Connecting Amp (for subwoofer) to Concert II

From talking with a mate from seatcupra.net and icecavern.com, I'm looking to fit my old sub and amp to my A2's standard Concert II HU. I have aquired a Blaupunkt adaptor to provide me with RCA connectors that after some research I found should just plug into the back of the Concert II.

I decided to take a look today, and discovered a problem! The pic below shows the yellow connector for this Blaupunkt RCA adaptor, and also shown is the back of the HU - with all connector blocks in use, including the yellow one required by this adaptor (pin out shown clearly in image here: http://www.a2oc.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2405&page=2&highlight=concert+amplifier ) - in fact there are wires coming out of the block concerned..

Given I'm not an ICE guru myself, I'm now a little confuzzled.. :rolleyes:

Ian

DSC00015.JPG
 
Please send me a fuller description of where the yellow plug is supposed to go and a photo showing clearly the back of the headunit - I'll get back to you with any possible solution.

I have managed to retro-fit Bose into my A2 (tricky, but very well worthwhile) so I should be able to help you.
 
Thanks again Skipton,

The yellow plug was intended to connect into the 6 pins marked yellow in the below digram:

a2-hifi7.jpg


However, upon investigating this today I found that a single connector block is occupying the blue, green and yellow portions of this socket. The middle socket is taken up by another connector block connecting the 4 pins in that to the front speakers.

I have now obviously abandoned the idea of fitting the adaptor that I sourced, however think I'll be able to approach this installation by doing the following:

Fit the amp in one of the front underfloor 'compartments', taking power from the supplies located in the passenger compartment for the convenience controller (I read your other post ;) )

Use the signals from the 'yellow connector block' section of the pin outs in the above image (RR / LR / COM / Switched) by tapping into them near the underfloor amp for the rear speakers - thus negating the need to run cables down from behind the dash.

Run the amp's output to the boot where I will then only have 2 connections to make to the sub box - make it easy to remove when I need more boot space.

Does this sound feasible to you?

My only query at the moment is that if the front speakers are driven by the HU, what are the pins RF and LF being used for in the 'yellow block area' given that wires do feed out of them? The amp definately doesn't drive the front speakers as I unplugged the middle module and verified that the fronts go dead.

Many thanks,

Ian
 
Last edited:
Your plan should work, but I'd be careful taking a power feed from the convenience unit - it is sensitive to minor fluctuations in current and will be expensive to replace.

Running a cable back to the boot area is fine, but it's a labour intensive job, needing the removal of most of the trim panels and rear seats if you want to do a really neat job.

As for the two wires, I dunno - on my factory HU, the only wires from the 20 pin mini din are the CAN bus Hi and Lo wires from the middle section.

Audi HU's are notoriously complex beasts to fathom - I've still not quite got the Bose retro-fit right (for my Blaupunkt DAB HU - it's fine with the standard Chorus2). I'd like to think that I know the wiring schematics back to front for the A2, but they seem to differ from car to car and year to year, regardless of CAN or HU model!

Best bet - suck it and see!
 
OK, been a very productive weekend; and I now have both my SonyEricsson HCA-200 handsfree kit fitted and my sub and amp.

The HCA-200 uses the car speakers during calls for audio out, as I basically wired the output of the handsfree to the telephone input pins just below the mute pin on the back of the headunit. Works a treat :D

The Amp required a rethink, and an additional £20 worth of cable, as there was too much of a current draw on the supply under the passenger footwell - the result being I have a direct feed from the battery. The result is superb, and the audio now has a much greater depth to it - something I felt was lacking from the standard setup - this is with the bass level set to 0.

Overall, it's been a while in the works, but the end result is excellent.

Ian
 
Sorry to revive this thread Ian, but a month or so back I spoke to you a little bit in regards to wiring up a sub to the standard Concert II HU. I'm looking at doing this quite soon and do have my eyes on some active subs going cheap (we'll see how they end up within the next couple of days). But if anything I wanted to take a bit of a closer look at what you actually had to do to the cabling to get your sub working.

