http://www.richardfarrar.com/are-your-speakers-wired-correctly/

Phasing test. Of course it matters, why would they print a big + and - on each terminal otherwise.

The main reason I'm trying to tackle my first half-decent installation at age 39 is that I read an article that questioned "when was the last time you did something FOR THE FIRST TIME". Well it's been a little while, so having acquired a new car with weak audio I thought I have a blast.

This is a big learning process for me and I"m happy to absorb everything, so thanks for that link. Of course you'll sometimes get told the wrong thing when you're searching for info but I'll certainly try the phasing test file tomorrow, be interesting to verify if what I've been told / done makes sense.

The point of what I was relating though, was NOT that the phasing is irrelevant. What I was told is that it's ONLY important that all your speaker's phasing is a match.

Basically, if they're ALL wrong then they're allright!

Lets see what happens with the test sounds, thanks again for the link

Just tested it and I'm good. The speech in the linked sample file sounds fine for the "in-phase", then a bit squiffy for the "out-of-phase" bit.

So does that mean all my speakers just have matched phasing (either all correct or all incorrect), or would my speakers only appear fine if my wiring was perfectly + to + and - to -?

Do that same test with the following scenario and in each the in phase should sound clear and you'll be sure that all 4 speakers are in phase.

Set fader to rear speakers only and test.

Set fader to front speakers only and test

Set fader to centre and balance full left and test

Set fader to centre and balance full right and test.

if the sound is clear on all 4 then you can be sure that all 4 speakers are correctly in phase. Lack of bass still says something is not right in the phasing department.

Good stuff, I'll get right on that and see what I can hear.

I've been having a think about it, and if I have my wires crossed (literally), then this could actually be in the feed INTO the crossover, or on the exit from the crossover to the woofer, or both.

I'll try the tests above with the sound filtered through the crossovers as it's all running now. Then maybe I'll remove the crossovers from the equation and wire the speakers directly, establish the correct polarities on the feed wires then be sure to maintain it through the crossover. As I have 4 corners to try it'll take some time but it's all good learning for me.

One quick question if anyone's up at this time: is there any standard for the car's speakers wires that would tell you if the striped wire is a + or -? That might help me trace an issue for definite.

On the mobile so I can't easily post alink but check the ice section of my website for the polarities and colours of the front wires.

On the mobile so I can't easily post alink but check the ice section of my website for the polarities and colours of the front wires.

Thanks for that, I use your site for inspiration all the time!

I just found this lot while researching the rears: http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/43971-ice-iso-connections/ so I'm off to have a look behind the glovebox to cross-reference the pin locations with actual wire colours. Then I'll be laughing!

An hour later...

So the information in the page above seemed to incorrect in that the left and right sides in the diagram were the opposite to my car! Assuming that the above DID have the + and - the right way around I've established that the positive in the right rear is BLUE while the positive in the left rear is Green and Red. If anyone can confirm that'd be good! Having followed this pattern carefully through the crossovers I have now achieved an improvement in the bass and midrange, so it seems I did have them wrong.

I'll take the front door cards off and double-check that my wiring to those is correct too, but that's a job for tomorrow when I'm head-scratching getting the tweeters in there.

Have to relocate the rears at some point too, they look like this right now but at least they're hard to see from the outside of the car:

I know it'd look better if I rotated the speakers so the connections are hidden, but while I'm arsing about it's easier if they're accessible.

The rear speakers in the boot usually have a carpeted cover to hide the magnets and wiring, maybe they have come amiss at some stage?

The rear speakers in the boot usually have a carpeted cover to hide the magnets and wiring, maybe they have come amiss at some stage?

Enclosing the speakers would surely help the overall sound. I've not seen inside the boot of another Octavia so I wouldn't have noticed, have you got a picture?

Here's mine right now, I do have a parcel-shelf mounted suit-bag thing but am I missing trim from under the speakers?

There's bracket-looking thing on the far right of that pic, seems that something ought to go there too.

