Subwoofer Install w/ Harman Kardon System

[andrew tay]

No sanding at all. I just use angle grinder to trim the sides. The carpets covers up all the imperfections.

Curious - how much sanding is / was required? I have a JL sub and amp collecting dust in my basement and would love to have it in the car, but not in a space-wasting box.

 

[andrew tay]

JL W3 would not fit. It also would not tolerate smaller box as well. Need to be W0 or W1. I think Wo sounds better in seal box. IMO

Curious - how much sanding is / was required? I have a JL sub and amp collecting dust in my basement and would love to have it in the car, but not in a space-wasting box.

 

[andrew tay]

I went through 2kg resin and 2 sq meter of fibreglass sheet.

 

[brancky3]

JL W3 would not fit. It also would not tolerate smaller box as well. Need to be W0 or W1. I think Wo sounds better in seal box. IMO

Really? I figured there would be enough room, but never actually measured. The 8" W3 sub / enclosure I have (JL microsub) is about 6.6" deep, with the sub being only 4.6" deep itself.

 

[andrew tay]

Sorry I am thinking about the 12 inch which I tried. The 8 would fit.

Really? I figured there would be enough room, but never actually measured. The 8" W3 sub / enclosure I have (JL microsub) is about 6.6" deep, with the sub being only 4.6" deep itself.

 

[andrew tay]

The 8 inch only need 0.3 cubic feet. you can build in flash to the recess which would even look better

 

[TheSting]

View attachment 14967 If anyone would have asked me if there would be a day I would see a Lexicon processor in a Kia, I would have probably lagughed myself to death! I also would have never thought I would see Kia build a car like the Stinger, let alone ever own a Kia! But hey, here we are!

New Fog- /Daylights?

 

[Kamauxx]

@WildBill and @andrew tay

I have an old 8" powered sub (amp internal to box) sitting in my garage collecting dust. Power and ground is simple enough, and I has a built-in feature that's supposed to pick up signal to turn on/off the power so no need for a remote wire.

All I need to figure out is the tap into the speaker signal going into the factory amp.

My questions are what would you recommend to do the job? Which wires need to be tapped? Can I just tap the sub wire at the amp? And did you just use a posi-tap or something else?

 

[WildBill]

You either want to tap the front door leads or the sub leads.You don't want the rears as they have the artificial engine noise run through them.

I went with the doors because I figured they would be full range and I could cross them over at whatever point I wanted.
The subs are crossed over pretty low per information I found on another forum.

I have read another thread where someone tapped the sub leads and was happy with the results though.

I used Scotch-Locks but would have preferred to use posi-taps if I had them at the time.

 

[Kamauxx]

You either want to tap the front door leads or the sub leads.You don't want the rears as they have the artificial engine noise run through them.

I went with the doors because I figured they would be full range and I could cross them over at whatever point I wanted.
The subs are crossed over pretty low per information I found on another forum.

I have read another thread where someone tapped the sub leads and was happy with the results though.

I used Scotch-Locks but would have preferred to use posi-taps if I had them at the time.

You tapped the door wires at the amp, not at the door, right?

 

[WildBill]

You tapped the door wires at the amp, not at the door, right?

Correct. A link to the pinout for the HK amp is in the first post.

 

[Kamauxx]

Perfect! THANKS.

 

[andrew tay]

@WildBill and @andrew tay

I have an old 8" powered sub (amp internal to box) sitting in my garage collecting dust. Power and ground is simple enough, and I has a built-in feature that's supposed to pick up signal to turn on/off the power so no need for a remote wire.

All I need to figure out is the tap into the speaker signal going into the factory amp.

My questions are what would you recommend to do the job? Which wires need to be tapped? Can I just tap the sub wire at the amp? And did you just use a posi-tap or something else?

I tapped the underseat sub output. PS those two subs under seat are 8 inch. You probably will not get mush improvement at all from adding another 8 inch. At least a high end 10" with lots of power, or two 10's . If that sub of yours is ported, the change of phase and timing at the tuning frequency of the port can cause wave cancellation and you can end up loosing either midbass or subass depending how you wire it. I would not recomend it.

 

[Kamauxx]

The amp is on the PASSENGER side?!?! Lmao. All of that disassembly for nothing. Guess I can slap some dynamat in there while I have the WRONG panel removed.

 

[Kamauxx]

Welp I've done something wrong. I have good power and ground and no fault/protection lights.

But there's almost no sound coming from the woofer. (I ended up buying a 10" sealed powered sub (yes im lazy)).

For signal I'm using high level speaker inputs. Maybe I should have tapped only one sub lead since I'm only running one sub??? But the instructions for the woofer said to tap both L and R.

Thoughts?

 

[Kamauxx]

I've tried with both right and left woofer leads going to amp and with just the left woofer.

I unwired and rewired the power and ground.

I even tried it out with the engine running I case there was a voltage issue.

Still barely any sound unless I adjust the crossover to over 150 hz.

 

[WildBill]

The amp will take the stereo signal from the L & R inputs and turn them into a mono sub signal. So using both speaker for inputs is fine.
There is likely a gain knob somewhere on the amp. Does messing with that get you enough output?
What make and model is the amp/link to the amp somewhere? I'll pull up the manual and review it.

My LC2i didn't work with the auto turn on, I had to run a remote wire to it for some reason.
I assume that your amp is indeed powering up? You say it does not have any fault lights. Does it have any lights?

 

[Kamauxx]

It's lighting up. I can only hear it when the crossover is up in the 150hz + range. At that point it more mids than base coming from.the sub.

I've adjusted the gain and bass boost from nothing all the way to max.

It does have auto turn on which seems to be working fine.

The system is a Rockford Fosgate P300-10.

 

[WildBill]

Looks like a nice all in one setup.

I assume you've tried flipping all the switches & turning the dials. Phase being out could effectively cancel out the bass.

A couple of thoughts.
1) Are you sure that the wires you tapped are the correct ones & are paired up properly. To test turn the car off, use an AA battery, and run one end to - and the other to +. When you make the connection to the AA battery you should here a little thump from the speaker. I don't care if you have L and R wired to the correct place but you need to have the 2 wires for each speaker properly paired up
2) When looking at the factory amp pinout the two wires for + should be wired to the amps + input. - on the factory amp to - on the sub.
If you had the Right speaker + going to - and Left was wired correctly when the amp bonded the signal to mono I could see it negating most all signal and the speaker would do practically nothing.

My next suggestion would be to attempt attaching it to the front door leads and seeing if those work better.

 

[andrew tay]

It's lighting up. I can only hear it when the crossover is up in the 150hz + range. At that point it more mids than base coming from.the sub.

I've adjusted the gain and bass boost from nothing all the way to max.

It does have auto turn on which seems to be working fine.

The system is a Rockford Fosgate P300-10.

I think you tapped the wrong wires. You tapped the mids instead. Look at the wiring diagram carefully. You kind of have to turn it upside down next to the mounted factory amp...

Ok there it is. on the wiring diagram you think you tapped connector B 1, 2, 16,17 which is the subwoofer out. But instead you tapped connector A leads 14, 15, 27, 28 because you are looking at the chart upside down, those wires are front door mids and tweeter.

Good choice of sub.