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VF Calais V Wagon sound system help
- Thread starter Turbski
- Start date
vs355x
New Member
Do a polarity check on all speakers and sub. Not just by looking at the terminals - but ideally with a tester/test track. (think its often referred to as speaker pop - not a fan of putting a aa battery on the speaker - it works, but, you have to pull it all apart again, and you can damage the speaker)
No car audio expert - but the distance away the sub is can alter what polarity it actually NEEDS to be. Hence why a lot of subs and amps allow you to change polarity via a switch. (For example - sub can be wired correctly - and may work fine at 1.0m, but at 1.5m it may need to be opposite polarity (just think of a sound wave with high and low relative to distance)
If you dont have a tester (or cant get a hold of one) - at a minimum, change the sub polarity and see what happens.
Had it in one of my cars - sounded fine to a certain volume, then just got really ordinary. Changed sub polarity - made all the difference.
May not be the fix/issue - but worth getting right before you go getting it professionally tuned (if necessary)
No car audio expert - but the distance away the sub is can alter what polarity it actually NEEDS to be. Hence why a lot of subs and amps allow you to change polarity via a switch. (For example - sub can be wired correctly - and may work fine at 1.0m, but at 1.5m it may need to be opposite polarity (just think of a sound wave with high and low relative to distance)
If you dont have a tester (or cant get a hold of one) - at a minimum, change the sub polarity and see what happens.
Had it in one of my cars - sounded fine to a certain volume, then just got really ordinary. Changed sub polarity - made all the difference.
May not be the fix/issue - but worth getting right before you go getting it professionally tuned (if necessary)
Anthony121
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Usually the Bose radio units have a low level speaker outputs with all 4 speakers direct to the Bose amp in the boot. The non Bose units use high level output for all 4 speakers direct to the speaker. You will require a converter for non Bose units.
Forg
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Because high/low level converters are the very definition of garbage, I don't suppose there's a way that an enterprising person could pull the unit apart & easily tap into internal wiring which ARE the low level outputs?
Skylarking
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Definitely agree that those speaker to line lutput converters are the very definition of garbage because they take an amplified output (from an integrated amp within a head unit) and convert it to line output (often using very cheap circuitry) only to send it some meters towards a vehicle’s rear where another amp ups the signal thats fed to speakers… so amplified, attenuated and amplified again can never equate to quality sound…
But modding internal circuitry to extract line output isn’t as simple as it first seems as it all depends on the quality of the head unit design and what standard (if any) they've followed in their internal design.
Nominally line outputs usually present a source impedance of 100 to 600 ohms. The voltage can reach 2 volts peak-to-peak with levels referenced to −10 dBV (300 mV) at 10 kΩ. But internal signals may be rather different so appropriate driver circuitry would be needed.
Back in the late 80’s, I had a factory sound system with a small external 2 channel amp bolted under the main head unit. The main head unit provided 2 channel line level out to the amp over the huge distance of less than 4 cms over twisted cable. I thought I’d be able to simply access the other channels via the main units circuit board so contacted the manufacturer who were very helpful and provided circuit diagrams and the mods that would be needed to be made to drive 4 channel over external line level outputs. Why, because the internal low level circuitry wasn‘t designed to drive external wiring of any substantive length, or at yje industry expected voltage and impedance. Even the 2 channel external line level signal wasn’t up to driving to an amp located in the vehicle‘s rear. Did I do that mod, no… bought a better head unit with more features and kept the old stack in a box in case I ever sold the car..
Sadly, these days changing head units is a PITA and getting support from the manufacturer is near impossible (because patent, copywrite and such concerns that never seemed to inhibit helpful people in the past). Doubt anyone manufacturer these days would provide circuit diagrams let alone appropriate driver circuitry to achieve one’s mods…
Can it be done, yes, depends if someone has the circuit diagrams, skill and the itch to scratch to actually bother. Could the average vehicle owner do it, probably not.
Heck even big companies have failed to fully reverse engineer MyLink so they can replace it with one of their offerings while keeping all the factory canbus fed features
Who knows, maybe MyLink was designed with common circuitry and the appropriate stuff is selected via configuration which may make it easy.. but I don’t know.
I wish the OP luck in solving his problem