Car Audio thread

[stone_crazy]

There's not much resources in Okinawa for car audio enthusiasts or people who are just getting into the hobby. You have the local BX/PX sales associates who aren't required to be well trained in the area. There's local car audio shops, but the language barrier can be hard to overcome. You have sales reps at the BX/PX who are well educated only on products from the brands they represent. I've been heavy into car audio for over 15 years and I have a bit of experience installing. Let's get some good discussion going.

I know car audio gets has a bad reputation of being annoying and a nuisance for other drivers. I'm not out to promote that. If you want to brag about how loud your car is, then you have totally perverted view of car audio. If you want bragging rites, have your car metered at a local competition. But for the love of God, be courteous to other drivers when you're on the road or at a stop light.

If you need help installing, troubleshooting, or want some recommendations on equipment then please post something.

[stone_crazy]

My most recent endeavor was installing a Pioneer AVIC-Z1 HDD Nav/CD/DVD player into my ride. I successfully accomplished that and then I bypassed it so I could use the DVD player while the car is in motion. Of course, I never use the DVD player when I drive, but the bypass allows me to change or set a new destination on my Nav while it's in motion.

Once I bypassed it, I swapped the internal hard drive upgraded the software and maps to the most current series (Z3), and expanded the music partition. This gave me an extra 10GB to store music. I saved $250 by downloading the Z3 image from the internet and updating it myself.

Great success!

[DocTurtle]

My most recent endeavor was installing a Pioneer AVIC-Z1 HDD Nav/CD/DVD player into my ride. I successfully accomplished that and then I bypassed it so I could use the DVD player while the car is in motion. Of course, I never use the DVD player when I drive, but the bypass allows me to change or set a new destination on my Nav while it's in motion.

Once I bypassed it, I swapped the internal hard drive upgraded the software and maps to the most current series (Z3), and expanded the music partition. This gave me an extra 10GB to store music. I saved $250 by downloading the Z3 image from the internet and updating it myself.

Great success!

Nice bro! Sounds like it was a lot of work.

[DoctorP]

Stone....good thread! I'll definitely look you up if I need some help in this area...btw that other project you helped with worked out great! I'll send you some pics.

[stone_crazy]

Wasn't too bad. I'm just glad I found all the tools to do it. You figure a new Z3 is somewhere near $2000. I bought my Z1 for $900. After the upgrade, it functions the same as a Z3, but it has an extra 10GB worth of music storage.

I hope I can help people save money by giving them the info to DIY their next install, rather than taking it to Autobacs, Starks, or a local car audio installer where they'll get charged an arm and a leg.

[stone_crazy]

Stone....good thread! I'll definitely look you up if I need some help in this area...btw that other project you helped with worked out great! I'll send you some pics.

Great to hear it worked out. I'm glad to have helped.

[okisteve]

My wife and I have a combined IQ of well over 175 but we STILL can't figure out how to set the damn clock in my Nakamichi CD-35. I know it can be done.

[NotSoAverageWife]

oh snap...we had a heck of a time getting the new cd player in the surf. The wiring was alllllll messed up! However, I think we got it...Buttttt I guess something is killing the batt.

Finally the exchange had the speakers we needed too. To we picked them up today!

[stone_crazy]

My wife and I have a combined IQ of well over 175 but we STILL can't figure out how to set the damn clock in my Nakamichi CD-35. I know it can be done.

Wow, I'm not sure if I can help there. That's something very specific to the manufacturer and model of your head unit. My biggest guess is that it involves holding down a button until the clock starts to blink.

Okay, try holding down the clock button for 2 secs and then using either the tune/seek buttons or the FF/REW buttons to change the hours/minutes. Just mess around with them. Most likely, the tune/seek will toggle the hour/minutes and the FF/REW will allow you to change the time. Then, probably press the clock button to save the information.

Good luck.

[stone_crazy]

oh snap...we had a heck of a time getting the new cd player in the surf. The wiring was alllllll messed up! However, I think we got it...Buttttt I guess something is killing the batt.