Well I've spent the afternoon trying to get my tweeters installed in the doors and I finally managed. You may remember I was concerned about tracing the wires through the hinges up the door. I REALLY didn't want to peel the waterproof seal and the insulating foam behind the door card either, and I managed it without even taking the door cards off! :p

After a fair amount of thinking I decided I'd first try to pass a wire from the door hinge up to the tweeter space. Anyway I opened the passenger door and took the tweeter cover off, took out the foam plug where the door mirror cables go and got to work. I pulled the rubber hinge-boot off it's clip, fed a piece of garden wire up inside the door and Ta Daaa! It popped right out of the tweeter hole first time

Next I wound the end of the garden wire around my tweeter cable and yanked it back down through the door. The tweeter cable followed, threading itself through the door as it went. I did a similar thing on the other side of the hinge to get the wires through the car body behind the glovebox, which I needed to remove to make it easier.

Here you can see the path the cable took, straight from the hinge to the tweeter without going behind the door seal. Probably the way everyone does it, but I'm making this stuff up as I go:

On the driver's side the door threading was just as easy but getting the wires through into the car was much harder. I got my head down by the pedals (having removed the horizontal trim that sits above the pedals), and I could just about see a gap in the chassis hidden behind the bonnet release. It took some fiddling but I got it through, this is the exit hole:

For the actual tweeter mounts themselves I did what I was advised and used a soldering iron to cut the stock tweeter mounts, then I used black silicone adhesive to attach the much larger Vibe ones. It looks really messy here but I'd run out of sticky stuff. After taking this pic I did a quick run to Halfords and I applied a nice smooth layer all the way around:

So I'm pretty chuffed, I got the phasing corrected this morning and I installed the tweeters avoiding all the tricky bits inside the door that I was dreading. I think I'm missing some boot trim under the rear speakers but I really only have one thing to sort:

I know I'm going to end up putting a hole in that rear trim, I just don't want to!

Jealous. Massively. I may have to employ you to come do mine, as I'm lazy. Fancy a trip to the sunny seaside?

Jealous. Massively. I may have to employ you to come do mine, as I'm lazy. Fancy a trip to the sunny seaside?

That's a generous offer, but I really prefer the mountains to the seaside

Don't be jealous of my audio though, have a look here instead: http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/220398-some-pics-of-my-lk/

We have sort-of mountains here! I'll buy you a bottle of Bass too!

We have sort-of mountains here! I'll buy you a bottle of Bass too!

The hard stuff eh? I'm more of a dandelion & burdock man anyway

After all I've done on the component speaker install, if someone asked how it was I'd say "it was really easy"! Everything is once you've done it before though

So just the rear tweeters to stash away, and to figure out if I'm missing some trim under the speakers. Can anyone give me pics of their rear shelf with tweeters installed / trim underneath?

That could also be arranged. We have nice D&B here. You should check out the Fentiman's traditional stuff, it's immense!

I'll sort it at some point, when I have dollar. Test-drove a brand new Audi Allroad today and the temptation is strong. Except I don't have £40,000 to drop on a car. So I'll stick with mine and make it nicer. :p

I would give pictures but it's an estate so not sure if it's different..?

That could also be arranged. We have nice D&B here. You should check out the Fentiman's traditional stuff, it's immense!

I'll sort it at some point, when I have dollar. Test-drove a brand new Audi Allroad today and the temptation is strong. Except I don't have £40,000 to drop on a car. So I'll stick with mine and make it nicer. :p

I would give pictures but it's an estate so not sure if it's different..?

I'm pretty sure the estates are different, have a look at my pic of the speaker wiring above and see.

£40k will get you a starter home around these parts!

Just wanted to update this one after I achieved a HUGE improvement in sound quality last weekend

I was always slightly underwhelmed by the sound of my Vibe components. As crisp and clear as they are there was a lack of punch, only partly helped by getting my phasing corrected. Although I knew I was missing a sub-woofer and that the whole system would benefit from amplifying the components, I really thought I should be getting more bang for my bucks.

