I don't think the factory head unit has any low-voltage preamp outputs. The head unit pretty much puts out speaker-level outputs that either go right to the speakers (in the case of the base stereo), or to the factory amp's high-level inputs (in the case of the HIFI system).

If your Alpine amp requires preamp-level inputs, you'll need line-level converters between the head unit and your Alpine.

 

Scott is correct -- for either standard or HiFi systems, you only have high level outputs to work with. You either use an amp which will take high level signals, or put in converters.

Is yours a standard sound system, or the HiFi?
In both systems, you have high-level signals available at the X9331 connector, mentioned a bunch of times in these threads, or in the HiFi system, at the input to the amp which is the X10266 connector. The WDS website has this information.

If I was to replace the existing amp with a new one, I'd probably butcher the wiring harness near the amp, inserting connectors so that I could:

(1) pick off what I wanted for inputs to my new amp,

(2) put resistive loads (32 ohms or so?) across the old amp outputs,

(3) put resistive terminations (10k?) across the old amp inputs, and

(4) feed my new speaker outputs through the old harness.

 

why add the resistive loads to the oem amp

 

I think the reason is that like the Harman/Kardon amp from the first-gen stereo, you can't just disconnect the factory HIFI amp and chuck it in the trash when you install an aftermarket amp - it needs to remain powered and connected to the car's wiring harness to keep the car's computer happy. (There's digital data that gets passed to/from the amp in addition to analog audio signals.)

Shorting the amplifier's inputs and outputs using resistors protects the amp and makes it think it's connected to an input and a load. Otherwise, if you have an amp powered up with either the inputs or the outputs open-circuited, there's a chance of damaging the amp over time.

 

Yup, what Scott said -- since the amp input is differential, hanging a resistance across it keeps the input stable and essentially shorted. Similarly, putting something like 32 ohms (or whatever you have handy --68, 47, whatever) across the output gives the output stages a stable load. (This is Murphy's law as applied to circuit design -- if you leave an unused input floating, the thing that input is connected to will do the worst thing it can, at the worst moment. Or like giving a dog something to gnaw on, so he won't chew the legs off your dining room table.)

There have also been reports on these boards that the factory upgrade process wants to be able to "see" the amp on the data bus.

 

i knew the amp had to be connected but didnt think to add the resistive load

 

Well after paying the mini dealership to fix my screw up, 486 dollars later I am still stuck with a crap system that cowers to Metallica's Suicide and Redemption.

I know I was informed nobody is at fault, I just thought a word to the wise if you have to have this fixed for any reason it's going to cost you.

I drive a Jeep, I have no problem throwing my hood back and getting dirty but when the mini crawls into the fetal position on a simple project such as this I lose all modding hope.

 

Did this mode awhile back, right at the start of this thread.
I can't believe how much brain power has been running on this thread!
Thanks guys.

 

Searched all of your 4 posts. I don't know what your $486 screw up was , but if it makes sense to share it with us so we don't make the same mistake, please do so.

 

I DID IT!
Great write up!
WAHOO sounds great

Used the T25 and the female connector.

This should be a sticky!

 

Thanks for the info. I'm hoping for crisp, clean highs and solid midrange and bass--will this get me there? I find far too many car stereos lacking in the "crispness" area.....instead going for the more bass-heavy, thudding sort of sound.

 

New speakers will definitely solve that. The JL's fit, both in the holes and for depth in the door, and I like the sound. The car passes my teenager's bass tests. Ozzie Osborne's "Crazy Train" comes through loud and clear. There may be other good speaker choices out there in 4ohm land...not sure. There is one thing you can't fix is the speaker placement problem inherent to non-HiFi MINIs without the pillar tweeter holes you knees and those of any front seat passengers will significantly deflect any highs coming from the fronts toward your ears. You'll find you need to move your knees around as an impromptu "equalizer." (I'd rate this a very very small problem.) Maybe once I have the rears done with better 6x9s with tweeters this issue will diminish.

