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2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Sold my Audi A4 Avant last week, and while sad to see it go, it has gone to a great new home and it was time for something different, but the same, enter another white wagon, only this time in the shape of a 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design. It's AWD with a 325HP turbocharged inline 6, only slightly heavier than my A4 was, it's a rocket, driving home from picking it up I had to constantly be careful of my speed as it was all too easy to be at 80+ Couple pictures of the car:
https://i.imgur.com/0fSh5Nf.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/X4vHl1A.jpg
I already debadged it, other visual changes are going to be tinted windows and lower it about half an inch or so. I don't want it as low as my A4 was, but want it lower than the stock height it currently sits at.
It came stock with the "Volvo High Performance" system, which is 3 way in the front doors, 2 in the rear and a center (I read somewhere that it is a 12 speaker set up, but I cannot figure out the 12th speaker as it has no factory sub). Eventually that will all be replaced with the below, and a Stereo Integrity SQL12 (not pictured):
https://i.imgur.com/Ndz2HEh.jpg
So today, I decided to remove the door card to take a look at what I will be starting with. The tweeter in the sail panel just pops off, but it looks like the tweeter is somewhat sealed into the housing. In the picture below you can see the cross hatch pattern where it looks like the 2 halves were melted together. Since I don't want to demolish this, looks like I need to order some new tweeter housings:
https://i.imgur.com/JKBC7os.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/jn79lGo.jpg
The factory midrange is screwed to the doorcard on a little plastic mount, hopefully as long as there is enough depth (99% sure there is) then I can simply make my own mounting plate and install the 20MX in this location:
https://i.imgur.com/lnErFDd.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/qG9Z46R.jpg
The midbass is mounted to the door itself, but located directly beneath the mid. Looks like plenty of depth to mount the TM65's so no major concerns there:
https://i.imgur.com/hhb40DZ.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/8UszXEz.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/8h48FCJ.jpg
Here's where things get a little confusing, at least for me. So, the molex plug boot is in a sort of Z shape, getting 3 sets of wire through is going to be a massive headache. I had hoped to tap into the stock speaker wiring, I don't run huge amounts of power, so the stock wire should be fine for me and I will just splice my own wire into it inside the kick panel. But, at the moment I cannot figure out how it's wired (not yet pulled the molex plug, hoping I can get lucky). So, here is the wiring for the tweeter and mid:
https://i.imgur.com/8CLVNtg.jpg
The wires are the exact same color, even the plugs are identical. Here's the wiring going to the midbass:
https://i.imgur.com/WCtRECH.jpg
4 wires, no clue why. I am going to try to find some wiring diagrams, hopefully that sheds some light on things and ideally I can use existing wire through the molex. I cannot stand trying to fish wires into the doors, so am hoping for some luck. Once I get that figured, I will deaden the outer skin as much as I can and then the inner skin (the drivers door rattles like crazy).
Last picture is a quick measurement with REW of the stock system, all the EQ is flat (has a 5 band in the head unit). In all honesty, it does not sound that bad other than the complete lack of anything below 35Hz.
https://i.imgur.com/543LAlp.jpg
Over the next couple weeks I am hoping to pick up power cable and deadener and then start getting things installed. Make sure to follow to see all my screw ups!!
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Nice car, looks like reasonable starting locations, how high is the mid up the door card?
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
The mid is basically about an inch or two above where the midbass is located, see the white sticker above the midbass? It's about where the top of that stick is, maybe a little lower.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
naiku
The mid is basically about an inch or two above where the midbass is located, see the white sticker above the midbass? It's about where the top of that stick is, maybe a little lower.
That’s a shame, rainbowing strikes even bmw with the mids at the top of the door :(
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Hopefully it won't be too bad, previous car I had the mids located in the kicks and rainbowing was very minimal.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
I messed with mids in a WRX one time, and with some aiming, the rainbow went away in there pretty quickly too. Had to tilt them more on axis because of being domes, but was a quick fix and sounded soooo good.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Sweet new ride Ian! Looking forward to see/hear what you come up with :thumbup:
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Oooowweeeee. Sharp looking car!
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Nice car, have a lot of safe driven kilometers!
