Another quick but great update.

I finished mod of E46 HK amplifier and now it works fine!!!
1. I have full 6 speakers working with correct left/right with balance control
2. Vol/bass/treb/balance control on HU works
3. Steering wheel button controls works fine
4. It doesn't screw up MINI's K-bus anymore

One thing I intended to but didn't achieve was "fade" control.
Two reasons.
1. To have fade control, I need to connect HU's rear output to connector. I don't want to open front side of MINI to have access to HU.
2. Rear speaker is dual coil speaker. So it would be ideal condition to have exactly matching signals are driving both of coils. I did it by connecting front input signal to rear input signal, so that I have a set of duplicated woofer signal to drive dual coil speaker.

It costs me $70 for E46 amp from eBay + $4.99 thermal compound which is optional.
ZERO cutting wires, 4 points very easy solder and NO mechanical mounting issue!

I'll start a new thread to wrap up what I did.
I'm so glad to bring music back to my MINI.

-Jinux

 

MINI HK amp for sale in the Marketplace!!!!

 

My girl friend's h/k amp just died and I spent a few days troubleshooting and repairing it. I didn't take any pics but did write up how I fixed it. I know this was a thread that I first read when trying to fix this amp. Hope this works for people with the skill set.

How to fix the mini cooper Harmon Kardon amp

Cheers!

 

Mine has died also…pops, squeals, static, then nothing. Can I bypass the amp or use a different brand with the same head unit? Or can I replace the head unit and speakers with a new system without having to use the amp? Does anyone have suggestions? Not really a techno whiz, I know just enough to be dangerous.

 

If you know someone with fine pitch electronic skills I was able to fix mine by replacing a single part. The part was ST's L5973D's and it powers the 1.2V core of the Sharc DSP. Your's may be different, but it worked for me.

I wrote more about it here:
http://www.gethypoxic.com/reviews-te...-and-mods.html

 

Does anyone have any info on the DSP chips used? I'm trying to troubleshoot the amp in my wife's car (2003 Cooper S). Basically, the front speakers are distorted very badly, but the rears are fine. It's not normal, overdriven or blown speakers sort of distortion, instead it sounds more like it's distortion in the digital signals. It just slowly built up one day while she was driving along. At first it would work fine for several minutes and then get distorted, but now it's distorted all of the time.

Today I did some troubleshooting. I thought I'd share the info in this repository. I've been running a sine wave test CD. This is what I've found:
-The DSP on the right (when output amps at the top) is for the rear speakers, the DSP on the left is for the front.
-The 3.3V supply is running fine. I'm seeing 3.3V, not 1.2V as mentioned by trunk. I have a different part number on my 3.3V power supply IC. It's also a different package, so I guess i have a different circuit board revision.
-I have traced a clean input signal to the input of the rear DSP (using a sine wave test CD).
-I cannot find where the input signal goes to the front DSP. I have a feeling that this signal may be set to the front DSP from the rear DSP using a serial bus. There is one track that runs across between the 2 chips. When I touch it with my CRO lead, the distortion sound changes completely and sometimes the sound stops all together. Does anyone know anything about this?
-There seems to be another analogue channel feeding the front DSP chip. It is only a mono channel and on the pinouts I downloaded, it is connected to pins marked as 'not connected'. I suspect this is a phone input.
-There is an IC between the DSP and the amplifier chip. Does anyone know what this is or how it works? From what I can tell, it is either a D to A convertor or an amplifier/voltage shift unit. The supply to it is +12/-10V. I'm having problems measuring signals around this chip and on the input to the amplifier chips.
-The RAM chip seems to be working. I can see the address lines changing and the I/O lines changing.

Anyway, so that's where I'm at. I've looked at it for too long today. If anyone can shed any light on what else I should try, it would be much appreciated. Particularly if anyone knows how the input signal gets to the front channels DSP chip.

 

Nice that you are going that far, but even if you do figure it out, will you be able to get the right chips to fix it?

 

Thanks mate. Some of the chips are common, but others seem specific for the H/K unit.