My new rears have arrived, along with speaker baffles so I have another project ahead of me. I went with Polk db691s (thanks to k6rtm.) One concern is that these are much more efficient than the JLs, so I may have a volume of sound mis-match that will have to be corrected a bit by the fader (now reversed) when I'm done. I'll report back (different thread) when the surgery is finished. I have a few guides for rear speaker access (one version translated from Dutch!) located here:

http://www.miniacal.com/remove_rear_seats/

http://translate.google.com/translat...-8&sl=nl&tl=en

I'm secretly hoping I can just remove the seats and work from the bottom of the panel, popping clips out - as phurbahl did in his Clubman - but I'm not counting on that. [This did not work out, by the way. I had to do full removal. - edit]

Bringing this post back on topic, the channel swap remains an easy, high-payoff/low effort job to improve sound fullness in the non-HiFi MINIs.

 

What a fantastic thread!
Does anyone know if Mini got smart and fixed the channel swap in the 09?

 

I just did this mod and all I can say is WOW. Night and Day difference in the sound. I used the T25 torx on the female connector as well. I took a couple of pics.

Here is the connector with the base of the female side disengaged



Here is a pin after removal with the T25 torx driver:



Took all of about 30 minutes to complete.

 

whoops, wrong thread

 

Sorry I troll these forums quite a bit but hardly post. Let me explain myself, I drive a Jeep Wrangler, I have no problem modding it, I wheel the heck out of it and it still runs tough. But I mess with some wiring on the speakers and the whole Mini takes a flop.

I followed the instructions I would think to the T but I messed up somewhere. It started after I put it all back together. As I read through the instructions I notice the "start with male adapters". So I began, first by disabling the battery and then taking the paneling off.

I was slow and careful to not mess anything up. I took the adapter off then separated the two adapters from each other and used my torx set to remove the male adapters. The issue I had was there were rings that kept the male adapter stable and they fell out as I switched the wiring which made it a real pain to get back.

Once I was done I pondered the whole equation cause you see from the instructions it makes it sound like I am simply switching the wiring coming from the stereo to the harness point and pointing them to other speakers so why should I change the female pins if they will be the same before I changed them. So I hooked up the battery and went to play the stereo but I got nothing, no gong no nothing.

I continued comparing what images users posted in this thread and the directions but something I did was not right. I left the large brown and White wires alone. This is a 2007 mini by the way. But I tried to start it and that's when it happened. The car would not turn over at all. The engine light came on and I was trying to find out why. It is a manual and I checked the clutch switch and rechecked, detached and reattached.

The car would not longer start but had ample power. I disconnected the stereo harness and still nothing. Since this was a Sunday I had till that day to fix it and I was never able to. Even after placing it back together I still could not start.

Turns out the $486 was for labor and parts but what the dealer explained to me was that these wires have to do with the car starting. and controlling functions. I find that hard to believe like everyone else but I was already upset I could not fix it and even more so that the clutch was not being seen by the EWS sensor. I had that problem before and it was brought to my attention of the wire on the clutch maser cylinder.

I would love for a pictorial of these instructions but I might not try again till I have some money saved for just that issue.

 

Sorry to hear that Minicooperated.

If you attempt it again, mwedge's 2 pix above really show you where you want to be (IMHO.) Female pins...disengaged at the x9331 base as shown...popped with the T25 bit. Follow the wiring diagram provided by k6rtm earlier in the thread.

Male end just seems much harder to me (access-wise)...but this is an evolving concept. And I am not an EE.

 

They did not.

 

Hey Eurotrash01,
I know this is still slightly off topic (ok maybe more than slightly), but can you talk about how the sound changed once you changed the rear speakers? I am planning to swap channels and front speakers, but I am more than a little intimidated by all that has to be done to change out the rears. Is the sound improvement that dramatic to you?
Of the three mods
1) channel swaping
2) front speaker replacement w/ JL
3) rear speaker replacement w/ Polk
which did you find to give the most dramatic improvement in the sound?

 

1) is a must do. I see little downside if you closely follow the diagrams and warnings from myself and others who swapped female pins using the torx bit. This is the least time consuming and least stressful bit of work. I actually did it on my own car after swapping the fronts, but if I were an audio tech on someone else's car, I'd do it first. Free bass, but no new clarity. You'll have popped a few clips out and in (lower panel below bonnet release), and that'll give you some idea of what is ahead of you. This can be reversed back later in leased vehicles.