Finally the exchange had the speakers we needed too. To we picked them up today!

If you didn't use a vehicle-specific wiring harness, then you probably had a lot of work to do. If the battery is draining, check your wiring on the harness. Make sure the red wire is connected to the accessory power and the yellow is connected to a constant source of power. If you have to manually turn of the deck after the keys are removed from the ignition, then the wiring is reversed.

Now, if the wiring is correct and your battery is still being strained, it could be something else. Do you have any amps hooked up? Subwoofers? If so, there's an "easy" fix. Easy meaning that you don't have to pay for a high output alternator, bigger battery, or capacitor.

[DoctorP]

Wow, I'm not sure if I can help there. That's something very specific to the manufacturer and model of your head unit. My biggest guess is that it involves holding down a button until the clock starts to blink.

Okay, try holding down the clock button for 2 secs and then using either the tune/seek buttons or the FF/REW buttons to change the hours/minutes. Just mess around with them. Most likely, the tune/seek will toggle the hour/minutes and the FF/REW will allow you to change the time. Then, probably press the clock button to save the information.

Good luck.


Just a note to add here....do all of this with the unit off. Just have the key to the car on. Most manufacturers allow you to change the clock with the unit off, and this will keep you from changing any other settings.

[okisteve]

Thanks Stone and DocP. I had high hopes for your suggestions.... but, I can't even get the clock digits to blink. Something may have gone wrong because I reset this thing once or twice in the past when the battery had been disconnected. But there is nothing else wrong with it, so ???? WTF?

[stone_crazy]

Thanks Stone and DocP. I had high hopes for your suggestions.... but, I can't even get the clock digits to blink. Something may have gone wrong because I reset this thing once or twice in the past when the battery had been disconnected. But there is nothing else wrong with it, so ???? WTF?

Aww man, too bad. I was hoping our advice would have solved your problem. I can't imagine anything defective with the unit if the clock won't set. You should be alarmed if the digits on the clock are unreadable or the LCD display is messed up. Maybe there are a series of button presses or you have to access it through some menus. If all else fails, maybe you can call the manufacturer. Have you checked their site? They might have all the documents available for download.

Try resetting the unit if you think something is really wrong with it. Look for a small, tiny, recessed button and push it with a pen tip or pin. If you have a removable faceplace, it may be located behind that. WARNING!!! if you reset it, then you're going to lose all your settings, but it may fix the problem.

Good luck

[xXNothingnessXx]

Or at 1200 you can pull the battery cable off and then put it back on so it will be set on the correct time. Kind of ghetto but it would work.

[BEARUSMC]

whats good?
does anybody know where i can find some infinity speakers for my wagon ?

[xXNothingnessXx]

whats good?
does anybody know where i can find some infinity speakers for my wagon ?

I haven't seen any out here. I used to have Infinity's (in the States) I know you can order them offline. Go to the Crutchfield website. Kind of expensive but I know they are there.

[BEARUSMC]

I haven't seen any out here. I used to have Infinity's (in the States) I know you can order them offline. Go to the Crutchfield website. Kind of expensive but I know they are there.

thanx
i appreciate it i know they have them as well as best buy just thought mabye somebody knew where to get them here

[mikersoft]

I just installed Sirius satellite radio in my car. Running that damn antenna wire from the roof to the radio, hiding it as much as possible along the way, was kind of a pain in the ass. :cursing:

I'm glad I finally did this as I may have to start commuting again in July and the variety will be welcomed.

-Mike

[okisteve]

Or at 1200 you can pull the battery cable off and then put it back on so it will be set on the correct time. Kind of ghetto but it would work.

Outside of the fact that the Nakamichi has great sound, I am a little fed up now. I would have pulled the battery lead as suggested except the stupid clock loses almost a minute a day. That's why I need to figure out to reset it easily.

As for calling the manufacturer or finding a manual - Nakamichi might make good products but they sure don't support them very well. No more to say on that!

Thanks anyway.