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
chithead
I messed with mids in a WRX one time, and with some aiming, the rainbow went away in there pretty quickly too. Had to tilt them more on axis because of being domes, but was a quick fix and sounded soooo good.
Good to know, there appears to be a decent bit of room behind the door card so hopefully I can aim them without too much difficulty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Truthunter
Sweet new ride Ian! Looking forward to see/hear what you come up with :thumbup:
Thanks, ideally I can get everything done before Jason's NC meet in May. We'll see how things go though. Windows getting tinted Monday, then I may call into a local shop just to see how much they might charge to get the speaker wire into the doors.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
LOVE LOVE LOVE Volvo's!!!
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
chefhow
LOVE LOVE LOVE Volvo's!!!
Want to help trying to get some wire into the doors? :lol:
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
naiku
Want to help trying to get some wire into the doors? :lol:
Yeah, no.....
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Saw your post about wiring through the molex on the other forum. My recommendation, remove the doors and make your own secondary door boot for speaker wires if you dont want to re-use oem wiring. There is no shot you are getting 3 pairs of new speaker wire through that thing. trying to get one pair through may be an option and just tie into the other ones that are already ran.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Thanks, that's sort of what I am leaning towards doing. The OEM wiring is not going to work, only one set of wire goes through the boot then splits once it is inside the door for the 3-way in there. I called a shop locally who estimate $70 - $100 per side to run the wire, but the more I look at the boot / plug etc. I don't see how that will be possible.
Looks like I just need to gather some supplies to make my own boot. Any recommendations on materials to use to make sure it is weather resistant? Figure techflex on the wires themselves, then an outer rubber boot, grommet on the door side and silicon to seal it up?
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
naiku
Thanks, that's sort of what I am leaning towards doing. The OEM wiring is not going to work, only one set of wire goes through the boot then splits once it is inside the door for the 3-way in there. I called a shop locally who estimate $70 - $100 per side to run the wire, but the more I look at the boot / plug etc. I don't see how that will be possible.
Looks like I just need to gather some supplies to make my own boot. Any recommendations on materials to use to make sure it is weather resistant? Figure techflex on the wires themselves, then an outer rubber boot, grommet on the door side and silicon to seal it up?
I saw these quite a while back on another build log somewhere and bookmarked them just in case. Hope they help you out!
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/eli-4301-70-011
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Just a thought on a way that only requires the existing single pair of wires through the door boot... Get a nice quality 3-way set with passive xover - Install the passive xover in the door - Let Dirac Live do it's thing :eyebrows:
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ejeffrey
Excellent, thanks for that link.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Truthunter
Just a thought on a way that only requires the existing single pair of wires through the door boot... Get a nice quality 3-way set with passive xover - Install the passive xover in the door - Let Dirac Live do it's thing :eyebrows:
That's actually not a bad idea, I'd like to use the equipment I have, but could sell it to offset some of the cost of the new set. I can bridge amp channels that way for more power if desired and possibly just run a single amp.
Certainly worth looking into at least, thanks.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
My dad always had Volvo 544's and 122's growing up and of course my first car was a 68 122's 2 door. He always dreamt of getting a P1800.
Always had a soft spot for Volvos and wagons to boot (owned two wagons and if it wasn't for this minivan/SUV craze may have owned more).
Good luck with your build, your new ride looks sweet and already sounds fun to drive even before you finish the audio upgrade, so you have great starting point...
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Slow progress, but progress....
https://i.imgur.com/EzNiwx6.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/gu0B1yL.jpg
Got the holes drilled into the door for the new rubber boot and speaker wire. Going to pick up some touch up paint tomorrow to paint the bare metal to protect it against the elements a little. Drilling was not as simple as hoped, but not crazy. Had to remove the door card, then pop the molex plug out from inside the door to make sure that none of the factory wiring was going to be impacted by the drill. Once that was done, the metal is 2 layers, which made drilling not quite as straight forward, but not terrible either. Getting the doors off and back on was actually incredibly simple.
Here's a better shot of the grommet on the kick panel side of things:
https://i.imgur.com/OsTaB4k.jpg
And here is why I was not going to even attempt to drill the molex, no way was I going to be able to get 3 sets of speaker wire through there.
https://i.imgur.com/csqdc7o.jpg
So, next is going to be running some wire towards the trunk. I can't deaden the doors just yet, there is a recall on Volvo door latches, which the repair involves them stripping the inner door entirely to get to the latch. If I put deadening over there, then they will have to rip it all off. I am slightly reluctant to even put the speakers in to be honest, but apparently Volvo will not even have parts until April.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Might as well throw in some Lambo hinges while you're at it.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Just picturing how bad they would look in my head is enough to say no.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Nice car! It looks like the door woofers are mounted to that fibrous plastic panel instead of metal, if so you may have to fight with some resonance issues. My old '07 Mazdaspeed 3 had a similar woofer mount, that whole plastic panel would flex and resonate like crazy with the midbass. I was younger and less-wise, so I didn't really understand what was happening and made the problem infinitely worse when I realized I could squeeze an 8-inch midbass behind the factory grille...
Do any of the more-experienced installers have a solution to bracing that style of factory mounting?
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
goatpanda
It looks like the door woofers are mounted to that fibrous plastic panel instead of metal, if so you may have to fight with some resonance issues.
I'm planning to make new baffles to mount the midbass to and bolt those to the metal of the door, that coupled with some deadening of that panel should hopefully mean not too many problems.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Looking good Ian! I have considered removing doors in the past... always chickened out, so you are a braver man than me for sure!
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Nice progress. And yeah that molex looks like not even the most stubborn installer could get wires in there...not even 18g with a thin jacket. I've been able to run wire along the sides of the molex before but even that looks like it would be impossible in your case.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Another little update, previously I have always used spade connectors onto the speaker at the end of the run coming into the door itself. Decided to try XT60 connectors and make little pigtails to make life a little simpler in the case of troubleshooting, swapping out equipment etc:
https://i.imgur.com/P054mSj.jpg
Was getting annoyed with things until I picked up some decent solder, made life a whole lot easier then. I figure these will also make things a little easier if I do install speakers before the recall is complete as I can quickly unplug and remove the speakers before heading to the dealership.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
A couple more updates, getting power wire through the firewall into the cabin first. This was a giant headache due to the lack of room, thickness of insulation etc. First thing I had to do is find a grommet, what I had to do is pop this cover off here where the strut brace is. The red circle indicates a grommet you are looking for:
https://i.imgur.com/aJRI7UI.jpg?1
Here is the grommet:
https://i.imgur.com/taIUjqt.jpg?1
Inside the car, with the glovebox and a couple other bits of plastic removed around the door (kick panel trim, side of dash) I was then able to pull the carpet back and then some thick foam padding in order to see where the power wire should hopefully come in at. Feeling through the grommet at the top, I could feel the foam so knew it would be there somewhere.Initially I spent far too long trying to feed the power wire in from the top, bear in mind if you have even remotely large arms, fitting your arm in that hole by the strut brace to get at the grommet is going to suck. My forearm feels like it was shut in a door, you have to sort of put your arm parallel to the cowl there and bend your wrist to access the hole. So, after much cursing I gave up. The next morning I figured I would try and come in from the footwell with a wire coat hanger, feed it up under the insulation and hope I could see it at the grommet to pull it out there. Nope, not a chance. I then decided to try feeding the coat hanger in from the grommet at the top, while making sure to be careful so as not to damage anything. The first couple tries it felt like the hanger hit something solid, that pushed it horizontally along the dash. I was about to give up when I heard a sound of a wire coat hanger hit something in the foot well. Walked around to look and I saw this:
https://i.imgur.com/5t5FRnL.jpg?1
Success! I followed the hanger back and could feel where it came into the cabin behind the PCM here just to the left of the wiring harness bundles.
https://i.imgur.com/sNRtOzN.jpg?1
Back under the hood I used a bunch of electrical tape to secure the power wire to the coat hanger. I had my wife pull the coat hanger from inside while I tried to feed the wire in from the top. Even doing this it was slow going and I had this sense the wire would slip off, which sure enough, it did. Since it felt like we had managed to get the wire someway into the car I decided to reach up behind the PCM just to see if I could feel anything, while the power wire had slipped off the hanger there, it had come through enough that I was able to get my hand behind the box and pull the wire all the way through.
https://i.imgur.com/tVGbToo.jpg?1
Under the hood it's a straight shot from where the grommet is located across to the battery box beneath the plastic cowl. I am not sure yet how to secure it without it interfering with anything under there, but I think it is clear of the wiper motors anyway so should be simple to run it over to the battery. I think there are heater pipes there as well, my concern with those is them getting hot enough to melt the wire, I don't know that they will, but am not sure (if anyone knows how hot those get and if it would be safe, let me know)
Next was onto the speaker wire, I had already drilled the hole in the doors and had planned to use a pair of these https://www.summitracing.com/parts/eli-4301-70-011 and then feed the wires through this large grommet in the kick panel area:
https://i.imgur.com/32M4fiU.jpg
The center of that grommet is perfectly sized to seal against that boot. Thinking I could just snake the wires through the grommet and into the cabin, I started hunting around for an entry from the grommet. Which, apparently there is none. At least not a usable one in any visible location. Sent a message to a user on DIYMA and he confirmed that yep, have to drill another hole on the inside. Peeling back the carpet at the front edge of the doors, I drilled another hole here and was then able to feed the wire through.
https://i.imgur.com/PLpBJCx.jpg
Pulled the back seat cushion, upper and lower B-pillar trim, lower front and rear door trim and was then able to route my speaker wire and power wires alongside the factory wiring until finally they appeared here:
https://i.imgur.com/4oOWhpW.jpg
Finally, it feels like I am making some progress. The only other wires I now need to get into the trunk are going to be the signal tapped from the stock amp under the passengers seat, which hopefully (hahaha) won't be that difficult. Started trying to think of how to mount things in the trunk yesterday, the floor of the trunk lifts up to reveal quite a lot of space, I am tempted to make use of the insert under there as a sort of ready made amp rack. It's fairly thin, so I am thinking of attaching some wood/plastic beneath it and bolting the amps / DSP etc down through that.
https://i.imgur.com/9MPaFbt.jpg
Pro's with going this route, it's virtually ready, cons are it being flimsy. It's molded fairly tightly to everything underneath it, for example at one point I had the speaker wire resting near the air compressor and it would not go back down. The other option is to build something to go here:
https://i.imgur.com/qAgNOpu.jpg
Then simply mount everything to that. If it fits, I could make a large enough board that will cover the air compressor still and carpet it to match the trunk. I need to take some measurements though to see if I can get a flat piece of board to cover everything under there. Once I get the trunk figured out and the signal wires to the trunk, then things should go fairly quickly as it will just be a case of mounting speakers (not doing any sound deadening until recall is complete) and plugging everything in.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
This car can be maddening at times.... since there is no low level signal available (and no MOST interface available either) I have to tap into the aftermarket amp for a speaker level signal to feed into the DSP. Since I am trying to avoid cutting into factory wiring, a few weeks ago I ordered this adapter https://www.ebay.com/itm/Connects2-C...-/352936311231
Now, of the 7 plugs shown I only actually needed one of them. The green one all the way to the left plugs into the output on the amp, so I cut the others off and yesterday decided to try a quick test to make sure it would work. Unplugged the factory green connector from the amp, plugged that one in and twisted the wires onto a speaker I have. Works perfectly. Great. Since I only needed 4 wires I decided to try and remove the other 12 wires giving me a slimmed down connector to work with. Removing the wires was a headache, but I ended up removing about half of them before saying screw it.
Went back to the car, exact same test as yesterday only now a few less wires on the connector and it's no longer working. Took it out and made sure it was plugged in fully, nothing. Essentially the head unit loads the navigation screen but is completely unresponsive. Plugging the factory connector back into the amp and it works fine.
https://i.imgur.com/BOk3GJf.jpg
What I can't figure out is why this worked yesterday and not today with the only difference being that I removed some wires (that did not actually go further than about 4"). I added a couple of the wires back in so that for every pin that is used on the factory plug (it only uses 11 of the 16) that I had something back on my aftermarket plug. Still nothing. Weird. Now I am trying to decide do I want to cut the factory wiring or not, I plan to keep the car a long time, so on that side cutting into 4 wires is not a big deal, I can strip the factory tape back and pull enough slack that I can either solder or crimp on some connections and have plenty of tesa tape to wrap everything up again. But, on the flip side it would be nice to have had this adapter ready to go with enough wire to reach the trunk, (factory amp is mounted under the passenger seat) that all I needed to do was take it to the car and plug it in, then if I ever sold the car or wanted to revert to stock it's a plug and play to put things back.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Getting closer, started figuring out where I want to mount everything in the trunk, decided on something very similar to this, just with the DSP at the top right in the picture instead of centrally mounted. It makes things a little simpler with managing wires and getting access to the USB on the front of the DSP. Along with that I cut the power and ground wires to length from the distribution blocks and located what I hope should be a decent ground in the trunk. Along with that I ran the high level input from the factory amp to the trunk, essentially followed the speakers from the front doors, wrapped in techflex and some tesa tape.
https://i.imgur.com/nOmy1rI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/W6LWcd9.jpg
Not much to look at, the darker green plug will be replaced with the lighter green plug and that blue wire will get spliced into the red wire on the darker green plug. I have no idea why it worked previously with that red wire (or blue in the case of the light green plug) not connected, but apparently it does need to be connected. I did find out that there is a MOST25 adapter available, that will provide an optical input to the DSP, but at the moment I can't really justify the $600 cost of it. Especially as I just had to call an HVAC company to come figure out why the indoor coils keep freezing over, did my own troubleshooting, but no gauges to check the refrigerant level. Anyway, getting off track. Eventually I may pick up the Helix SDMI25 and swap to optical, but for now it's something that will have to wait.
To get a switched 12V I had to tap off the back of the front 12V socket between the cupholders, this meant removing the entire HVAC panel, in order to access a pair of screws just before the shifter to release the center console. I tried using a wire tap to retain use of the 12V socket, but for some reason never have any luck with those, since I rarely ever use the 12V socket I decided to just disconnect it and use spade terminals. At some point I may revisit getting the socket working again, but for now not overly concerned.
Since I had the center console taken apart I took the time to also run the DSP remote and a coax cable for an Fiio from the arm rest to the trunk as well.
https://i.imgur.com/Jlb1G4P.jpg
I'd prefer a more fixed location for the DSP remote, but so far have not found any places suitable, so it may just stay in the arm rest. If I get time to this week I plan to drill a couple holes in that factory tray to pass power, ground and signal wires through before starting to permanently mount everything to it. With that done the trunk should come together fairly quickly and I can then move onto mounting speakers in the front doors. If everything goes smoothly, hopefully another week or two and I should be up and running.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Wow.....this Swedish lady is not playing nicely at all.....in fact.......she is not being nice at all.
I totally get the dilemma about $600 to get an easier input - tough bill to swallow when the method you are trying ‘should’ work. I hope that part gets sorted quickly and you are on to the exciting stuff [emoji6]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Afghan Vet
Wow.....this Swedish lady is not playing nicely at all.....in fact.......she is not being nice at all.
I totally get the dilemma about $600 to get an easier input - tough bill to swallow when the method you are trying ‘should’ work. I hope that part gets sorted quickly and you are on to the exciting stuff [emoji6]
Thanks, it's certainly been challenging that's for sure!! I'm hopeful that the hardest parts are all behind me now though, although I know I have one more bone-headed thing to deal with... when running the speaker cable I made sure to color code everything that went into the doors, so I know which is tweeter, mid and midbass, well I neglected to mark that on the end that plugs into the amp..... oops. I've got an idea of a simple way to figure them out, just wish I had remembered to mark BOTH ends of the speaker wire. It's nice seeing it all come together now though.
I did find the SDMI25 for just over $400, I'd just need family in the UK to ship it over to me, so that is certainly an option. Going to at least try using the high level input first though.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
With the social distancing in place currently, I have been home and so able to get on with the install. First up was figuring out a way to mount the tweeters, the stock sail panel is a fairly complicated thing in that you can't actually buy it without a stock tweeter mounted due to the way it is constructed. With it removed from the car there are 5 plastic rivets that need to be carefully drilled out, while making sure not to drill through the side or front of the housing. Oddly, the drivers side the rivets were much simpler to drill, the passenger side the top of them had been melted with something which meant having to drill more to get them out. Eventually I was able to separate the 3 pieces and remove the stock tweeter, unfortunately the tweeters I had planned to use were too large to fit exactly in the stock housing. Some thinking and drilling a new hole later and I was able to secure them with a screw and nylon washer I had:
https://i.imgur.com/1DOLAi0.jpg
You can see the white nylon washer and screw in the center of the picture, as well as some of the points I had to drill (screw bottom left, black screw on the right as well as a hole near the top left and 2 more on the bottom right). Annoyingly, when I went to test fit this into the car the nylon washer stuck out so far that it would not allow me to mount the housing. I had no shorter screws, so in the end decided to try and use some contact cement and glue the tweeters. Left them sitting overnight and sure enough, next morning they are solidly mounted.
The mids were fairly straight forward to mount, although I suspect they may be touching the grill so might have to mount them slightly differently. The white plastic baffle screws to the back of the door card:
https://i.imgur.com/nvhFGa1.jpg
Volvo left me this nice little rubber flap that I could cut a hole and slip the speaker wire through, I wish I had noticed this before as I would have left my tweeter wires about a foot longer and used the same hole. Instead, I had to drill a hole for the tweeter wiring, but at least this worked perfectly for the mid:
https://i.imgur.com/MIaCTuU.jpg
Mounting the midbass was fairly simple, I had ordered a pair of brackets to use and they lined up perfectly. You can also see the hole I had to drill for tweeter wire in the top left of the pic (it's large due to needing to fit the XT60 through):
https://i.imgur.com/GYyxHtM.jpg
As you may notice, there is currently zero sound deadening treatment applied to the doors, as I mentioned earlier in the thread this is due to an open recall that I am waiting on being performed which requires dismantling the inner door to replace the door latches.
I decided on this for the final layout, the amps still need final mounting (I need to access the front for the gain controls) and wires tidying up some, but this is ultimately where everything will sit:
https://i.imgur.com/KLgknsd.jpg
With that done, I ran the power wire across the engine bay to the battery and it's alive:
https://i.imgur.com/Q8gvi5P.jpg
Unfortunately, it sounds like garbage when using the speaker level input. As in, next to no output, muffled and crackly. In the picture above you can see my Fiio that I temporarily connected via RCA to rule anything post DSP out as being a problem, when using the DAP everything works perfectly. So, something is not right with the speaker level input, either a setting in the DSP (I can't find any) or something else going on. I am hoping to figure out what it is fairly quickly so I can get a baseline tune set up and secure the amps.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Tried a factory reset on the DSP as well as changing internal switches. No difference, well, its slightly louder garbage.
I'm debating cutting into the factory wiring now, I'm fairly confident the wiring harness I'm using is good. I hooked it to a spare speaker and it sounded ok (for a single speaker twisted to some wires). But, the DSP plays fine via DAP, so it must be something on the speaker level input. The hardest thing with cutting into the factory wire is the minimal room to access the wires.
If it's still no good after that, then I'll have to get the Helix adapter.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Have you used the Infinity mids in another build or will this be your first time using them? They are interesting to me and I'd like to know how you like them.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Smitty
Have you used the Infinity mids in another build or will this be your first time using them? They are interesting to me and I'd like to know how you like them.
