Subwoofer Install w/ Harman Kardon System

[Kamauxx]

I tapped the blue side. The side label "II". I assumed that was the "B" side?

Looking at Bills pic I tapped the bundle on the right side.

 

[WildBill]

I think we've found the issue. The only thing I tapped on harness 2 was for my remote turn on lead. The speakers are on harness 1.

It's counter intuitive but Connector B in the pinout is actually the red one which is labeled 1 on the amp.
You really need to look at the pinout drawing and the connector location in relation to the amp. It is a bit confusing to say the least. Then I would still do the battery trick as mentioned above to make sure you have the correct wires for the intended speaker.

 

[Kamauxx]

Son-of-a-b...

Wow. Welp, back to the trunk. Thanks.

 

[andrew tay]

Connector II is A

 

[Kamauxx]

Got it all working now. Just have to button everything up and make it look pretty.

Thanks gents.

 

[Kamauxx]

Connector II is A

Yea I guess everything is upside down in SK.

 

[andrew tay]

Yea I guess everything is upside down in SK.

How did the rockford sound? Nice and punchy?

 

[Kamauxx]

How did the rockford sound? Nice and punchy?

It sounds really good. I've only turned the gain up about 40% and the boost about 10% with the bass on the head unit set at -2. It's nice and deep without sounding like the 4 15"s I had in my 1992 Cavalier when I was in high school.

I've got some rattle coming from the license plate so I need to figure out how to eliminate that. I'll probably put some 3M double sided tape under it.

I'm not at all happy with the location though. I have it in a similar location to where you have yours but mine isn't integrated with the car so it looks horrible and if I drive it probably wouldn't make it a mile before falling over.

 

[andrew tay]

It sounds really good. I've only turned the gain up about 40% and the boost about 10% with the bass on the head unit set at -2. It's nice and deep without sounding like the 4 15"s I had in my 1992 Cavalier when I was in high school.

I've got some rattle coming from the license plate so I need to figure out how to eliminate that. I'll probably put some 3M double sided tape under it.

I'm not at all happy with the location though. I have it in a similar location to where you have yours but mine isn't integrated with the car so it looks horrible and if I drive it probably wouldn't make it a mile before falling over.

I put aong screw at the top edge of the sub through the carpet into metal frame of the car works well. Personally I would strap it to the back of the back seat with child restraint anchor. It usually sound better firing backwards anyway IMO.

Just comparing notes. Did you wired the sub according to the polarity of the diagram (+ to +, - to - ) or in reverse (+ to - and - to +). I found that it's louder and sound better wired in reverse.

 

[Kamauxx]

I did + to +, - to - .

I also moved the ground wire. I'm using one of the bolts holding the battery down. That allowed me to relocate the speaker so that it sits against the seat. I put a long strip of velcro across the back to hold it into place.

 

[andrew tay]

I did + to +, - to - .

I also moved the ground wire. I'm using one of the bolts holding the battery down. That allowed me to relocate the speaker so that it sits against the seat. I put a long strip of velcro across the back to hold it into place.

Firing backwards sound better than sides?

 

[Kamauxx]

Firing backwards sound better than sides?

I didn't even leave my garage with them sideways so it's hard to say. I kept the volume under 15 while in the garage.

After relocating it I drove to the gym and got it up to about 27 and it sounded great. I made a few adjustments to the gain and bass boost when I parked but overall it has a good sound.

 

[MrSmoofy]

Been a long time since I tackled something like this (20+ years) was thinking of doing a single 12 in a bandpass box, what's every ones opinion on that?

 

[WildBill]

I think it would add a good amount of kick.

I do want to change one piece of information from my previous posts. You will want to tap into the factory subwoofer leads for the high level inputs rather than the front doors. The signal to the doors does have a high pass crossover applied and you miss out on a fair amount of the low end.

 

[MrSmoofy]

I think it would add a good amount of kick.

I do want to change one piece of information from my previous posts. You will want to tap into the factory subwoofer leads for the high level inputs rather than the front doors. The signal to the doors does have a high pass crossover applied and you miss out on a fair amount of the low end.

Thanks for the tip. Is that shown in your first image of what wires that it and where they are located?

I think I decided on an amp which has speaker level inputs, detects the speaker level input as on/off so no need for remote wire and has a remote gain knob that I can use to control how bassy I'm feeling. sometimes I was very little (talk radio) and other times I want to relive my younger hears and shake the car next to me LOL.

I'm actually thinking of mounting the knob inside of the center console so out's out of the way and hidden.

Trying to relearn Speaker box design now as it's been a really long time since I've calculated airspace and port size for building the box.

 

[andrew tay]

Been a long time since I tackled something like this (20+ years) was thinking of doing a single 12 in a bandpass box, what's every ones opinion on that?

Bandpass boxes are hard to tune properly and needs big box, taking up a lot of space. Good for low power amps and subs that are around 100w. Not popular anymore as amplifier and subwoofer are getting so powerful these days that you can just put the sub in a small box and turn the gain up to hit hard. If you like those low end enhancement coming out from the port just turn be bass gain up 6db which is what ports do in bandpass. In simple ported boxes gives you bass gain of about 3bd if I am not wrong.

 

[WildBill]

Thanks for the tip. Is that shown in your first image of what wires that it and where they are located?

Sorry for the delayed response. This pinout for the HK amp is in this post.
Aftermarket Sub Installation Planning / HK Amp Pinout?

On my 2018 US GT2 these are the wire colors I tapped into.
SUB 1 + White
SUB 1 - Brown
SUB 2 + Red
SUB 2 - Blue

Be careful these were on connector 1 which is red. The pinout refers to this connector as "Connector B". It's kind of counter-intuitive.

 

[MrSmoofy]

Sorry for the delayed response. This pinout for the HK amp is in this post.
Aftermarket Sub Installation Planning / HK Amp Pinout?

On my 2018 US GT2 these are the wire colors I tapped into.
SUB 1 + White
SUB 1 - Brown
SUB 2 + Red
SUB 2 - Blue

Be careful these were on connector 1 which is red. The pinout refers to this connector as "Connector B". It's kind of counter-intuitive.

Awesome thanks, is this the best option for adding a mono sub amp or is there a better option with the SPDIF connections and then using something with it to filter out everything but what I want for the subs?

 

[WildBill]

Best is dependent on how you want to characterize it. Tapping into speaker level inputs is by far the easiest and least expensive.
SPDIF I'm sure is "better" but I don't know how much fidelity you will be loosing or be able to discern in the sub base frequencies. I also have no idea how you would tap into the SPDIF to be able to run the factory amp and a new one. Can you simply wire tap them like you would a speaker wire?

 

[MrSmoofy]

Best is dependent on how you want to characterize it. Tapping into speaker level inputs is by far the easiest and least expensive.
SPDIF I'm sure is "better" but I don't know how much fidelity you will be loosing or be able to discern in the sub base frequencies. I also have no idea how you would tap into the SPDIF to be able to run the factory amp and a new one. Can you simply wire tap them like you would a speaker wire?

Yea I don't know if you can which is kind of what I was asking. My only concern was that maybe the speaker level inputs for the subs might have ranges filtered out that the subs wouldn't support anyways vs having a raw signal and filtering out what I wanted but Googling SPDIF splitting looks like you can split it but may not be possible to just splice into it.