Major sound system upgrade

[CunningLinguist]

I picked up my new Octavia VRS TSI 5 months ago. As I'm something of an audiophile, I opted for the Canton upgrade but I've always found it slightly disappointing. It is not a bad system so to speak, I would even go as far as to say that it sounds "quite good". But the sound was certainly not as weighty as I'd hoped, even with the subwoofer maxed out. And with the volume up high, the amplitude of the bass frequencies seemed to be reduced (perhaps to protect the speakers and reduce the number of warranty claims?)

So I decided to invest in an after market upgrade with the aim of a louder, clearer, weightier sound. On my previous car, a 2007 Honda Civic, a friend helped me to carry out a custom upgrade and whilst it did improve the sound, it took us several months to complete (working the odd Saturday here and there) and the end result, whilst louder did not seem very refined or well balanced.

 

To avoid a repeat of these problems, this time I approached John Kleis, a car audio specialist in Reading and they have now completed the upgrade. They have done a fantastic job as the sound quality now surpasses anything I could have imagined!

 

The plan was to take the outputs from the amplifier under the passenger seat and feed them through to the boot into a digital processing unit (Audison bit Ten) before passing it in to a 1000W amp (JL Audio XD1000/5 v2). There were complications here because the output signals from the amp all covered a restricted range of frequencies to be sent to specific speakers. So to overcome this, the outputs were combined via another box (an AudioControl LC8) to get a signal across the complete frequency range before passing it into the digital processing unit! The front component door speakers were replaced with Hertz ESK165Ls and an 8” Hertz ES200 Subwoofer in a ported box was added into the boot (with banana clips for easy removal). The various boxed components have all been secured neatly underneath the boot floor and are therefore hidden away. The balance and fader controls in the head unit still work as do the subwoofer settings. To reduce road noise, a considerable amount of sound insulation was added into the front doors and around the boot cavity. I also had the sound generator disabled by the dealer.

 

The total price for the upgrade including labour was just under £2000 but the resulting sound quality is mindblowing. The system seems to particularly shine for vocals and jangly guitar solos. The guitar solo work within Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go" from the album "Acoustic Live" is particularly stunning. There is plentiful bass even with the subwoofer well below the maximum setting, but it never overwhelms the rest of the frequency spectrum. Apparently the upgrade would have been considerably easier without the Canton upgrade. The technicians at John Kleis were very knowledgable and took a lot of care to calibrate the digital processing unit using microphones and audio signal analysis. If anyone is considering a similar upgrade and would like to sample the end result, do let me know and I can demo the system for you. I live in Basingstoke.

[Richf]

need pics !

[CunningLinguist]

Here are some pics:

 

 

 

[Genoa1893]

Thanks for sharing.

 

Just to share, my first concern with the Canton was not the bass, but the "transparency". Do you know if the tweeters are fed with full band signal, with passive filtering, or by the power amp under the driver's seat?

 

In the first case, typically the hf cap is poor quality (at least it was on my MkII VRS).

[CunningLinguist]

Thanks for sharing.

 

Just to share, my first concern with the Canton was not the bass, but the "transparency". Do you know if the tweeters are fed with full band signal, with passive filtering, or by the power amp under the driver's seat?

 

In the first case, typically the hf cap is poor quality (at least it was on my MkII VRS).

 

The original Canton speakers are fed via the 570W amp under the passenger seat. My understanding is that each speaker is fed by a separate channel and each channel covers a restricted frequency range.

This was why the output from that amp had to be combined to get a full band signal before feeding it into the digital processor.

[Brooksuk]

Pretty impressive upgrade. But for £2k you must love your in car sounds! I've so far found the canton pretty good for my needs whilst driving.

[neiln]

Wouldn't it have been easier and better sounding too bypass the canton under seat amp, feeding the (presumably full band) input to that straight to your new digital processing unit?

That aside, glad you've now got something you are happy with, it must sound good. Thanks for sharing.

[Genoa1893]

Anyway, the Canton places well among many other hi fi brands... http://www.bang-olufsen.com/~/media/Files/PDF/Car%20Audio/Audi/ams%201_2014_Da%20ist%20Musik%20drin.pdf

[CunningLinguist]

Wouldn't it have been easier and better sounding too bypass the canton under seat amp, feeding the (presumably full band) input to that straight to your new digital processing unit?

That aside, glad you've now got something you are happy with, it must sound good. Thanks for sharing.

I did suggest that but they talked about the output from the headunit being optical only and therefore not a good option. I don't fully understand the reasoning to this.

[Diango]

I had mine worked by a local dealer (because having it included on the quote from the dealership meant my boss would pay for the upgrade) and he did a sub upgrade for me, though I had mine fitted (snugly) in the spare wheel slot.

The doors and boot were lined with Dynamat too, for extra sound insulation. I only tried the stock Canton system in the Leon ST whilst test-driving and indeed found the low to be severely lacking. 

