate it ( he likes ) Its just a shameful thing to me, to put in my car. I hate the toy-cheap black matte plastic trim they use. The dinger is a pathedic excuse for a dinger/chime. It didnt fit my friends pioneer after-market unit, without modding. The heater vents didnt fit it properly. Its just.. horrible. Nasty. BUT. my friend had the base unit radio. and BADLY needed an upgrade.

Mylink, the touch screen one, my stock stereo sounds TOOOOONS better than his stock. Far more dynamic audio, far louder, and had audiable ( trashy ) bass out of my rears, his couldnt even do that. Once i dropped in JBL speakers, my stock-headunit via mylink, sounds just as clear, as his current after-market setup. Only difference is i can fill in the bass tones, lightly or overkill ( vision blur aka for show not driving ) since I'm running a ported-10" sub under the flooring in the back. 0.25ohm class-D wubs..Pure quality. Amp runs cold, and im hardly pushing it..able to pretty much make the rear-view mirror utterly useless ( I dont keep things this loud, more for quality/show ). Since I have friends who run dual 12" kickers, but the actual bass quality is nasty..because cheap kickers.

So. After talking to JL's tech support. They 100% agreed that my current stock system, driving 50W 125W-RMS speakers, will hugely suffer, and lack the ability to feed them properly, resulting in quality lost. especially when the speakers try to bass hit ( tri-coil speakers ). Which, I noticed, because at good 'lovin it' volume, when they try to bass, they cant. and quality dies. Theres a literal 'the volume doesnt do much change after 20' because the stock system just cant do them. JL stated simply adding an amp, 4 channel, massively improves this issue, and for most, is 'plenty high enough quality' solution. The speakers are driven corretly, righ proper power. The stock radio doesnt have to cry over it, and everyone is happy. But, they tapped in saying if your hugely picky about quality, and want to keep OEM, they highly recommended a 24-Bit DPS.. a digital processor. So if mylink spits out 'custom ugly EQ' it processes it back into flat EQ, full-range, delay-corrected, audio. Claims of being comparable ( and some cases better ) than replacing OEM with after-market. The only drawback is a few seconds of delay in the audio ( as it processing the audio ). which is 100% fine by me. The spark BT already has a bad delay, so I'm use to this. It still offers a 'disable' button to be wired anywhere in the car, for un-delayed hands-free voice calls. This is a costly expense. But, money is no object to this project.

I've seen a couple here do this. Put a 4 channel amp on the OEM radio. I planned to splice the speaker-level outputs on the mylink connector, run it to my 4-channnel amp's speaker-level inputs, and wire the speakers to the amp. This should let me keep all vehicle functions. door chimes, etc. The amp has a pre-out, which is the sum of all 4 channels ( before LP/HP is applied ) that then can run to my sub, that has its own amp, and its own filtering. The longest/hardest part is splicing the wires. and preferrably, running new speaker wires.

But yeah. I'm much considering the processor. It may not be neeed, as i feel the mylink quality is GREAT with real speakers. and the sub makes everything come together. But if im gona be ripping through things, I kinda see it as.. why not.. it'll help.

Setup atm involves 3-ohm speakers ( set to run 4 by time you include wire runs )

My sub: http://www.jlaudio.com/acp110lg-tw1-car-audio-microsub-amplified-subwoofer-systems-93332( built in amp )

My Amp to install: http://www.jlaudio.com/xd400-4v2-car-audio-xdv2-amplifiers-98602

Processor I'm still debating on: http://www.jlaudio.com/fix-82-car-audio-oem-integration-98100

I love the spark for being small. Audio wise, It makes filling-the-space with sound, easier. Its fun letting someone sit in my car, unaware of any changes ( 100% stock apperance ). And most think im running dual 10" subs in the rear by how hard it kicks, and claim they feel like they're at an IMAX theater with how pure the low-tones are. Its always fun for me to side note 'I'm hardly pushing that sub. Doesnt even run warm after 30 minutes of that.' I just dont drive like that. vision blurring a little, and rear-view mirror becomes completely useless. I over-all love the setup. But, my speakers suffer from under-power input...I'll post progress info as this comes along, if wanted. Its winter time so motivation is next to zero.

Curious of peoples thoughts to my way of going about this. OEM and such. My views are likely not-popular-opinion, sorry. Just after seeing that metra kit, installing it, i would feel ashamed, putting that in a new 2014 car. To me, putting that in my friends 2013 base model car, is like putting a plastic hub-cap on 1 wheel of your car, while the rest are chrome+metal. Its a sore-thumb of cheap...The dinger made it a laughing joke..much rather the louder, speaker-ran dinger that makes for a very noticable HEY! Wake up! Oddly enough my friend spent a good chunk of cash via crutchfield, on the pioneer after-market radio. Yet, seriously, my stock headunit..sounds just as clear. Our 'volume 20' sound the same loudness / clearity. Only difference is he can go more, vs mine, 1-20 are noticable increases in volume. each step. 20...21...22.. not so much. Since it suffers the ability to power the speakers.



PS: I use to have head-light dimming issues. I looked up the battery specs long ago, and the stock battery had pretty high ESR...which is why the cranking-amps is pretty dinky. The battery isnt built to push power. the ESR is so high that when you try to draw a lot of amps, it has voltage drop. Much like how with my quadcopters, i can make a 35C battery drop 2V running 80A, vs 75C battery ( much lower ESR ) only drops .3V

Literally. All I did was shove in a power-cell. Ultra-low ESR, >1000CA, No capacitors, stock alternator. and Runs great. Can have high-beams on, blasting the sub, zero effect, use to dim them a LOOOT every beat. Silver terminals and uneeded costs but. works. Monitored the voltage for 3 months, stays well within the higher-side of the "whats okay" voltages. >13V after the car has been off for a bit. and >13.8V while the car is running. So its clearly obvious the alternator is doing its job, battery is staying topped, and I do a lot of RC flying, field charging, to cycle that battery now and then. Since its a powercell and they recommend occasionally running it down a bit.

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_90644_Kinetik-HC1200-REV.html Love these. No mods to the car. Literally just plopped it in, used half the stock battery clamp + an adjustable one from sonic. Used stock battery clamps. Was super simple. Aside audio, I noticed my car, specially during the winter ( -12F days ) starts instantly, when cranking the lights dont dim..since its a far-overkill battery.

Edited January 26, 2016 by KillaX

[Retired old Gearhead 201]

I found a solution to listening to tunes I like with the right bass, treble and midtones...Found MP3's on the net and had my niece who works for a local radio station compensate for the bad Spark speakers then put them on a usb drive and it sounds pretty darn good with a deep bass if I want it..I think there is a lot you can do or have done with digital sound to compensate for crappy speakers.

[SpaceCowboy 15]

I did a line level out straight from my rear speakers to may amp and everything sounds really really good for such small speakers. My internal 4 speakers (Pioneer TS-D1002R) are not amped but my 8" L7 is and it hits hard for sure.

[KillaX 7]

I currently run the JBL GTO series 4" fronts 4x6" rears. They seem to handle well, but they distort too easily because the stock amp cannot power them properly ( distortion in bass at low volume ) which I understand can damage speakers, much faster, than over-amping. For the time being, I shoved bass-blockers on them, which worked, but also made the trebs go crazy. Thats why I decided I would get rid of those, Pump my stock unit out to the Digital processor ( This sums all 4 channels into a single, full-range output L/R ) Which will then go to my amp, which will split that out to all 4 channels / speakers. Then from there I can use the amp to trim out the bass levels, as the subwoofer runs offf the pre-out ( uneffected ) and has its own 'bass knob' up front.

