Good tip on phase matching with the AA battery

It is, as long as it's a standard carbon or maybe an alkaline battery. An AA NiCad or NiMH battery could possibly generate a current high enough to damage a speaker coil (esp. a tweeter). The high internal resistance of standard carbon batteries will prevent this. ;)

I believe the crossover is done by the amp as I didn’t find any crossover boxes in my doors. You can definitely split the wires out of the connector, identify the various speaker wires, and hook the straight into a new amp. Identifying which wires go to which door/component can be confusing because the wires change colors somewhere in route to each location. Bentley gets you 90% of the way, and then I recommend using a AA battery at the amp end of the wires to check both the connection and polarity is correct at the speaker end. Label each one as you break them out of the plug.[/QUOTE]

^This is a good tip with the battery. An alternative way is to order a cheap tone generator off Amazon. I do enough car audio in my cars that it's worth the $25 as it can be hard to tell the polarity using the battery test in my experience. Especially with tweeters.

This is the one I use.

I could not bring myself to hack up the DSP harness, or de-pin it. So I made an adapter harness for my aftermarket setup. Running DSP and 10 channels full active 6 front and 4 rear + a sub on 3 amps. It's way overkill... but it's my dream system from when I graduated high school. So I built it.

https://xoutpost.com/attachments/x5-...-pinouts-1.jpg

And boy it sounds dreamy! LoL.. :drool:


E53 RiPPeR
XOuTPoST jUNkiE
ReVELaTiON 22:21

Thanks bro. I still have a small alternator whine, but ordered an Audiocontrol Matrix that I'm going to try and use to get a cleaner audio signal to the DSP. If that's not it... must be something with the wiring. I'll find it eventually. When I have time to work on it anyway. :D It's a minor whine that I don't notice most of the time.

Here you go OP. I removed my previous post that had DSP pinout. Sorry for the size, I wanted it easy to read and/or print. This is the correct pinout for the "HiFi Loudspeaker System" vehicle option 676. Also, I verified that the wire colors DO NOT change between the amp and the door. At least not according to the diagrams.

Attachment 84386

Wow crystalworks! When it comes to electrical work, I'd rather do a M54 starter swap!

A chart like that makes it so simple. A single male/female connector with enough pins makes an upgrade easier. Especially to add a big woofer amp. I'll start looking for a connector.

Thanks for all the input! I'll have to put this project off for a bit. I have two HKA codes to deal with. Plus a hitch install to complete. I'll add to this post when I come back around to this project. I'll make notes to add to my X5 notebook.

No problem. I found the easiest way to find a suitable connector was to just buy a non-functional amp on Ebay. I have a whole thread about how I made my adapter. Have a read through if you're interested. Spoiler: it took some time. :D

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...g-pinouts.html

CX360.4 4 channel amplifier. Any opinions on the the CX360.4? I can upgrade the woofers to 4 ohm. What would happen to 2 ohm upper door speakers?
How many channels does an amp need to power all the speakers? 10 speakers in a business CD SAV, right?

That's a nice 4 channel amp. Always liked Kicker gear, especially the old Stillwater Designs days. But anywho, how were you planning on using that amp? Meaning what were you planning on hooking up to the 4 channels?

10 channels of amplification is only required if you are trying to go "full active." Basically that means a dedicated channel of amplification for each driver and the individual crossover settings that go with it. Totally not required for good audio. And really only recommended if you are going nuts with a full audiophile build. At which point I'd recommend a DSP amplifier or standalone.

BTW, if you go full active... lol you end up with something that looks like this unless you go with the new tiny Class D 4 channel amps. It sounds amazing... but it's not really practical for most ppl if you know what I mean. :D

Attachment 84414

I have no idea on how to connect 10 speakers to the amp! The RCA connections can go to a 10" woofer. Right? My brother recommended the amp. He upgrade his Bose equipped Chevy with one. It sounds great.