hill79

Hey no worries - I think this forum is generally quiet these days so getting answers takes a bit of time! Good luck with the install, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the outcome

There are a few routes you could take, and the main decision points are budget and retention of the stock head unit. As a starting point, the basics you can do either way are to replace the door speakers and add sound deadening (foil-backed butyl and closed-cell foam in the doors). To get the best out of your new speakers, you'll want an amp. If you're keeping the stock HU, you'll also need a line level converter or an amp that'll take line-level input. The converter is probably the easiest, and you can get something simple like this VIbe thing for £20 or something a lot more advanced like this LC1i for nearly £100. Both take input from the stock speaker wires, so there's a bit of tinkering to do with the wiring loom to tap into them. Once installed, you have RCA connections for an amp. If you're replacing the HU, you don't need the line level converter as the new HU will have RCA jacks on the back - just don't get a cheap aliexpress thing, go for JVC, Alpine, Sony etc. The pitfalls of doing this are that you lose the car config menus in the standard HU - I was ok with that as I only have a basic spec 'SE' and everything I could do on the HU can be done with a physical button in the car, so I lost nothing really. At this point, amp choice is largely down to budget and need. There is no denying that an amp with a DSP will allow you to get a better sound out of your gear, but you have to know how to use it. It's not a plug and play kind of thing unless you spend big bucks on something like a Helix with auto-tuning functions; you need to measure the sound with a calibrated mic and then learn how to use REW, which isn't too hard but it does take time to get to grips with. I have a Vibe Powerbox 65.4-8DSP, which is the real budget end of these things, but does work well. I had the non-DSP version before this, it's about half the price and a decent little unit. Sub/Amp again comes down to budget, and also the music you listen to in some respects. If you don't listen to music with a lot of sub-bass, you probably don't need a sub. Generally, you'll be able to daisy-chain the amps together, with your 4 channel having an RCA output to send signal to a mono amp for the sub. Pick your sub based on budget, find it's RMS power and Ohm value then find a mono amp that delivers slightly more RMS than you need at the same Ohms as your sub. That means you'll have clean signal headroom, and shouldn't need to stress the amp to drive your sub. For both amps, you'll need a wiring kit and some distribution blocks to split power between them. It's all DIY-able if you take your time and do your research. YouTube is your friend! For shops in the NE, you have AutoSounds and Sounds Alarming, but the cost of a good install might surprise you, it takes a long time to do it right and their hourly rates aren't cheap. You say you've spent money with local shops already - what have you bought?

That looks really nice! Hertz pro stuff is good, I think they cut corners for the Uno range though. I've got a JVC m745dbt, I've had it a good few years and it's come with me through several cars now. I love the fact it's a shallow profile so there's always loads of room behind to get the wiring tidy. I've got a Vibe powerbox with a built in DSP running the front speakers and a Audio Control Epic 1000 running two 12s in the boot. Still working my way through tuning it properly with REW, and I need to line the boot with deadmat when the weather improves, but I'm getting there!

They are absolutely better speakers than stock, and by a vast margin, but those Hertz want 75w RMS. They'll be massively underpowered by the stock headunit, which probably puts out something like 25w RMS. You'll struggle to get them to sound good. Ideally, you'd need to amplify them - but that opens a whole can of worms! I've just replaced all the speakers in mine with Alpine S2-S65Cs. Coincidentally, I tried those Hertz first, but was underwhelmed; they really lack bass. I got the Alpine instead, and I'm much happier. The Unos will be getting sold. I've replaced my headunit and added amplifiers, so I'm quite a way from standard.

I bought one of the 'cheap and cheerful' Chinese options initially, had it in the car for 6 months and it seemed fine, until I encountered someone driving the wrong way on a dual carriageway (all fine, no accident, just a lack of common sense!) and tried to watch the recording back and realised you couldn't make out the numberplates on the other cars... kind of pointless! I've since upgraded to a NextBase 322GW, which I bought secondhand from Vinted for £40, and it's significantly better in every way. I had to shell out for a new SD card (£15) and purchased the optional rear camera for another £40 (used), but I don't regret it. I'm not sure I would have paid for it new, though. My setup would come in around £200 new, which is harder to justify than slightly under £100 used.

Brilliant, thank you - I'd been digging through menus for ages 😄 actually had to do the 'reset to factory values' option as the other one gave me an 'unavailable' error but it worked either way

Thanks, as I said, I've removed the stock infotainment system and installed an aftermarket unit, so that isn't an option

I replaced the stock headunit with an aftermarket double din, so I no longer have access to the 'car' menu to do anything with TPMS (I knew this would be the case) I have OBDEleven Pro, so can access long coding. I got a TPMS warning on the Maxidot the other day, so I inflated the problem tyre, the warning went from the Maxidot but the amber light stayed on the dash. I used OBDEleven to disable it, but really, I think all I did was turn the light off entirely rather than reset anything. Is it possible to properly reset the TPMS monitoring with OBDEleven? I'm not sure if I have direct or indirect TPMS, it's a mk3 'SE'.

I use AAwireless with my JVC headunit, there's another thing you can check. In your phone settings, search for Android Auto, you'll get a menu with a few options to tweak and a 'version' option right at the bottom. Tap 'version' repeatedly and you'll eventually get a notification that you've unlocked developer options. Tap the three dots to the top right to get a menu popup where you can access developer options Finally, at the top of developer options is a tick box to enable wireless connectivity

It was working properly before, when infotainment was in place - I expect there aren't many ways of checking the maxidot software versions without VCDS and some knowladge of how to use it, updating it would be a whole other task!

It isn't - I was surprised at that myself. I've been through the various menus on the maxidot and can't see anything related to it, and no D/S/E on the display either. I did that before removing the infotainment system to check.

I've replaced the standard infotainment system in my SE with a much better JVC headunit. I was aware I'd lose some functions, but figured I can control the AC the old-fashioned way, and I'm not bothered about TPS as I'm used to checking the tire pressures myself. The only thing I seem to be missing is the ability to switch driving 'mode'. Before I did the swap, I put the car in 'Sport' and memorised the sequence to get it back there if it ever reset (light off = normal, one press / light on = sport). Pressing the button now seems to do nothing - it's lit up and the car feels like it did before, so I'm assuming it's stuck in Sport mode. My question is, does the infotainment system have to be in place for the mode switching to work? I'd be happy if it's in Sport forever, but I would guess that if I disconnect the battery, it'll revert to Normal, and without the infotainment system, I'll be stuck. Can it be set with OBDII or VCDS?

I did search but couldn't find anything helpful, apologies if this is asked all the time...! I've just bought a 2015 Mk3 Octavia 'SE' which comes with the OEM headunit shown in the attachment, it has a CD and SD card unit in the glovebox - I'm not sure what the model name is. I want to swap it out for a double DIN JVC unit I already own, then fit my amps and subwoofer from the JVC. My concern is that the OEM unit has things like tyre pressure monitoring, reversing sensors, aircon settings, and so on. I don't mind losing the ability to control those via the headunit, a good sound system is more important to me than knowing one of my tyres is a bit flat, but am I going to trigger any warning lights or stop something important working by going down the aftermarket route? Are there any good guides to doing this? I'm sure others have been through it all before :)