So as an end result, i should have a much higher quality improvement, mostly thanks to the digital processor. It will add audio delay, but the vol. knob for it is a button, to disable it ( through-pass ) so BT hands-free talking will be un-delayed, if someone was to call me.I never use the glove box. It only stores my vehicle reg and such. So, I've considered putting the DPS in there, and possibly running the amp in the rear. In the rear, my sub connects to the bolt in the spare-tire area ( seats bolt ) providing ground for the sub, through the car. I recently picked up 4-awg cable, to attempt to assure my battery ground is beefy, to prevent voltage loss. Even if i gotta run it from the battery to some bolt on the car.. I thought about amp ijn the glove-box too, but the wiring would get messy.. My goal is to drop the sub in the spare-tire area, which is easy. The sub-box fits very nicely. But wouldnt allow really any room, for the 4-ch amp. ( sub has its own built in ). Im wanting to save as much space as possible, so i ahve full trunk space.. and not amps laying all over..itll be a project. i got all i need finally. Just need to figure my layout.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qsi42p1a1rrcu3f/2016-02-02%2001.26.44.jpg?dl=0

[SpaceCowboy 15]

Should be able to mount the amp and sub in the rear tire area without any issue.

[KillaX 7]

Should be able to mount the amp and sub in the rear tire area without any issue.

http://i.imgur.com/FRl4SVJh.jpg Not quite.

Glove box will be too small / cramped for the amp. Pretty much decided I'm going to put the Digital processor in the glovebox ( small ) and the 4-channel amplifier in the rear. Due to insurance reasons, I have to secure/mount things... my insurance covers $1000 of 'secured' audio equipment upgrades for free, and $1 for every extra $400 worth, a year. The sub I bought specific to this car, because its dimensions was a good fit in the rear. I have rails im running back there that are gona be bolted down via the existing bolts ( no additional holes cuz I dont wish to experiment with gas ) . This will basically make my cargo space be 1" 'taller' on the floor. Wood board will of course have cuts for the bass port and speaker port.

Then to the left ( where the wires are coiled in this old picture ) I'm gona put the amp there, cut out in the wood board, which should make the amp stick above the floor by maybe 1/4 of an inch. This should work nicely, and look clean if all goes to plan. Not one to care for bling-fancyness... Got free access to a 100W laser that will cut+etch acrylic and all that jazz, but i dont really care to glorify a spark's cargo space with glowing acrylic...I've been keeping my car as-stock-looking-as-possible. Besides my cargo space, the car pretty much looks 100% stock. Since wires and such are hidden away, and I'm building things around Quality + sound depth, Stage... Not 'loudest boomer' or 'loudest sound' Else i woulda just said F cargo space heres 2000W of kicker dual 12's in the rear... lol.

One step at a time. If dropping the sub below, putting a metal wall 2" from the port, muffles it and kills the sound, then F it. Sub stays above, everything else goes below. Then if i ever REALLY NEED THE SPACE. it takes 2 seconds to disconnect cables, and the power runs is a quick-connect/disconnect. and takes no time at all, to set the sub in the house.

[1LoudLS 11]

how large is 4ch amp? have you checked to see if it would fit under one of the front seats?

lately I've been a huge fan of ultra compact 4ch's out there, super efficient and small enough to fit behind the dash board in almost every car so no worrying about how much space they take up or where you can fit them since they will literally fit just about everywhere.

[KillaX 7]

Its possible, but i think for running wires easier and such, ot would be cleaner to just shove it to the rear. The amp is 7" x 8" x 2" lots of adjustment options ( what i was after ) and full range class-D.

Front speakers are 3-Ohm 35W RMS / 105W Peak
Rears are 3-ohm 50WRMS / 135W Peak

Sub has its own amp, built into the box, 0.25ohm sub @ 400W. Hardly run the sub ( amp heatsink is cold after 1 hour of running ) since the vol i run it at is plenty for me. Dont desire more than chest/throat-felt bass that makes rear-view mirror pointless to have...

Some of the compact onces ive seen simply dont have the amps/wattage for my needs. Ive fiddled with the NVX-MVPA4 micro-Class D amplifier, and one other i forgot the name of ( red and silver ) and returned them shortly after trying.. Wasnt pleased with the quality, let alone hardly any adjustment variables.

Edit:
I plan to run this car to the ground.. No real plans to get a different vehicle and such so. Mod away.

I dont really use a the glove box for anything more than vehicle registration and such, so I'm 100% fine putting the DPS there. All I gotta do now is finish up the rear sub-drop work, wire stuff up back there, connect the speakers to the new 16awg runs, and so forth. All is going to plan so far.

Edited February 7, 2016 by KillaX