 

Now I am content with what the system can do!

[Richf]

Sound insulation is the first step I do on any audio upgrade, everything sounds better after thats done

[Yeti_Man]

I only tried the stock Canton system in the Leon ST whilst test-driving and indeed found the low to be severely lacking. 

 

Now I am content with what the system can do!

the Leon's ont use Cnton, they use an unbranded system with centre channel and sub called 'Seat Sound'. The sub on that is more noticeable than the canton one IMO.

[Diango]

the Leon's ont use Cnton, they use an unbranded system with centre channel and sub called 'Seat Sound'. The sub on that is more noticeable than the canton one IMO.

 

Well it sounded like a bluetooth speaker tucked away behind a brick wall. There, but not very useful. Sorry if I offend any Seat drivers, but I found it to be pretty poor, so the Skoda sub must be worse then.

[Genoa1893]

Canton sub is anyway pointless, since a true sub is supposed to play frequencies up to 50Hz and not from 50Hz on...

 

There's a terrible blurring effect when a sub plays frequencies overlapping with a bass "speaker".

 

That's why my Canton sub has a very very low setting (and that's why my home system hifi has two 100lt subwoofer in the frequency range 20Hz-50Hz, each fed with a dedicated power amp).

[Antuk]

Here are some pics:

 

 

Can I please ask who did this for you. I have fitted an amp to my 2015 vrs and have the worst interference. Not sure what I'm missing or what I should be doing and at present no one I speak to can give me an answer as no one I can find has yet fitted anything to the new Octavias

[Mallettsmallett]

What rich said.

The audio isn't that bad. The acid test is sat on your drive with the engine off. As soon as you roll, the terrible lack of sound deadening kills any audible mid and bottom end.

[M12MKD]

Looks a great install, but for my ears the canton upgrade is fine. And yes I'll agree it's not very bassy, or so my other half says.

[sniiki]

Would someone happen to have Canton's speaker wire color code list / full wiring diagram?

[norsko]

Yes :-)

[sniiki]

I'd kiss you norsko if I could. Many thanks!

[FabFabFabia]

On 23/03/2015 at 13:06, CunningLinguist said:

Here are some pics:

 

 

 

 

Wouldn't leaving the original Canton amp in place still give you the Canton sound processing and noise cancellation technology or is all this cancelled out by installing your new equipment after it? I'm thinking of doing something like this on my new Karoq with Canton as the sound is over-bright and distorts a bit on some upper frequencies. Any advice welcome.

Edited 25 August, 2018 by FabFabFabia

[FabFabFabia]

Would I run into problems with the unserseat amp if I replaced the Canton 80w 8 ohm front speakers (Karoq) with 250w Audison Voce 4 ohm speakers?

[JohnnyType2]

On 13/09/2018 at 21:41, FabFabFabia said:

Would I run into problems with the unserseat amp if I replaced the Canton 80w 8 ohm front speakers (Karoq) with 250w Audison Voce 4 ohm speakers?

 

yes with an original head unit you would get double the volume on the 8 ohm speakers. It would be impossible to balance EQ properly. You are much better sticking to 8 ohm all round if thats what the canton has fitted.

[FabFabFabia]

3 hours ago, JohnnyType2 said:

 

yes with an original head unit you would get double the volume on the 8 ohm speakers. It would be impossible to balance EQ properly. You are much better sticking to 8 ohm all round if thats what the canton has fitted.

The Canton webpage says that 8 ohm speakers are fitted in the front doors but 4 ohm in the rear doors. I cannot find decent replacement 8 ohm speakers so I feared that using 4 ohm speakers would not help the amp. But what if I hired someone to sum all the individual amp outputs into something like a "JL Audio Fix 82" to flatten the signal and then output the flat stereo output into another amp that could feed replacement four ohm speakers in the door? My aim is to upgrade the front door speakers and tweeters with the Audison Voce pair which are smooth and not "rough and sounds-like-clipping" like the fitted Canton ones. 3 links attached for more info. Any suggestions welcome please!

 

Karoq Canton Sound System

 

 

Audison Voce Speaker Review

Edited 23 October, 2018 by FabFabFabia

[JohnnyType2]

correct you need something like the JL, im using a LC7i which sums the levels to create a single clean output and also corrects bass roll off. I don't know about the canton amp and what the outputs are, it seems a bit like the dark arts as there's not much info out there, perhaps that's how VAG want it. The fact that's its a MOST out put to the canton amp makes it difficult. If your sticking with canton then stick with the same ohm amount for the replacement speakers too. If you are bypassing the canton amp and depending on the aftermarket amp im guessing it has a consistent ohm output so fronts and back would be the same. If you put a 4ohm load though a 4 ohm and 8 ohm set of speakers the 8 ohm will only play half volume.

Edited 24 October, 2018 by JohnnyType2