I have installed a sub before, be it an old renault clio, but at least I have the understanding that i'm going to need the following cables:

-power
-earth
-left and right audio channels
-power line in (to tell the amp when to turn on and off

Think that's it or have I missed one? I feel that i'm only really going to have problems with the left and right audio channels and the line in cable as i'm a bit unsure of where exactly to pull the feeds from?
 
Mike,

You've got the list right :)

If you have rear speakers you can take feeds for the L+R channels and the 'power on' signal from the cables already in place that provide those exact functions for the rear speakers amp that's under the drivers floor. Use the diagram in this thread when looking at the back of the Concert II to work out what colour wires you need to splice into from the ones that feed the rear speaker amp

Hope that helps!

Ian
 
Ok so just to double check i'm right on this (helps by the fact i've just ripped up my front drivers and passenger side carpet to have a look whats in the compartments :)

This lot undeneath the passenger side i don't need to touch:

08122006013.jpg


This would be the rear speakers amp which i would be splicing into the wire for the switch on feed and the left and right channel?:

08122006012.jpg


going from the layout sticker on the top of the HU, like so:

08122006010.jpg


Or see better version of yours upstairs ^^^ as I took these photos on a low setting on my phone.

Would i go for the 'COM' wire or the one next to it, i'm guessing the one next to it? Feeling stupid now as i'm looking at it and it's quite obviously telling me it's the positive switch feed :embarassed: haha

If that's all i've got to do it sounds easy as anything! Shouldn't take me that long then, i'm guessing the worst of it is feeding the cables back there?

Thanks mate,

Mike
 
You've got it Mike :)

Yup, the tough bit is feeding the 'signal cables' from where you've spliced them back through the car to where you're siting your amp. Just use the sticker on the back of the HU as a guide as to what wires you need to splice at the amp-end - by doing things that way around you're at least saving yourself the trouble of running wires through the dash!
 
Great stuff! :) Taa very much for that, just got to sort out the sub now and then wire it all in, don't suppose you have any suggestions on the best way to run the cables through to the boot do you? At least the seats properly come out in the A2, it was a right pain doing a proper job on the clio!

Cheers,

Mike
 
Lol hmm well we'll see about that! I don't want anything too harsh, but it'll be nice to know i've got the depth and power there if i want to use it. It seems quite a nice neat little unit as the amp is built in, i was initially looking at some Vibe 'Fastplugs' for it as well, for a tenner (the idea being that the cables all run through these plugs to allow terminated connections, but give the advantage of being able to remove the sub quickly and easily with out any lose live connections floating about. But they only have 3 slots for cables in them, one for the power, one for the remote line and one for the ground, seems they've forgotten about the left and right audio channels haven't they?! :S
 
Just a quick one if your still awake and reading Ian, the bodge you've done with your RCA lead, did you literally just snip off one end of an RCA lead and wire it all into a chocolate block or did you use something like this?:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/POWERPAX-HIGH...ryZ14932QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

That's a pretty cheap make, you can get better ones, but they're going for £25+. I've mainly used that one as an example as it has the best explanation of what it is!

Many Thanks,

Mike
 
Well she's up and running, took all in all just under 3 hours, which I was quite impressed with :) Sounds a hell of a lot better now there's a proper punch to drums on a song or a nice tight bass line :D

Many thanks go to both you guys in this thread, especially to trusty old mike with his quick returning phone call to a rather stupid text message I sent him this afternoon
icon11.gif
lol!

Pictures soon to follow....

Mike :D

Suppose I've got to update my signature now!
 
Much better :) i'd forgotten just how much difference a little bit of bass can make, listening to a load of old cd's i've got, i can hear things that i didn't even know were there! It just brings the music to life in a whole other way, it's great! :D
 
Hi All, my first post here after having just bought my first A2 which I’ve only just started to enjoy after the water pump self destructed after only a couple of days of ownership. A quick engine swap sorted that out.
Sorry to resurrect this old thread. I was looking to add a powered sub to my existing non Bose standard head unit. Do I need to use a high to low rca convertor thing or can I simply take the high level speaker wires directly to the high level plugs on the aftermarket amp or so I have to convert to RCA? I’ve never fitted an aftermarket amp to a standard HU without RCA ports
 
Back
Top