Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

Is Geek Squad installation actively bad or just not worth it? I found a couple of Pioneer units I like and Best Buy has them listed in their Black Friday ad with installation included.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2017 22:30

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 11:54

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

MikeyTsi posted:

It depends on if you want to have someone else wire up the adapter harness (or hack the poo poo out of your wiring), or if you want to do it yourself.

Also depends a lot on what's included in the installation. Simply wiring up an adapter harness and swapping out a head unit isn't too complicated, but if you also want a iPod/USB hookup and/or microphone for bluetooth and/or etc those can get a bit more time consuming to do yourself.

I have no problems doing the install myself, and I expect to open up the dash again eventually to wire up USB and aux the way I want.

From searching online, it looks like the labor is included, but they frequently charge $40-65 for parts because they require their own overpriced bracket and harness.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2017 17:13

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

Wasabi the J posted:

I would just do it yourself then, unless you have some painfully difficult trim removal. Crutchfield provided detailed instructions, free parts, and even resolved a stupid wiring problem over the phone in ten minutes.

I would order from Crutchfield but I may be able to save $100 by ordering from Best Buy next week.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2017 20:47

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

MikeyTsi posted:

You need to add the cost of the wiring adapter, bezel adapter, and such to that cost. Crutchfield I believe gives you them for free, you're gonna have to pay extra for them if you buy from Best Buy.

Fortunately, I have a super common car and no steering wheel controls. Best Buy quoted me $39 in parts: $17 install kit (bezel and brackets) + $17 harness + $5 materials charge. I found the exact same parts on Amazon for $16 total.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2017 06:15

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

Hashtag Banterzone posted:

My new JBL Car Stereo has a parking break sensor that apparently should be run all the way across the driver's console to a wire in some random harness near the driver's wheel well. Can I just wire it to ground or will that cause issues?

Connecting to ground might work on some stereos, but others will detect that it's never off. There are defeat devices that you hook up to power and ground as well as the parking brake wire. I'm planning to wire mine to a toggle switch that I can tuck behind a trim panel because I really don't want to cut into factory wiring.

MikeyTsi posted:

If you don't have it hooked up it'll probably just break that feature, which probably doesn't matter much because you don't watch movies in your car, right?

This was my plan at first, but my Pioneer won't let me update the firmware unless it detects the parking brake is on.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2018 16:19

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

Easychair Bootson posted:

Mounting the new 6.5" speakers was easy. I put 5 sq ft of sound damping material on each door (both the inner and outer pieces), and the difference between the 4" speakers with no sealing/damping and the 6.5" with the stuff was huge.

Were you following a guide for that? I'm considering sound dampening as an intermediate upgrade. I like what I've seen on https://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/ but their suggested treatment for the front doors is more like $100 and I don't know if it's worth it to do a good job there and nothing anywhere else.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2018 14:31

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

toplitzin posted:

Option 2: it comes with a remote so you can stick that somewhere convenient perhaps.

There should also be a wired remote plug in the back, marked W/R. I got some momentary paddle switches from ebay and wired up a volume switch left of the steering wheel. Much easier to hit without looking or when wearing gloves.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2018 14:38

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

Nichol posted:

E: or this: https://www.amazon.com/2-54MM-Femal...7450969&sr=8-30

Looks like you found it, though it's always hard to tell. Searching JST XH 5-pin brings up a bunch of options. Ebay has some with free but slow shipping; Digikey and Mouser are reliable but shipping isn't free.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2020 15:33

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

I got a Pioneer a couple of years ago with similar requirements to yours. Note that you can use resistive touchscreens with winter gloves, if that's part of your climate. Mine doesn't have a front USB port so I have a mostly-hidden USB extension cord coming through the console trim.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2020 17:38

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

I don't have a camera to plug in but I do use Carplay. Android Auto and Carplay need USB unless you're spending $600+ on a head unit that can do the wireless version.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2020 18:05

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

DrChu posted:

What I want to do is add a couple buttons (or even just one) next to the head unit to work in the same manner. I have some experience building circuits but mostly in the realm on guitar electronics, so I�m not worried about wiring a resistor to a button and then to a jack, but is this all much more complicated than that?

I used this site to wire a couple of paddle switches to my Pioneer. The resistor values may be different but hopefully the basic circuit is the same.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2021 17:39

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

DrChu posted:

That sounds a lot like what I�m looking for. Any pictures of the work you did?