I used them in my Audi for about a year or so, they were mounted in the kick panels in there. I was very happy with them, plenty of output running from 800Hz to 4200Hz and not expensive at all. Just looked and I paid $98 for them on Amazon, where they are currently listed for $94. I looked into AudioFrog GB25's (no doubt amazing speakers, but over my budget), the Morel CCW254's, but in the end went with the Infinity and am looking forward to getting them dialed in with the Volvo.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Trying to figure out the issues with using high level input, I took the following videos. The first is using the speaker level inputs into the DSP and as you can hear, it sounds awful:
https://youtu.be/NVLa5OhLqKY
The second is the same speaker wire I am using for the speaker level inputs, but this time connected to a pair of old surround speakers I had laying around (rules out an issue with the wiring between stock amp and DSP input):
https://youtu.be/NqVXYCzxKq8
And finally, the 3rd is using my Fiio into the DSP via RCA (just to rule out any issues on the output side of things):
https://youtu.be/sxztqQIQzMo
A member on the Volvo forum mentioned the stock amp being Class D and the original speakers being 2ohms and that the MiniDSP input spec of 68ohms could be causing the stock amp to have stability issues with it seeing the 68ohm load. However, I am not smart enough to understand that, even though I think it makes sense. Going to reach out to MiniDSP tech support and see what they have to say. Anyone has any ideas?
Edit: Per the recommendation of a guy on swedespeed, I wired those speakers in video 2 above in parallel with the MiniDSP input so that the stock amp sees the lower load. Sure enough, doing this everything works. What I think I will have to do is remove the aftermarket harness I am using and try to swap the pins over (although removing any from the aftermarket harness proved incredibly frustrating) or either cut the wiring for the front speakers on the stock harness / use t-taps for the signal to the DSP, then plugging the factory plug back into the factory amp. That way the factory amplifier will still see the load of the rear speakers, which in turn should resolve the issue with the DSP input. I can fade the factory head unit all the way to the front which should mean the rears are not playing anything and causing problems with the sound stage. Not ideal as I had hoped to avoid any modifications to the factory harness (no real reason why, was just hoping not to do so), but it looks like I either do that or buy the Helix.
Edit 2: Went out to the car (working from home) cut the factory harness, spliced onto the wires going to the DSP input, thinking finally, I can move on with things. Nope. Still sounds terrible. Fade to the rear and the OEM rear speakers are working, I can't figure out how to turn off the center speaker (I am sure I can pull the grill and disconnect it). But, at this point I am going to say screw it and order the SDMI25.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
While I wait for the SDMI25 to arrive, I figured I will just use the Fiio as a source and try to get a quick tune set up. This is where the MiniDSP comes into it's own IMO, took me all of 10 minutes to get something set up that while not perfect, is already an improvement over the stock Volvo system. I think I need to change the amp gains slightly, at least on the midbass as it is lacking a little (this could also be due to there currently being no real treatment on the door, although it is sealed up almost completely from the factory, but I suspect the plastic is a little flimsy that they used to seal it). At the moment I am just using a small fiberglass subwoofer enclosure with an MB Quart PWD254 that I had in the Audi before the suitcase, it does the job, but looking forward to getting the SQL-12 eventually.
I did discover that I need to swap the ends on the MiniDSP remote wire, the little retainer clip has broken off on one end. Of course, this end happens to be the end that I have the remote connected to and so it falls out constantly. In time, that would not be a problem, but since I will currently be using the wired remote as the volume control (line out from the Fiio) the plug falling out is not helpful. At least I am hardly driving at the moment, so it's no rush. Sort of on hold for doing too much more.
I think as well I am going to try to implement some form of rear fill in the D-pillar area. Not sure exactly how or when yet, but I really enjoy the effect that it gives so ultimately would like to run it again. There are speakers in the rear doors, but from previous experience that location does not work as well.
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Re: 2015 Volvo V60 T6 R-Design
Another little update...
https://i.imgur.com/fARAEqi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/R8JlkXM.jpg
Also picked up a Y-cable in order to program the Helix with the Volvo serial number:
https://i.imgur.com/mkGCZVk.jpg
I believe the factory amp has a 12V and ground that I can use for powering the Helix, so will likely figure out some way of mounting it under the passenger seat. It's pretty small and not at all heavy, so I may just use some strong double sided tape or velcro. If I can remove the factory amp without removing the passengers seat I will, but I don't know that will be possible. Might try and temporarily wire it up later to get it coded to the Volvo.
Someone had mentioned that I could have simply used resistors on the high level input to make the factory amp think everything is OK, but knowing how hot resistors can get I did not want to try finding a spot to mount them and would rather just have the peace of mind of not dealing with it. Hopefully, with this piece installed I can move towards getting a tune and figuring out a subwoofer enclosure.