[NotSoAverageWife]

If you didn't use a vehicle-specific wiring harness, then you probably had a lot of work to do. If the battery is draining, check your wiring on the harness. Make sure the red wire is connected to the accessory power and the yellow is connected to a constant source of power. If you have to manually turn of the deck after the keys are removed from the ignition, then the wiring is reversed.

Now, if the wiring is correct and your battery is still being strained, it could be something else. Do you have any amps hooked up? Subwoofers? If so, there's an "easy" fix. Easy meaning that you don't have to pay for a high output alternator, bigger battery, or capacitor.

we used a wiring harness. however, the in-dash wires, were different. so we had to look them up online to match them up. Now we can't get the antenna to work....but everything else does just fine.

We were able to get the batt. to keep a charge after we got finished. lol so I dont know what we did....it was crazy.

Thanks for the help hun

edit...oh the harness came with the cd player. However, the wires still didn't match up right...Im guessing after talking with the hubs that the surf is older...sooo the wire colors and such were different. Heck I dont know!

[xXNothingnessXx]

Outside of the fact that the Nakamichi has great sound, I am a little fed up now. I would have pulled the battery lead as suggested except the stupid clock loses almost a minute a day. That's why I need to figure out to reset it easily.

As for calling the manufacturer or finding a manual - Nakamichi might make good products but they sure don't support them very well. No more to say on that!

Thanks anyway.


Well that sucks...

[Obe1Canole]

I used to be obessesed with car audio back in the states. I came out here and got a 94 nissan cedric. The cedriv came with a built in TV which is pretty cool but it didnt have any factory pre-amp outputs so I couldnt add an amp. I wanted to replace the TV with an aftermarket head unit but the A/C is controlled through the TV so I couldnt replace it.

I did some detective work in the trunk (which is where all the wires are) and found out which wires I needed to tap into to add some amps. I put two amps in, one for the sub and one to power all 4 door speakers.... that was fun. Once I fixed all the bugs it worked great, a little loud though.

Interesting thing about the factory head unit is that its touch screen, gets local tv stations (even AFN), has a cassette deck in the center console and has built in audio and video inputs in the glove box so I can plug in anything that has RCA cables. I just plug my ipod in there and go cruisin.

Anyway, I'm glad I didn't change my head unit, everything works a little more efficient off the factory one.

[stone_crazy]

I haven't seen any out here. I used to have Infinity's (in the States) I know you can order them offline. Go to the Crutchfield website. Kind of expensive but I know they are there.

For the price you pay for some Infinity speakers off Crutchfield, you can get some better ones off ebay or an online retailier like woofersetc.com.

Crutchfield has great customer service, though. Also, I may have some coupons because I ordered a wirinig harness from them.

I used to run Infinity Kappa 6.5 speakers, but the tweeter was too harsh for my ears. Focal, Rainbow or Arc (same build, different company), or CDT are all great-sounding speakers.

[stone_crazy]

we used a wiring harness. however, the in-dash wires, were different. so we had to look them up online to match them up. Now we can't get the antenna to work....but everything else does just fine.

We were able to get the batt. to keep a charge after we got finished. lol so I dont know what we did....it was crazy.

Thanks for the help hun

edit...oh the harness came with the cd player. However, the wires still didn't match up right...Im guessing after talking with the hubs that the surf is older...sooo the wire colors and such were different. Heck I dont know!


Yeah, that's a pain in the ass if the wires don't match up. The easiest thing to do is use a wire tester to find the constant, accessory, and illumination wires. Then, use a D battery to test for speaker connections. It's complicated, but it'll save a lot of trial and error. Finally, just ground the deck to the chassis instead of trying to find a grounding wire.

I can elaborate if you want, but I'm assuming everything is installed already.

How is the antenna connected? Is it a power antenna? There are different sizes for the antenna cable so you might have to buy an adapter in order to plug it into the back of the deck. Shouldn't be too expensive.

edit:

There should be a harness that comes with the deck. But there is also a harness that you have to buy that is specific to your vehicle. You should have gotten a Toyota Surf harness. It would connect to your factory harness at one end and then you'd join the wires on the other end to the radio harness.

