OK I am way out of my depth here as I have never dabbled with ICE before (other than fitting normal head units)

 

The car came from the factory fitted with a Škoda DX sat nav unit:

 

 

It also has a 3U0 035 456 B Harman Becker amp fitted (again from the factory)

 

I am trying to fit a Pioneer double DIN head unit, but the problem I have is the speakers - there is no plug going into the speaker socket below, all the sound is handled by the Line out AND the 26 pin plug below.

 

 

So how do I connect the speakers to the new head unit... in plain english please (remember the first sentence above   )

I don't think it is possible to make any use of the amplifier with an aftermarket head unit.

What usually happens is you need to splice into the speaker connections at the amp, and get them all the way back to the head unit.  For some cars you could buy a DSP / amp bypass wiring loom which did the hard work for you.  

A few posts about people trying to do this with Golf's with DSP:

http://uk-mkivs.net/topic/55052-vw-mfd-with-factory-fitted-amp-changing-to-pioneer-avic-f910bt-wiring-not-compatible/

Hrmm... For Audi's with BOSE systems, it is possible to buy an adapter which converts the 6 pins to RCA sockets, and then you connect them to the RCAs on the headunit.  The adpaters are fairly inexpensive, might work I guess.

I did think running a full set of speaker cables from the amp back to the head unit was going to be the only way TBH.

As I cannot find a wiring diagram for the amp online, (there are a LOT of wires going to it) are the speaker cables likely to be std colours?

I guess it depends on how much you want to fiddle.  Running the whole speaker loom will be a faff, but guaranteed to work.  The RCA adapter lead would be easier, but you would still be limited by the quality of the built in amp if it does work, and it might not work.

 

The pinouts for the amp connectors are in the factory service manual wiring diagrams, page 249 and 250.  It looks like the 23 pin connector is the front speakers, and the 24 pin connector is the rears.  There are CAN bus lines and power / grounds intermingled in there too.

 

The treble (tweeters) and bass/mids (woofers) are wired separately, so there are 4 wires to each door.  This might mean that all the crossover is being done at the amp - which would mean you'd need a basic crossover on the tweeters at least to stop the bass frying them (using a capacitor is the simplest way, if there isn't already one at the tweeter end).  You might want a coil on the woofer line too to cut the high frequencies too.

And now you have just lost me .....lol

It is a long time since I used to mess around with stereos now I just enjoy the Edition 100 MFD + amp...

It is a fairly complicated setup in the Superb, unpicking it is a bit of a pain it seems.

 

I did a bit of googling as it interests me too (old habits die hard).

Obviously I can't warrant this info - maybe someone will be along who has actually done it...

 

I can see that it looks like the tweeters already have capacitors fitted at the factory in many VW cases.  You would do well to check - if you pop a tweeter off the door the capacitor would be a small 1-1.5cm tube with a couple of connections to it.  This acts as a "high pass filter" and cuts the amount of bass going to the tweeter.  If you don't do this the tweeters don't live for very long, hence why you want to make sure your tweeters have them.  If they don't have them you could wire some capacitors at the amplifier end, but for now let's assume they are fitted.

 

Your new head unit will have 4 amps - front left / right, rear left / right.  So 8 cables total (+/- for each amp).  You would need to get these 8 cables to the rear of the car (carpet up time), and then connect them up to the speaker wires on the 23 and 24 pin connectors on the amplifier.  You'd disconnect the connectors from the amplifier, and then preferably find the mating connectors for the factory loom so you could make up an adapter.  If you can't find the mating connector to make such an adapter then you have to start cutting the cables, which obviously makes returning the car to factory quite difficult.  

 

For each of the amplifier outputs of the car stereo you will need to make two connections - one for the tweeter and one for the woofer.  So the same signal would go down the cables to the tweeter and the woofer, with the capacitor on the back of the tweeter doing the bare minimum to prevent damage to it.

If you can trace back the speakers to the amp then there's no reason you couldn't MacGyver a loom between the speaker connector and the missing section of the ISO block. This would give the advantage of returning the car to OEM spec when it's sale time. (if that's what you want to do.) If not, then, once the lines are traced, cutting the connector and joining a new ISO directly to the loom.

 

Tracing the lines back could be interesting though. If you're stuck I can pop down with the line tracer and see what can be done.

 

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However, and I am looking at this from a simple view looking at the picture.

 

There is the "line out" block, complete with what looks like the power-on switch for the amp. I can't see why, if the Pioneer has all the standard wiring, it couldn't be rigged to the amp via the Pioneer's pre-amp RCAs and clipping the "on" line to the "amp on" line from the Pioneer. If there's no "head end" connectors available, it would be a cut and splice solution, so no easy going back to OEM, but you should keep the use of the amp. There would be minimal wiring to faff with too.

New speaker loom made and fitted today ftpm the amp to the head unit, so no amp in use but I least I have speakers that work now  :yes:

Nice one

 

I had a look at the wiring details from the factory manual again today; I don't think there is any sensible way to maintain use of the amplifier.  I believe the amplifier only receives a single left and right channel from the head unit (even thought the plug has provision for both), with things like fading etc being controlled digitally at the amplifier end.  Any other head unit you use wouldn't be able to talk to the amp to carry out such control.  

 

Your post prompted me to man-up and get the MFD out to install the TH Bury bluetooth kit I had knocking around from my old car; works nicely with the MFD including voice dialing and bluetooth audio streaming to the aux in etc.  Man is it tight up there behind the MFD!...

Meant to ask - how did you make the loom? Did you find the mating connector and make up a plug-in loom to bypass the amp, or did you splice onto the original factory wiring?

 

Interested in case I get bored with the MFD, if there is a good source of the mating connectors I might be more inclined to have a play.

On 6/15/2014 at 22:43, jimbof said:

Nice one

 

I had a look at the wiring details from the factory manual again today; I don't think there is any sensible way to maintain use of the amplifier.  I believe the amplifier only receives a single left and right channel from the head unit (even thought the plug has provision for both), with things like fading etc being controlled digitally at the amplifier end.  Any other head unit you use wouldn't be able to talk to the amp to carry out such control.  

 

Your post prompted me to man-up and get the MFD out to install the TH Bury bluetooth kit I had knocking around from my old car; works nicely with the MFD including voice dialing and bluetooth audio streaming to the aux in etc.  Man is it tight up there behind the MFD!...

 

Hello!

 

1. Please, help me with the factory manual. I want to bypass the amplifier. (I want to use an after market navigation.)

 

2. Do you know if the tweeters has crossover/capacitors?

 

3. Do I need 4 wires to each door or 2 wires ?

 

Thank You !

 

 

Skoda SUPERB 1 (2007)  1.8T Tiptronic

       

 

Edited 26 March, 20188 yr by ovidiugabriel