2) This produced the most important change in sound quality, because the stock paper speakers simply can't do the job. They are physically incapable of producing clean highs as there is no tweeter in them. The speakers look like what you find in your $15 bedside clock radio. The work here is, however, time consuming, but worth it. The clear highs paired with (even) the OEM 6x9s (swapped) are much appreciated by the ears. I didn't want someone without MINI interior experience doing the job, so it was up to me.

3) This also produces another quality pickup in the area of clarity, but if you've done 1+2, you may be completely satisfied with the improved sound. 1+2 is definitely an acceptable place to stop. However if you are like me, you'll play around with your fader and isolate those rear 6x9s versus your fronts, and you'll think they sound like mud especially for the highs. You'll like the sound of your fronts, and wonder just how much better it could sound without the mud. If project number 2 didn't kill your desire to do surgery on your car, you can proceed to step 3. However if you are very uncomfortable about taking apart interior body panels and crimping/soldering wires then I'd say stop at 2. If doing the fronts gave you the confidence to proceed, then doing 3 is a payoff project for your psyche and ears. It looks like a lot of work (piles of stuff from the car on a clean sheet next to me), but it took me less time than step 2 did - the learning process builds. I did driver's side first, and then the right side took half as long. I learned a lot about the car doing the front doors (in #2) and put that to good use. FWIW, getting the seats out is cake. I believe I've linked a few sites with good descriptions/photos on what to do, but if you want my full list PM me. If you do #3 you'll definitely want to get some extra white body panel Christmas-tree pop-attachers just in case. I bent a few and replaced 1. 86 cents each, I think at my local BMW dealer (I live 2 miles from the BMW one, and about 38 from my MINI dealer.) Another reason to do step 3 has to do with treble & speaker placement in a MINI. If you only do the fronts, your treble of course will only come from the knee/ankle regions of the car. So when you move your left knee, or forearm, or if you have a passenger next to you, the little door tweeters will have their production blocked...and you will definitely notice the effect. By replacing the rears (w/ full-range co-axial 6x9s) you get quality treble from the rear as well, so you don't have to do the knee thing.

Summarizing: I suggest doing #1 unless you have a strong Bluetooth reason for not wanting the sound to come from behind you - 30 minute project. When you have a full day (wasted time budgeted in there) definitely do #2. If you are a gifted electrician and a confident body panel remover, this could go much quicker than that. I should not have disconnected the battery as this slowed down all my testing, and I don't think I was in any danger of being frazzled. [I take no responsibility for others though!] The hardest part is getting the confidence to pull the panels, because it feels a bit like you are on the path to breaking things. And the round speaker covers are a little resistant to being popped off, although the descriptions here in the early part of the thread are accurate. So see how you survived after #2, and consider #3 optional.

Definitely re-read all of k6rtm's and basil49's instructional posts in this and related threads. Always print out the wiring diagrams generously provided earlier to have handy while you work. If you don't have one of these (or similar) sets - get 1!

http://www.cvfsupply.com/hand_tools/...rity_bits.html

All speakers and pillars are torx screwed. There are a few Phillips head ones as well. If you don't know how to make a secure crimped connection - learn somehow, or solder the wires in.

 

I just did the swap without too much problem at all. I did the female side with the torx. It took no more than half an hour. I turned the radio to test and everything worked great....for about 10 minutes. Then I hear some sort of pop noise (wasn't very loud, but more like a crackle) and then there's no sound. The radio is lit and operates like normal other than being completely silent. Also, I replaced my two 6.5" earlier in the day--they worked great all day until the swap mod tonight. Crazy thing is, my parrot bluetooth still has audio (albeit from the rear speakers only). Why don't I have sound?

 

Did you get the pins back fully in place (high enough in the connector?)

 

Yes. I double-checked that already--they look just like before the swap and like the pictures in this thread.

 

[Know that I'm a very weak source of electrical system knowledge]

I assume you tried replacing the pins back in their original positions in the x9331. What did that do?

 

My sound problem has been fixed! Temporarily, at least. One of the speaker wires to a speaker I installed earlier in the day had worked itself loose. Apparently, if one wire comes undone, ALL the speakers go quiet.

I shouldn't be surprised that the wire came loose given that MINI didn't give an inch of extra speaker wire in the doors. I'll probably solder the connections at some point so this doesn't happen again, but I've never soldered before!

Thanks for the help, guys! My stereo sounds soooo much better with new front speakers and the swap mod. This thread ROCKS!