[stone_crazy]

I used to be obessesed with car audio back in the states. I came out here and got a 94 nissan cedric. The cedriv came with a built in TV which is pretty cool but it didnt have any factory pre-amp outputs so I couldnt add an amp. I wanted to replace the TV with an aftermarket head unit but the A/C is controlled through the TV so I couldnt replace it.

I did some detective work in the trunk (which is where all the wires are) and found out which wires I needed to tap into to add some amps. I put two amps in, one for the sub and one to power all 4 door speakers.... that was fun. Once I fixed all the bugs it worked great, a little loud though.

Interesting thing about the factory head unit is that its touch screen, gets local tv stations (even AFN), has a cassette deck in the center console and has built in audio and video inputs in the glove box so I can plug in anything that has RCA cables. I just plug my ipod in there and go cruisin.

Anyway, I'm glad I didn't change my head unit, everything works a little more efficient off the factory one.

Are you running the amps by tapping into some existing power lines or did you use aftermarket power cable? Or are you just using the factory RCA cables to send signal to the amps? Either way, sounds like you did good without having to replace the factory head unit. If you're still obsessed with car audio, have you thought of running something like a JL Clean Sweep to send a strong signal back to your amps? I heard it makes a world of difference when upgrading your stock system and leaving in the factory head unit.

[socalheart]

If a car has the Japanese navigational system tied into the audio/visual, can the navigational system be changed to English or replaced with English parts without screwing up the entire system? If so, please provide details. Thank you.

[rosk0e]

i recently purchased a 2000 altezza. the stock stereo, which controlled the NAV, tv, etc didnt work, so it was replaced with an aftermarket head unit, leaving the monitor...useless. does anyone know if there is a way to make use of it by installing a DVD head unit? seems to be such a waste of a monitor

[superbike81]

If a car has the Japanese navigational system tied into the audio/visual, can the navigational system be changed to English or replaced with English parts without screwing up the entire system? If so, please provide details. Thank you.

Normally not. I searched for months to find one that was bilingual, so that way my wife and I could both use it. Unfortunately I was never able to find one. I just bought an Eclipse 40GB Navi DVD unit and it works great. The menus are mostly in Kana, so that's easy to read, and the Kanji, well, I just ask my wife what it means and then memorize it.

[0341isa]

Are you running the amps by tapping into some existing power lines or did you use aftermarket power cable? Or are you just using the factory RCA cables to send signal to the amps? Either way, sounds like you did good without having to replace the factory head unit. If you're still obsessed with car audio, have you thought of running something like a JL Clean Sweep to send a strong signal back to your amps? I heard it makes a world of difference when upgrading your stock system and leaving in the factory head unit.

I considered one of these myself. I heard they are awesome, but more importanty, I heard they come with an audio input that you could use for an ipod or zune? (I'm tired of this fm tuner bit) My head unit doesnt have one, and I dont want to replace it with a new head unit because I dont want ot give up my GPS or pay the 400 bucks for a new head unit.

Also, who gets AFN normally? I get AFN, but the signal is all jacked up. The sound doesnt come through. the dude at images said afn broadcast on a different signal than local tv so theres nothing that can be done.

[TheLastDon]

I considered one of these myself. I heard they are awesome, but more importanty, I heard they come with an audio input that you could use for an ipod or zune? (I'm tired of this fm tuner bit) My head unit doesnt have one, and I dont want to replace it with a new head unit because I dont want ot give up my GPS or pay the 400 bucks for a new head unit.

Also, who gets AFN normally? I get AFN, but the signal is all jacked up. The sound doesnt come through. the dude at images said afn broadcast on a different signal than local tv so theres nothing that can be done.

I don't get AFN on my stock Toyota head unit. I can get a fuzzy picture but no sound. The funny thing it gets real clear by the Foster Popeyes area and it sometimes overpowers channel 8 with no sound.

I used to get it on my cheapo aftermarket TV but I would have to click the channel button up and down a couple times to lock on to it.