Thread: new head unit

Originally Posted by Hastykiwi

Alternativley, for wiring, get a volt meter, a standard c size battery and two pieces of wire.

Use the volt meter with the neg in a solid metal body contact, test each terminal with the ignition off to find 12v+ permanent. Then switch ignition on and test for 12v+ switch. This will obviously show on/off with the key on/off. The speaker wires you will find by taping the two pieces of wire you have, one to each end of the battery, and crossing any two wires in the plug (except those you have already identified), and listening for 'pop' in a speaker. If you find the + and - for one speaker you will hear it pop as the battery voltage causes it to move slightly. By the time you have eliminated all of this, there should be not much left.

While this will ID the correct pairings for the speaker wires you will need to take note of the colors/stripes still. You will probably find that their is one plain and one striped wire per pair. As long as you keep the wiring the same through out,that's to say on the new wiring match plain to plain, strip to stripe or whatever works you won't have any issues with sound quality due to phase shift.

Phase shift is where one speaker is wired the reverse of the other so that as one speaker fires,the other runs just after it. Usually you would wire the drivers side to run second to allow the sound from the passenger side (longer distance) to reach at approximately the same time as the other side. Sounds like voodoo I know and I wasn't convinced until I went to town on my 2dr RRC and managed to push over 100db on 50watts and front splits and a single sub, but change the phasing and not only did you loose volume but the quality went to poo as well.

You can also phase shift splits on each side to raise the apparent level of the sound so while the speakers may be down in the doors (especially if it's the mids for voices in a 3 way setup) you run the tweeters and mid-bass behind the mids.

hey john, is easy mate.

The antenna plug is a euro type plug. Just pull the end off and it will reveal a japanese compatible plug.

You will need the pac-swi adapter and a universal ISO wiring harness before you start. ( the ISO harness is available at Repco)

You will also need wire strippers, a soldering iron, solder, and electrical tape.

1. disconnect the negetive battery cable from the battery whilst working on any electrical system.

2. the grey and brown plugs in the back of the oem stereo ARE ISO plugs, unclip them and remove the old stereo as well as the existing metal sleeve. install the new sleeve.

3. you need to get the wiring harness that came with the stereo and join it with the universal ISO harness so one end will plug into the stereo and the other end will plug into the existing Land Rover wiring. The colours will be an exact match- just strip the ends of each matching pair, twist them together, solder, then tape up.

4. the swi jack will also be soldered onto the wiring harness. get on the pac website where they have detailed instructions specific to Disco's. (there are different instructions for different year models)

5. make sure all connections are made and insulated with tape. (even the ends of unused cables) plug all cables in to headunit and car but dont put headunit back in place.

6. reconnect the battery and turn everything on. make sure it works and program the pac swi jack according to the instructions.

7. once your happy with it all put everything back together and have a cold bevy whist listening to some sweet tunes and admiring your handywork.

So based on the above, for a 2000 D2, you could retro fit a OEM steering wheel controls and make work with A/Mkt stereo. Will work with any stereo or specifics only?

I have retrofitted a steering wheel audio switch to a 2000 D2 using an aftermarket Kenwood to replace dead factory unit.
The wiring should already be present between the dash ISO plugs and wheel (via rotary coupler). Remove airbag and look for a small black 2-wire plug on the LHS of wheel. Needless to say follow RAVE airbag removal proceedure...
Second hand audio switches are available fairly cheaply (mine was from TRS Adelaide, make sure you also get the steel bracket and screws). This switch is a mirror image of the cruise switch so make a cardboard template of the cruise switch opening, transfer this to the LHS of wheel's plastic back-shell and cut out the opening. The rubber grommet is generously sized to hide rough edges stc. Install audio switch.
Interface to radio head unit was via PAC-SWIX infra-red unit. Works well and as mentioned in earlier post their website has excellent Disco specific instructions. IR led was mounted in overhead console in the small removable panel. I highly recommended this interface (no connection with maker, just a customer. US made product and the $A is strong vs the Greenback...)
Just my 2 cents worth.
Jason.

The swi-jack mentioned below is a hard wired control interface that is wired into the ISO harness and plugs into headunits that are compatible with factory steering wheel controls ( they will state this in the headunit specs). The swi- jack is then placed in the dash behind the head unit.

The pac-swix interface would do the same job however I went with the swi- jack as I always prefer hard wired if there is the option.

I also considered the SWI-Jack since my Kenwood has the input wire, and would personally prefer a hardwired solution if possible.

After talking to a few installers I heard of an issue with it. The PAC-SWIX (IR led) can be programmed to replicate ANY remote control button press. The SWI-Jack has a more limited range of commands assignable to the wheel mounted buttons, particularly regarding tuner station up/down and track forward/back depending on which audio mode the head unit is running in (i.e. CD/MP3/FM radio), and what type of head unit is used. Read the info on the PAC website carefully, its in the programming section somewhere I think.

The SWIX certainly is a bit more work (extending then running IR led cable into roof etc) but I have not had the issues that these stereo installers mentioned.

Regards.

Originally Posted by clubagreenie

While this will ID the correct pairings for the speaker wires you will need to take note of the colors/stripes still. You will probably find that their is one plain and one striped wire per pair. As long as you keep the wiring the same through out,that's to say on the new wiring match plain to plain, strip to stripe or whatever works you won't have any issues with sound quality due to phase shift.

Phase shift is where one speaker is wired the reverse of the other so that as one speaker fires,the other runs just after it. Usually you would wire the drivers side to run second to allow the sound from the passenger side (longer distance) to reach at approximately the same time as the other side. Sounds like voodoo I know and I wasn't convinced until I went to town on my 2dr RRC and managed to push over 100db on 50watts and front splits and a single sub, but change the phasing and not only did you loose volume but the quality went to poo as well.

You can also phase shift splits on each side to raise the apparent level of the sound so while the speakers may be down in the doors (especially if it's the mids for voices in a 3 way setup) you run the tweeters and mid-bass behind the mids.

Are you advocating running the left and right channels out of phase? Its a little hard to tell.

If this is done, as you correctly point out one speaker cone is moving out when one is moving back in. The problem with this is they cancel each other out, esp in the lower frequencies, hence the sound quality goes to crap. To balance the levels from the longer left to right, well, balance control is there.

If I have misunderstood your point here, apologies, but in my years in the car audio industry, I never heard a system with reversed polarities sound as good as wired correctly.

cheers
Nick

Originally Posted by Hastykiwi

Are you advocating running the left and right channels out of phase? Its a little hard to tell.

If this is done, as you correctly point out one speaker cone is moving out when one is moving back in. The problem with this is they cancel each other out, esp in the lower frequencies, hence the sound quality goes to crap. To balance the levels from the longer left to right, well, balance control is there.

If I have misunderstood your point here, apologies, but in my years in the car audio industry, I never heard a system with reversed polarities sound as good as wired correctly.

cheers
Nick

Best to get the phase testing tracks to be sure. I have been in a Toyota that sounded better with out of phase midbasses.

Think he was advocating trying tweeter out of phase to midbass (2 way splits). This is common trick for trying to gain some stage height