Aud S3 Speaker Problem

RyanS3TT

RyanS3TT

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Hello All,

I bought my Audi s3 with an aftermarket Alpine headunit in.

However it seem like only the front two speakers are working adn the sound is terrible.

The sub has one single sub so im guessing its a non bose?

Im sure the sub isnt working either. - if the ehadunit was simply swapped would it stop the rears and sub from working? or is there something i should look out for?
 
How do.
Mine is the bose set up so may be diffrent...
I also have an Alpine Headunit... There is an adapter plug that goes between the audi loom and and the alpine wiring. Search it on ebay...
I am not sure weather you already have that...
Just a thought.
 
Yes the rears and sub are amped separately. You need an adapter PC9-404, which takes the rear pre-outs (RCA's) from the Alpine and feeds them to the puny Audi rear amp. You'll find the rears and sub are woefully underpowered as you have twice the power going to the fronts off the Alpine HU, so you need to fade to rear quite a bit to even it up, or better still rewire the rears directly to the HU.
 
Mine's the same as yours Vegas, really annoying when it happens. Was going to check the sub/rears amp wiring this weekend to see if something's come loose.
 
Usually with Bose it will be the amp failing, due to dry solder joints, especially if its worse on a cold morning. Usually this can be fixed by simply reflowing the major solder joints
 
will have a look and see at the solder joints see if thats problem.

yeah myne just completly stopped working now only have the front speakers working now not good

is it hard to get the sub our is this an easy fix?
 
Sub is easy to remove. Take out the boot lining on the left side and then remove the 3/4 bolts which hold it in place. I have a spare sub from a 56 plate if you need a replacement
 
56 plate 8P sub is completely different to the 8L.
The amp you need to get to is on the drivers side in the boot (nothing to do with the sub), down low behind the rear lights. You need first to remove the cargo anchors (2 on the right side and one on the right nearest the boot lip) then remove the boot lip trim (4 x T25 bolts then flip it up). There is then a stupid plastic screw up inside the cubbyhole near the rear lights. The side trim for the boot is just held on with 2 metal spring clips, one on the upright on the boot opening, and another quite far back towards the front of the car. You need some brute force pulling towards the passenger side of the car. The spring clips will most likely stay in the bodywork, so remove them and refit into the side trim. The amp can then be unplugged and removed.
 
If I have a non Bose.. Do I still have an Amp?

If so where is it?
 
Its inside?

I took the 6.5" speaker out and the box felt too light to have anything inside...

Ill check later.
 
RyanS3MTM said:
Its inside?

I took the 6.5" speaker out and the box felt too light to have anything inside...

Ill check later.
Click to expand...

Don't expect to be pulling out a 500w Alpine V12, it's more like a circuit board with some wires going to it, doesn't look like an aftermarket amp in a nice alloy enclosure and won't weight that much.
 
I can remember seeing that actually.. - I take it its removable and I can add it to a new sub box?

Will it have enough umph to power a little 8" 200-300w Sub?
 
I don't see why not, but it's a lot of mucking around and isn't really up to the job of powering another sub in all honesty, it'll likely sound pretty crap.

I'd try and get yourself a cheap second hand amp on eBay and wire it in, a bit more effort although not that much, but the result would be far better.
 
I've taken it out.. And I'll have a play with it on weekend and test it.

I have noticed the old sub is dual ( four terminals in total) and mine is single.
Anyone know a way around this? Do I just connect two? Or bridge them?

I'm also considering using the little amp for rear speakers if it's not ok for the sub.
 
I just looked, I dont ahve rear speakers, there are holes either side of the parcel shelf but nothing there..

I got the amp thing out of the sub enclosure.

Linked it up but it still doesnt work.

The wiring is not great behind the headunit lots of crimps, what does the red block do?
 
could i buy and fit rear speakers? would the wiring be there?
 
If you have a sub you should have rear speakers in the side panels next to the back seats...

If not then I'm stumped!
 
The amp in the sub can't even power the stock door speaker Audi laughingly call a subwoofer, it certainly cannot power a proper sub. Proper subs need a lot of power, in fact that's all they need and the feeble 50w (peak, not RMS) Nokia amp in th tupperware sub will just destroy a proper sub through underpowering it and flatlining.
The stock amp is also powering the rear speakers in the non Bose setup and is the size of a fag packet, it's bolted to the back of the speaker in the sub enclosure.
The grilles in the parcel shelf are for ventilation they are not speaker grilles. The rear speakers are mounted in the rear speaker panels on each side of the rear seat.
Take a picture of the wiring behind the HU. This will have been butchered by a previous owner trying to avoid paying £8.99 for a proper adapter. This will be why the sub/rears don't work. If you'd checked the connector on the sub for 12v on the remote turn on wire you would find it wasn't getting the trigger.
 
