What did i do wrong? (aftermarket HU install)

[robspeed325i]

I unplugged the "premium" amp and ran separate speaker wires to the speakers in the kick panels. I saw there is a single wire that I remember reading goes to the tweets, but I ignored that.

Anyway, now i have very poor sound which distorts mightily when I try to turn up the volume. most of the distortion comes from the tweeters, until it becomes a "blur".

What am I missing? Do I need to run another wire to the tweets, so its not grounded through the body? Thanks in advance! got a LONG road trip tomorrow, and itd be nice to have some tunes! :)

[kronus]

What head unit? Most head units have 4 channels of output, and from what I can tell, you've got this gong to six speakers somehow. (fronts, front tweets, and rears)

Four outputs to six speakers is going to sound terrible unless you use crossovers to separate the signal for the tweeters. Disconnect them completely, and wire your four speakers directly to the head unit.

[robspeed325i]

What head unit? Most head units have 4 channels of output, and from what I can tell, you've got this gong to six speakers somehow. (fronts, front tweets, and rears)

Four outputs to six speakers is going to sound terrible unless you use crossovers to separate the signal for the tweeters. Disconnect them completely, and wire your four speakers directly to the head unit.

It appears there are integrated passive crossovers in the back of the stock front mids. I only have the front channels connected at the moment, with no plan to hook up the rear speekz. I actually have the rear outputs of the HU going to the front speaks, in the off chance the HU puts out more power to the rear speakers.

My feeling is that the problem lies in the way the stock premium tweets are grounded to the chassis of the car. how do i fix this?

[kronus]

You should NOT be grounding speakers to the car.

EDIT

I understand your first post a bit better now... is there only one out from the passive crossover? Can you tie the ground of the tweeter to the ground of the 5.25" speaker?

[robspeed325i]

You should NOT be grounding speakers to the car.

EDIT

I understand your first post a bit better now... is there only one out from the passive crossover? Can you tie the ground of the tweeter to the ground of the 5.25" speaker?

I guess that is exactly what I have to do... except I have to pick up the signal *after* the integrated crossover, not just wire it in parallel with the woofer.

I didnt want to have to tear into the doors, but looks like thats what ive gotta do to get to the back of the stock tweeters?

[kronus]

I guess that is exactly what I have to do... except I have to pick up the signal *after* the integrated crossover, not just wire it in parallel with the woofer.

I didnt want to have to tear into the doors, but looks like thats what ive gotta do to get to the back of the stock tweeters?

The stock tweeters pop out if you do it carefully. I'm not sure where the integrated crossover is... this is the first time I've heard of such a thing. Is it on the back of the woofer or the tweeter?

[smonkbmw]

in the off chance the HU puts out more power to the rear speakers.

why would it do that? stereos have a balanced out put unless you "fade" the sound to the rear.

im not sure about the general condition of this stereo so i may be off, but again im not there. the average install to a premium system usually consists of wiring around the factory fader via dropping a wire to each woofer in the front. the tweeters feed off the woofers via capacitors so bass doesnt transmit through a tweeter. then wire to each rear speaker there by wiring "around" the factory amplifier. there should be no opening of door panels, "grounded tweeters" or any of that nonsense.

in a nutshell run a speaker wire to each woofer and that should be it.

edit: after re reading your posts 4 times now. the distortion has to come from the fact that the tweeter isnt plugged into the capacitor on the back of the woofer. so its distorting because its replaying low end frequencies. would be my guess. the wire that needs to be hooked up is in the kick panel, and there is also another cap on the tweeters themselves. there should still be no need to open the door panel or remove the tweeter.

[robspeed325i]

Ive looked at some ebay tweeters, and there is a spring tab that sticks out and grounds the tweeter to the doorframe (as crazy as that sounds). Im going to insulate this and run a wire down to the woofer. If you look at the stock cassette head unit, you see the speaker leads are indeed grounded right to the back of the deck. My stock deck has integrated fader, so no seperate one. I think the mixing of the normal speaker wiring of the aftermarket deck with the chassis-ground tweeter is what is causing the problem.



and no, the tweeter is hooked up where it always was. All i did was hook up the head unit to the existing spots where the stock wiring comes in from the stock premium amp.

for the other poster, the crossover is integrated into the back of the midrange, not the tweeter. It is a full crossover with an inductor and capacitor, not just a highpass for the tweeter.

[robspeed325i]

and i was just guessing the rear output might be higher than the front... possibly a holdover from my old skool roots when this was commonplace as most had small dash speakers up front and 6x9s in the deck...

[E30 Cabrio]

Did you just pull the plug on the factory amp, or did you cut the wires and splice them together?

[robspeed325i]

K i am looking at the electrical troubleshooting manual and it appears I am wrong. There is another wire going to the tweeters, its just not hooked up to the back of the speaker directly, apparently....

[robspeed325i]

Did you just pull the plug on the factory amp, or did you cut the wires and splice them together?

i pulled the plug. im going to cut the factory-amp wires at the speakers, so everything is just running off the new HU.

[robspeed325i]

Ok so after some head scratching, I need to just cut the Gray/Violet and Gray/Red on the left side, and the Gray/Brown and Gray/White on the right side, from the car's wiring, and use those as my inputs from the head unit. Will do so in the morning and report back!

[robspeed325i]

heh. turns out i pulled the rear lighting module plug... had to go out and get the kid a tooth protector (he grinds his teeth) and lo and behold no rear lights atall. anyway ima fix stereo in the morning...

[StereoInstaller1]

OK, so in the AM, take a MUCH closer look at the wiring behind the fronts.

Look carefully at the mid. You will see where there are 2 inputs that run into the crossover, then a pair of wires going to the tweeter...unfortunately, the tweeter wires ARE common grounded.

What you need to do is look further down the harness and find the second tweeter wire and disconnect it from the signal ground.

You will find green/yellow and gray/green wires coming from the door jamb. Those are the 2 tweeter wires. Make sure you disconnect the green/yellow from the gray/brown...that is the common ground.

The crossover in the speaker is plain old 6db/oct...so that means the decks negative goes to the tweeter and the mid. The tweeter goes to the terminal that is connected to the cap, the mid runs through the coil.

These are one of the goofiest wiring setups in history.

GL!
Luke