Paddle switches near my left knee mounted on some blank panel plugs. Volume on the left, Carplay display toggle and Siri on the right.

Overengineered circuit board because I was bored. Stuff options for resistors and diodes.

Laserface posted:

anyone in here know how a scroll wheel (like a mouse) sends signals? is each up/down notch on the wheel effectively a button press?

I want to replace my steering wheel volume control with a wheel instead of buttons because I have a sickness that can only be cured by having the ability to rapidly crank sick tunes in my car and my head unit is touchscreen only.

I have the means to make the PCB and the plastic bezel to make it look neat and fit it to the wheel like its supposed to be there so thats not an issue.

I wouldn't count on finding simple up/down signals inside a mouse wheel.

I think I found what you're looking for. A continuous turning volume knob is a rotary encoder, specifically an incremental encoder. These have quadrature encoded outputs that require you to watch the sequence of two lines. For example: https://www.bourns.com/docs/Product-Datasheets/PEC12R.pdf From there you'll need a quadrature decoder chip/logic gate circuit/Arduino firmware that can turn that into direction pulses.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2021 07:23

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

I'm looking into building a subwoofer for my car this year. On the Kicker U app, an 8" CompVR has a maximum sealed box volume of 1.8ft³, same as the 15" CompVR's minimum volume. Those two configurations generate identical response curves as far as I can tell. Does that sound right? What are the other tradeoffs on speaker size besides cost and power handling?

# ¿ Feb 23, 2021 05:17

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

Don Dongington posted:

a 12" is a really good compromise between space and bass, and provided you put the right box around it and give it enough amplifier, should be enough for most non-competition setups.

There's not a lot of hard information out there so I appreciate this bottom line.

I think I have a plan. Trying to keep this under $400 to start.

$150-200 mono class D amp, 250-500w. The Kicker CX400.1 looks good right now. Planning to mount it on a (non-conductive) shelf below the rear deck speakers.
$70-100 12" driver
$30 box materials - sealed box, 3/4" MDF, 13" x 13" x whatever the driver wants
$100 cables and wires - running 4 awg power so I could add a four-channel amp later on

# ¿ Feb 26, 2021 05:19

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

DrChu posted:

I'm hoping to find some more because the wireless remote can directly access like two dozen functions, but I can't use that while driving.

Maybe you could. You can get a 10' USB-powered IR repeater for $10. Put one end in front of the remote and the other on the center console or rear deck or something.

If you want different buttons, you could open up the remote and solder some wires to the circuit board.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2021 04:40

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

Don Dongington posted:

Cone area translates more strongly to volume than low frequency response, so an 8 or 10 is also going to underperform there too.

I've seen this in general, where larger sizes have higher sensitivity, but the ones I'm looking at now are an exception.

DA HO 10" DVC 90.5 dB @ 2.83V/1m
DA HO 12" DVC 84.6 dB @ 2.83V/1m

Is there something weird they're doing with this measurement? That 90.5 is an outlier anyway.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2021 03:25

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

The lightning port in my iphone is dying so I'm trying to switch to wireless everywhere. I have a 2010 car with no GPS and a 2017 Pioneer head unit with no GPS and wired carplay that I want to upgrade to wireless.

I saw some posts on r/carplay that say most of those wired carplay adapters need a GPS signal from the car but some have GPS built in. Other posters say their adapter setup sucks at nav depending on where their phone is, implying that the adapters can still use the phone's GPS. The adapter descriptions almost always state that they only work with factory-wired carplay and never mention this GPS limitation.

Is anyone else in this same situation? Am I out of luck unless I upgrade my head unit?

edit: Through a really weird coincidence, I now have a 'ujizyav' wireless carplay adapter. The Amazon description has the same generic language I mentioned above and it works fine. Navigation is good and the startup time and UI lag really seem to be no worse than I experienced with a wired connection.

edit2: Startup takes an extra 20 seconds and audio controls have 1-1.5 seconds of lag. Still really happy with it.

Captain Cool fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Nov 10, 2023

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 03:08

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 11:54

Captain Cool: Oct 23, 2004; This is a song about messin' with people who've been messin' with you

I probably read something wrong, but it kind of makes sense that wireless carplay tries to use your car's GPS to save battery. https://www.reddit.com/r/CarPlay/comments/htjb9k/gps_data_from_car_or_phone/

# ¿ Nov 7, 2023 03:49

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder