Alpine IVA-W200ri

[bail0ut]

Has anyone out there installed one of these fine HU's with a PAC TR-7 video bypass device? I have and it works a treat apart from a dodgy high pitched noise coming from the rear speakers. I think this is caused by the PAC TR-7's green wire thats connected to the blue/white remote turn on wire from the alpine HU. Once disconnected the noise is no more but obviously in doing so the rear speakers have no remote turn on signal and no longer work.

I've noticed many people saying bypass the rear amplified speakers altogether and just wire them up the the HU. Is this the optimum thing to do and will the sound quality suffer as a result of doing this?

Also I fitted the Autoleads PC5-90 antenna signal booster to the W200 and connected the blue wire to the blue power antenna wire on the HU harness. The radio signal is still very poor and wont even pick up radio 1/2! Is there anything else I can add to boost the signal even more without adding a roof ariel?

Any help would be great. Cheers.

 

[AndyMac]

The whining is caused by alternator interference from the factory fit Audi amp. The amp is mickey mouse design, underpowered and wired to the HU using string and sticky tape. The low level pre-outs to it aren't even completely screened and the connector they're on is completely unscreened where it plugs into the HU, i.e. nearest the engine bay. The question should really be "how much better will the rears sound by bypassing the FisherPrice Andi amp and letting the Alpine drive them properly"
Autoleads products are pretty dire, so I'd try a different antenna amp. Mine work a treat on both my Audi's, not sure of the brand but definately not AL.

 

[bail0ut]

Cheers, for the reply. Now i'm kinda stuck in two minds about changing all the speakers to alpine/jbl or stick with mickey's finnest factory speakers. But I think it's gotta be worth a shot to have a listen to the factory speakers being driven by the W200. So can you give any advice on the best way of doing this? And antenna amp you use in your audi's be the maystar brand? They look identical to the AL amps.

 

[AndyMac]

Yes I think they may well be Maystar, not really a quality brand but works for me.
Easiest method of rewiring the rears:
The Audi speaker loom uses a standard 8 pin ISO speaker connector but is only pre-wired for the fronts (the 2 middle pairs of wires). So to avoid chopping this off and rewiring it you need to use a couple of adaptors.
Buy a male and a female speaker harness adapter (about £2.99 each from Maplins).
Wire the two together for the front speakers only, the 4 middle connections. Plug the male end into the Audi front speaker loom and the female end into the HU. This will then give you 4 spare wires for the rears (the 2 outside pairs of wires) coming off the HU. Connect these to 4m of speaker cable and run them behind the glovebox, down behind the side trim and underneath the door sill trim into the boot. Disconnect the left and right rear speakers and attach the new wiring, remembering to keep the +ve to +ve and -ve to -ve.
If you have flying leads on the Alpine HU for front & rear speakers then you can disregard the ISO adapters and just cut the rears on the Alpine loom and connect them to the new speaker cable.

 

[bail0ut]

AndyMac your a legend, thanks for your advice!

Is it this your one by any chance?
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=211
I know it's not specifically for an Audi but it probably does the same job.

Here's my wiring harness -


Is it a tough task running the speaker cable from front to rear? Like how easy it is to remove all the trim etc.

 

[AndyMac]

You only need fairly skinny speaker wire and it can be just tucked under most of the trim without even removing it. From your photo it looks like you already have what you need. Currently the purple & green rear speaker cable is going to a standard speaker connector which plugs into the Audi harness so the rears aren't connected to anything. Just chop them and reconnect the HU side to the new speaker cable.

 

[bail0ut]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i'm a tad confused about the where the connections are made at the rear. Do i run the new 4m lengths of cable all the way to the boot and make the connections under the parcel shelf ? Or are the connections made on the rear door mounted speakers?

 

[AndyMac]

Sorry thought you had rear parcel shelf speakers.
If they're in the rear doors then just locate the Audi amp and the feeds to the rear speakers and disconnect them from the amp and splice them to the new cable. Might need to try them round both ways to identify which leads are +ve and -ve though. You'll get the bass cancelling if you have them round the wrong way.

 

[bail0ut]

I got speakers in the Doors and one in the Shelf! But I'm assuming the speaker placed on the rear shelf (passenger side) is a sub maybe? Looking up from the boot the cone is visable through a grill of sorts. I take it the amp is usually positioned in the rear shelf somewhere? Or does this vary?

 

[AndyMac]

Usually in one of the cubbyholes in the boot.

 

[bail0ut]

Ive removed all the boot cards and found the amp on the drivers side

There is one 'sub' type thing in the parcel shelf -

so i'm asuming this amp is driving the parcel shelf sub, rear door speakers & tweeters. Can I still run all these from my alpine maybe?

 

[AndyMac]

You can't drive the sub from the HU, so you need to leave the amp plugged in to retain it, or power the sub with a seperate amp, or even better replace the sub with a JL Audio 6.5" unit and power that with cheap 100wrms amp. To pick up the rears you need to cut the speaker wires running from the Audi amp to the rear door speakers and wire these to the new cable from the HU. The rear speaker wires are in the mid section on that blue connector, but bear in mind you also have the pre-outs in there somewhere feeding the amp.
The other wires are 12v permanent, brown earth and remote on 12v. Once you've worked out which wires are which, you'll be left with 4 wires for the rears, 2 wires for the sub and 4 wires for the pre-outs. The sub should be relatively easy to identify as they will be bridgd over 2 channels and hopefully match the wiring connected to the sub itself. So its then a process of ellimination to pick out the rears from the pre-outs. The way I did it was to use 2 sharpened pointy things connected to a multimeter and pierced the insulation on pairs of wires looking for a 4 ohm resistance, that will be the rear speaker. A high impedance = pre-outs. Or you can use a small speaker instead of a multimeter and with the HU on the loud signals will be the speaker output and the very faint signals the pre-outs.
Failing that I'm sure someone on here will have the pin out config for that amp.

 

[bail0ut]

Got an email back from tech support at PAC Audio (who make the TR-7)

"A lot of engine noise comes from poor grounds, you might check over
that, or you can try using a ground loop isolator. If you did not use a
hi-to-low converter, or you used a poor quality one, it could be causing
your noise."

Thats confused me somewhat. From the brief research i've done into ground loop isolators they all seem to connect using rca. So trying one on that crap amp would involve cutting wires and if it didnt work i'd be kinda stuck.

But now i'm kinda leaning towards ditching all the audi speakers and replacing them with 4 new door speakers (130mm i believe?) dunno about the tweeters, is it worth it? And slap a 6.5" JL like you said in the shelf all driven by a reasonable amp & my HU. Could I get all this done and installed for under £500 maybe?