How Silly, I was doing this at 6PM and in the rush didnt even see them in the back..

How do I get to them?

Yes the old wiring has been butchered - I will take a photo over weekend.

Does anyone know what the red plug is for? there is 4 wires (2 purple 2 green) and a blue coming from it and joining into the other block and into headunit.

The butchering has been done to the wires that go from HU to ISO.

For £3 i may aswell buy another and start over? - But im just confused as I dont know where the Red block goes.. THe one i have has to RCAs on.. - Would I use this to feed my new Amp ?
 
Also..

I have taken the Nokia Amp out of the sub enclosure.

Does this eman the rears would work? - What do I need to do to get them working again if so?

Thanks
 
audi upgrades
you're best bet would be to get new speakers and adaptor rings and run the wires directly to the head unit speaker out cables.. then if your head unit supports pre outs (which I'm guessing it does) then run the sub pre-out to a dedicated after market amp/sub set up in the stock location with the aid of an AMSS... at least that's what I intend to do! (currently about half way through! - done the fronts and the rears should be done tomorrow!) LOL! :)
 
Yes if you are replacing the sub anyway then you definately need to rewire the rears to the HU, far more power and far better quality. You don't need to access the rear speakers at all as the wiring to them is on the red connector that plugs into the sub woofer, so you can pick the feed up from there rather than have to strip out the side panels. Then just use some thin blades soldered to the new speaker wire, plug them into the corresponding sockets on the sub connector and run the cables under the side trim and back to the HU. No point trying to reuse the Audi rear amp wiring as it's rubbish and even if you got the rear/sub working again it will be half the power that you now have going to the fronts directly off the Alpine so you'd have to fade to rear a lot to balance the sound.
The rear speaker feeds are shown below (Left rear +ve & -ve and right rear +ve & -ve)
A3subloompinouts.jpg
 
AndyMac said:
No idea what that adapter is supposed to do, looks like it will feed your high level speaker output directly into the rear amp, not a good idea. Doesn' look like it has a hi-lo converter with it. You need this one:
Autoleads PC9-404 Audi Harness Adaptor (RCA, non-BOSE) �7.99 including VAT. PC9404. Buy discounted car audio online at In-Car Express

Takes your rear pre-outs (RCA's) directly into the rear amp.
Click to expand...

AndyMac you seem to know exactly what you're talking about, so would this be the same issue my 8l has? I had a guy fit an aftermarket HU (non-branded) for me a while back when buying the car. Since then, the rears don't work. He mentioned at the time that the amp appeared to be wired seperately. He couldn't get the aerial to work either. If I was to buy and fit this PC9-404 harness do you reckon I could get the back working again? Thanks in advance for any help you could give.
 
AndyMac said:
Yes as long as the HU has rear pre-outs (RCA's)
You also need the aerial amp adapter to get the aerial working
CT27AA05 Aerial/Antenna VAG Active ISO Adaptor
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. The only thing that worries me about buying a PC9-404 is I have the non-bose sound system, and every description I have seen recommends it for the bose system on the 8ls. Does this also work for non-bose systems? thanks again!
 
All the descriptions are usually incorrect, as are the years & models. The RCA input adapter is only available in 2 flavours one with rears only (non Bose) and one with front & rears (Bose), both work on the non Bose system as you only need rears which they both have.
 
AndyMac said:
All the descriptions are usually incorrect, as are the years & models. The RCA input adapter is only available in 2 flavours one with rears only (non Bose) and one with front & rears (Bose), both work on the non Bose system as you only need rears which they both have.
Click to expand...

Cheers AndyMac, that information is very useful to me indeed. I will be contacting you about a stealth sub setup once my budget allows for it.
 
Have anyone fitted 6½ to the front doors with proper mounting (not to the door panel)?

Just bought S3 -01 and now would like to upgrade the sound system cause the bose front speakers sounds so bad..
 
There's no inner door skin on the 8L doors so not sure what you'd mount a speaker to exactly. You could go down the custom door build route but that gets expensive and its far cheaper, easier and more effective to just add a proper sub or stealth sub
 
Subwoofer is another story..
So there will be quite much to do to get the 8l sound good - so I should take that as a challenge :sly:
 
BuuBBa said:
Subwoofer is another story..
So there will be quite much to do to get the 8l sound good - so I should take that as a challenge :sly:
Click to expand...

Here is what I did... sounds pretty good tbh and I have installed fully active systems in the past...

http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/a3-s3-...9-my-minor-modding-thread-13.html#post1017963

Andy's stealth sub is a surprisingly good bit of kit... never gonna make your hair move about but very well balanced for a decent sounding setup...

Well happy with mine

<tuffty/>
 
in the end I took my rear doorcards off and re wired from the speaker to the headunit direct.

However the rear speakers look weak and I would be looking to replace these. along with the fronts.

Anyone know what size they are?
 
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