I had a thought last night that sorta proves in my head that the signal is passed by digital bus from the rear DSP to the front DSP. That thought is fading control... Fading control is working perfectly. In fact, when I fade to the rear, the sound from the rear speakers is fine and the front speakers go silent. The head unit does not send individual front and rear signals to the H/K unit. It only sends the front signal. I can only presume that things like fading, volume, balance, etc are communicated to the H/K over the comms bus. This means that fading is most likely done by the DSP chips. When the front speakers are one, they always distort. Even at a silent part of the CD, but when I fade to the rear, they go completely quiet. This makes me think that there is a high speed serial bus between the 2 DSPs and there is noise on this bus. I could be wrong though...

Then again, I guess there's no reason an analogue signal couldn't enter the front DSP and then be faded internally. As I said earlier, the front DSP has a mono analogue signal connection. Perhaps the DSP chips that have been used only have 2 channel inputs. This means on the front DSP, they've used one of these inputs up with the mono signal and they need to rely on the data bus to pass the signal into the front DSP. Who knows, all speculation at this stage and I'm getting out of my depth. If anyone can confirm the model number of the DSP, it may help clear up a few unknowns.

 

My HK in my 03 MCS failed yesterday, I love my MINI but really frustrated with the constant $1000 repair bills

 

My HK amp died and was intermittent with my iPod retrofit interface. When everything was connected my gauge lights and climate control were intermittent as well. I was able to reproduce the problem when I would connect the iPod cable with the adapter piece. It turns out the WHITE/RED/YELLOW (yellow dots) was the cause of the problem. I would disconnect and the car would function as normal. I would connect the cable and the corky problems would commence. That same cable leads to the HK Amp...

 

Did you ever find out why you Mini Cooper S had static in the HK back speakers? I have the same problem as you described. I'm wondering if I have to buy a new amp...... :\

 

Finally found an amp at a junkyard for $100. Took my dad and I about three hours and a bunch of cussing, but we got the amp replaced and the radio is working again! Sound quality on CDs is great, radio is so-so. But much happier to drive now!

 

I just noticed my driver side speakers go out whenever I hit a bump and come back on when I do the same.

This sounds like bad wiring to me (I replaced the HU and installed the HK enabler myself so who knows) but could this also be a sign of impending amp failure?

 

It sounds like the amp might be on its way out.. Its hard to say though.. Im trying to find out if a person can just change the HK amp out with a aftermarket type.. installing it in the original location of the HK amp.. If a person can I will go that route.. But I cant seem to find any info on here.. If anyone knows just let me know

 

@Zippy... Yes it CAN be done but it's not a quick process. The current amp does all of the cross(ing)over for the speakers. If you change the amp you will need to look at adding crossovers. Also the current setup is only 2ohm so you will need a amp that is stable that low. your back speakers are dual voice coil so you have to watch how you wire them.

Again it CAN be done but I would really advise, if you haven't ever done this kind of work yourself, spend a few extra dollars and have it professionally done.

True you don't get the satisfaction out of doing it yourself but you know it will be done right and in far less time then it would take you. I used to install professionally and I would still pay to have mine redone (if I was keeping the factory speakers).

OGF

 

I have had two R52's and the first thing I did was take out all the HK components and sell them here on the Marketplace. My reasoning was simple, either you are going to be a buyer or seller of an HK amp so I wanted to be proactive and sell while everything worked perfectly. I was able to sell the speakers, amp and head unit for enough to cover about 80% of what I spent on new amp, speakers and head unit. I was able to pick up Bluetooth, iPod control and keep my MFSW capabilities. Just food for thought for those worried about their HK system. As they fail, there are fewer and fewer working components available second hand making those working systems more valuable.

 

Is there something specific about the HK speakers that won't work with a new amp? I really just want to avoid rewiring the car. Don't amps come with crossovers built in and can work with 2 ohms?

 

Yes, they are not the same Ohm as aftermarket components. my stereo installer did not rewire the car but simply used the existing wires with my new setup. He tapped into everything from the HK amp location.

 

Hello all just bought an 04s and the amp went like most of them. I pulled the amp and took it apart and noticed how small the heat sinks were. I decided to clean off all the heat paste and try re flowing them with a heat gun. After re installing the amp worked. Any thoughts?

 

Please share with us detailed photos of what you are describing. I have a dead HK amp on the shelf that I would love to resuscitate.

 

the amp on my 2002 blew. $1000 to replace. sucked.