I replaced my HK amp with an aftermarket amp.

I loved my HK sound system and it was one of the reasons I bought the Mini I did but when the HK amp died, I decided I wasn’t going to pay what I think is a high price for technology that I think is getting up there in years. I’ve kept the original HU and HK speakers but changed the amp. Thanks to the info I found on this site and GBMINI’s site, here’s how I did it:

When the HU is disconnected from the HK amp, it reverts back to being a regular CD/radio so for now, I’m using the original HU. Using the pin-out info from GBMINI, I wired the doors speakers in series to jump from 2 ohms to 4. I wired the rear speaker dual voice coils in series in order to get them to 4 ohms too. All wiring connections can be made in the compartment where the old HK amp used to be, using the old amp wiring, and I didn’t have to remove any interior pieces. I bought a 4 channel slim-line Sony amp (under $200) that accepted speaker outputs from the HU. The HU only supplies front channel speaker outputs so they are also used for the rear channels by tying them together. The amp has front and rear levels so they can act as a fader. I mounted the amp in the recessed area over top of the old HK amp door so I wanted a smaller physical size amp but other amps will work. In fact you probably can mimic most of the HK amp’s features by spending a little more for an amp with an equalizer etc.

GBMINI's info: http://gbmini.net/downloads/PGEN/main.htm

Anyway…I hope this helps folks that are driving around missing their music like I did for several weeks.

 

With no true crossovers in the doors, I wonder how clear it sounds? And if it distorts much at higher volumes?

 

Sounds great to me but I'm no audiophile. There is no decernable distortion at my listening levels and the amp allows adjustments for the front and rear channels. I have the front channel set for midrange and highs and the rear for bass up to midrange. At some point I will add crossovers and I may replace the speakers and HU.

 

I'm glad someone else did a write up on this. I did this a few years ago and I have had people ask me how to do it but I don't have the write up anymore. So I'm glad someone did a wire up again.


By the way. I ended up pulling all the wiring out of my car and rewiring and putting a whole need system in with DVD player ,jbl speakers and 4 channel amp.

 

Thanks so much for sharing this! My HK died today..
If I may ask, what model amp did you use? And can you explain further how to wire the speakers in series? Alternately, would't the factory speakers work ok with a 2-ohm-stable amp?
bo

 

Lets say you are working on the one of the doors

To run speakers in Series:::: You take the negative of the tweeter in the door and you put it to the Positive of the woofer in the door. You take the positive of the tweeter and go to the amp positive. You take the woofer negative and you go to the negative on the amp. This will bring the 2 ohm speaker up to 4 ohms.

Sub/Mid Bass in the back. (If you don't know the subs in the back are dual coils which means there is two positive and two negative).

To run speakers in series::::: Take the negative from the top of the sub to the positive of the bottom of the sub. Top positive goes to the amp positive. Bottom negative goes to amp negative.

Hope that helps.

 

Cool. Thanks!

 

Ordered an amp (Alpine MRP-F300) and am awaiting it's arrival.
A thought occurs to me:
The head units are the same in both the base system and the HK, right?
If the base unit has a rear channel (doesn't it?) then my HK head unit generates a rear channel signal - it's just not sent through the wiring that runs back to the amp.
So - can I get the rear output at the head unit?
Are the rear wires up there at all?
I doubt it but I'd like to know for sure..

 

The connector for rear outputs is on back of HU.
But in HK mode the HU sends full "volume" from front speaker outputs, which amp reduces digitally.
I'd bet the rears are either shut off to save overheating, or maybe are also sent at full volume.

 

After exploratory surgery on my '03 formerly - HK S, I found this:

The wires that would have powered the rear channels are not present at the back of my head unit. The pins on the HU are there, but the wires themselves are absent from the harness.

Having recently removed the dead HK amp, I noticed that some of the pins on said dead amp look very much like the pins on the HU that drive the rear speakers...

LIGHT COMES ON!

I simply removed 4 wires from the HK harness & snipped them off a few inches above their contacts. With a little finesse (disassemble the HU harness connector, pry out the blue thingy, insert contact pilfered from dead amp) they drop right into the HU harness, thus providing the elusive rear channel signal - tested & functional!

I will be running speaker wire from my newly operational HU rear outs to my (in transit) Alpine amp - enabling fader function via HU controls and negating the need to split the HU output to run 4 amp channels .

Film at 11:00, or sometime soon after my new amp arrives.

Cheers, thanks & peace - Bo

 

Welp, amp is here (MRP F300) but I lost a tweeter (toast!) during the install so it's not done - awaiting a pair of Infinity Reference 1031ts...

Preliminary observations:
This amp's rear channel will happily drive both voice coils of the HK rears (wired parallel). Doesn't break a sweat..
I was getting a lot of distortion in the front. Studying my remaining HK tweeter, I realized that it's really a 2-way speaker & suspected it's tiny "woofer" was unhappy. I desoldered the terminal that drives the "woofer" & attached that wire to the tweeter's capacitor, disabling the li'l woofer altogether. She sounds much happier now!
Anyone experiencing distortion issues with the HK tweets & an aftermarket amp may wish to try this. It is reversible & made a very noticeable difference in my (admittedly handicapped) case.
Can't wait to get the Infinities installed...

 

The upper speakers are a midrange / tweeter pair and you don't want to send full frequency range to both (as you found!)

I guess this pic would have been helpful!
http://gbmini.net/G2/v/General/Stere...eeter.jpg.html

 

Suffering from the HK amplifier death, I searched around for one out of a wrecked car and finally decided that it was time to junk the HK.
I went to a local Auto Stereo place and got a great system that wasn't too costly and it is far better in so many ways over the OEM HK system. I got a Pioneer DEH-P5200HD. The shop owner at City Car Radio, in San Rafael, CA knew exactly what to do with a MINI as he said that BMWs & Mercedes-Benzs suffer the same BS from the antiquated amps.
He used an adapter to wire then new head unit/CD into the OEM HK speakers by running the wires back by the amp. This Pioneer actually blasts so much more sound from those HK speakers. I can also dial up tons of bass, it has a USB input plug to hook in ipod. iphones, etc. It is sattelite ready should I ever choose to add that, it has built in sub woofer power and is a HD Radio. He also used a couple of other adapters that keeps the steering wheel controls active and it looks good in the dash with red lights on the removable panel face.
I couldn't be happier with the results, and the total cost of all of it installed was only $649!

 

I'm working on doing something similar. I'm going to try wiring the front door speakers in series, and I have bought some capacitors to filter out low frequencies in the tweeter, but now I need some help. Which direction do I need to wire it up so that it filters out low stuff for the tweeter but not for the mid-range?

 

As I understand it, you should be good by running the amp + to lower door +, lower door - to your cap, your cap to upper door + & upper door - to amp - .
That way, the lower door gets full signal, the upper's mid gets same minus the low freqs. your cap removes (presumably yours has a lower cut off than the integrated cap feeding the tweet on the upper assy.), and the upper's tweet gets what it always did above it's own cap's cut off.
Hope that makes sense, & if so, hope it works!

 

On a side note, the remote turn on lead in the factory harness works fine and comes on with the head unit, even with the ignition off. No need to run a remote-on wire to the accessory socket!

 

My alpine replacement amp works great, fade and balance work fine, etc, but the Navigation voice is extremely loud and can't be controlled through the navi menu (max and min sound the same) or through the head unit volume control.
Anyone else have this problem? Any suggestions?