After my newly-discovered ability to solder and run cables anywhere in the car (by first poking a piece of garden wire through the gaps), I set about bypassing ALL the car's original speaker wiring and using the good stuff that came with the components.

All I did was solder enough cable onto the ISO lead so that those cables run DIRECTLY from the back of the head unit, around the car to the crossovers. I didn't take a picture but essentially the ISO lead's speaker wires were about 2m long for the fronts and MASSIVELY long for the rears. Don't know why I didn't think of that before, but this is learning in action people

From my Kenwood head unit the colours in the ISO lead were:

Front Left: White

Front Right: Grey

Rear Left: Green

Rear Right: Purple

All the negative wires had stripes like a long "-" symbol running all along them, so it easy to know what I was connecting where. I had wrapped coloured tape to the ends of both left-side wires, so I knew which was which when the wires got where they were going

Passing the front woofer cables through the door hinges was identical to doing the tweeters, except I had to remove the front speakers to locate the wire in the space behind them. This meant removing the door cards again, but I'm getting pretty good at that now :p

I ran both rear-speaker cables behind the glove box (I can take that out with my eyes shut too), along the passenger side and carefully tucked them under the sill-trim all the way back. The driver's side wiring crosses the car under the rear seat. I simply lifted the seat base and neatly taped it in place under the carpet. I should probably have run that directly along the driver's side, but I'd have had to move the car all the way to the other side of the drive

As the various cables reached their destinations I cut off any excess, and soldered more in where I was a bit short in the first place!

Note: Measure all cable routes thoroughly and generously BEFORE soldering them to the ISO lead!

So what have I achieved with this couple of hours work? I'd say around 50% increase in volume before any distortion ruins the sound. Even greater crispness and clarity than before AND the ability to really bang out a tune. In fact I'd go as far as to say that it was as big as the difference made when I first replaced the original speakers with good ones :p

I simply cannot state clearly enough that avoiding the car's original speaker wiring is a MUST, whatever you're installing. For anyone wanting better sound I'd say DO IT RIGHT NOW

So that's it until the sub-woofer is bought. I'll be installing as much as I can of that myself too. Electrics are another area I know nothing about and given the possibility of breaking / burning stuff I'll stick to just the physical install of the box and wires. The actual connections will be made by a local spanner-man that specialises in car security. I'll be watching carefully to pick up tips though

Edited 6 December, 201114 yr by ExHondaMan

Fantastic read

Theres something very satisfying about achieving something you havent done before

Matthew

That's very true, and I'm sure it'll be great when it's finished!

I'm just looking at amplifying those components, which will be the third set of wiring to those speakers! I'm pretty familiar with the car's dark corners now!

I started doing this the other day.

It was going great until I tried to change the rear speakers in my estate using 5.25" speakers. :(

However, I have some nice new FLI coaxials in the front (for £15 I wasn't arguing), and they actually sound surprisingly good! Going to do the wiring thing though, as they're crying out for a tad more volumes.

Cheers for your guide EHM.

YAY! I actually helped someone! But I guess the speakers are a different size in the estate then :wonder:

When the amp goes in I"ll be taking LOADS of pics so it's nice and clear for anyone else trying it. I'll do a proper guide rather than the mess my thread ended up growing into

I'll be there to watch my auto-security fella run the power cables too, see if a trade installer has any tricks to offer other than little hands :p

Mostly I'm hoping a nice guide will help me remember what I actually did, should I come to remove it one day. :p

They're 6x4 in the estate!

Excellent. Once I've got the right size for the rear and can actually work out how to put them in (it's a ballache), then I'll be getting it all amped nicely...

It's not that bad getting to them just takes a bit of faffing:

http://www.pimpmyskoda.co.uk/Sub.htm#Stripping_the_boot_trim