[Mk2] [NA] Sub output for 'premium sound system'

[nordland071285]

wow this premium sound system is becoming a bit of a pain haha

So it took me a while to realise I needed to rewire one of the cables in my loom to get rid of this terrible buzzing sound, and that I needed to use the 'pre outs' on my sony head unit.

It's all functioning well, but the sound quality is pretty rubbish.. so I went to Halfords foolishly just to ask what my options are.. the guy there is usually pretty good but he basically said i'd have to rip out the current system and start again...
which im not prepared to do just yet because I don't have the funds

I think part of the problem is that I only have one set of preouts on my headunit... which is split among the front and rear speakers.
now I think the rca splitters are making the low frequencies route to the front tweeters (as well as rear) which is why it sounds so cack

so I bit the bullet and got a headunit today with 3 x pre outs
Front, Rear and Sub

so i'm wondering how best to connect this up?
should I use the sub out? or just the front and rear outs

i listen to quite a lot of bassy music, so i was gona try 'front out' to front speakers and 'sub out' to rear speakers.. but will that be bad because the rear speakers are both mids and subs?

thought i'd ask (in case any1s tried it before) since it's a bit of a pain to take the dash apart
thanks in advance

[nordland071285]

ok, so i fitted it like this and the bass is still pretty crepe.. scuse my french

rear out on head unit - rear out speakers
front out on head unit - front out speakers

I've messed with the EQ a bit and the bass response is just so poor.
am i going to have to add an additional sub and amp do you think?

thanks

[fred130111]

I had a similar issue to this! probably not very helpful but i found it much easier just to wire fresh speaker wire to the current speakers and then into the head unit, i really couldnt be bothered with all the standard amps etc and now forked out on new amps / speakers just gotta get a sub and a custom box

[nordland071285]

thanks for the reply mate, I might have to look at doing the same!
cheers

[RST]

so I went to Halfords foolishly just to ask what my options are.. the guy there is usually pretty good but he basically said i'd have to rip out the current system and start again...
which im not prepared to do just yet because I don't have the funds

...Not very helpful but last year I went in looking for an adapter to be told by the "dedicated fitter" it didn't exist and MR2's always need rewiring. When I showed him the push-fit autoleads adapter in his own catalogue (the one I've got before) he went green and admitted he'd ripped apart allot of MR2's over the years at £350 a pop before parts, never knew there was a dedicated adapter for a few tens of pounds!!!!!! I would treat Halfords like Maplins and BnQ, do your homework before going in.

I think the active system is a bit maligned for what it is IF it's working OK. Admittedly sometimes the amps can fail -the speakers in the door cards and behind the B pillar are easy to upgrade though (I've done it on a couple of cars). If the bass is weak there's a guy on E-Bay I found since who sells OEM equivalent "supposedly" bolt-in bass speakers for Toyotas (direct fit forMR2 subs if I recall) although I can't find the link just now. I always seem to find cheap or botched HU's at fault more than the speakers.

You really need a HU with proper pre-outs: easy enough to get. You can get converters (like from Halfords / Maplins) but they're supposedly not very good -get a proper HU instead.

Can't help you on the whine, on the last MR2 I got it was like an attack siren going off inside, soon as I fitted a new HU it went away.

[nordland071285]

thanks mate,
its good to know the upgrade of the rear upper speakers is easy because they seem to be the weakest part..
they might even just be buzzing on the plastic now

I've found putting most of the sound through the front speakers improves the bass massively... which is strange since I thought putting more sound through the rear subs would be more bassy!!

confused... but happy

[Pauln]

When I looked at upgrading the speakers on the premium sound system on my N/A I was lucky, when the previous owner fitted a new HU he ditched the rear amps and simply ran in new speaker cables running off the four outputs of the HU, with the rears feeding both subs and rear speakers.

Even with new speakers in the rears they really couldn't handle the full range well, and the subs were pretty muddy as they were also trying to reproduce the higher frequencies.

As I have a t-bar and didn't want to go to the expense of an add on sub and amp, to improve sound quality I ran the rear speaker lines through a two way passive crossover with quite a low frequency crossover. This improved the loading on the amp and speakers and really cleaned up the rear sound quite a bit, all for the cost of a s/h crossover from e-bay.

[nordland071285]

that's a good suggestion! thanks mate
now that the audio is improved slightly, I think I can cope until I have the funds to consider redesigning the audio system:D
thanks for all the replies chaps

[RST]

I think you also have to consider how loud you want your audio as well as nobody else wants to hear it!

Sound dampening is also worth a consideration. I used to get kits from CBS* for about £25 which were near enough the same thing as "Dynomat" but at 4x the price.

*http://www.carbuildersolutions.com/uk/