Stereo Upgrades

Upgrading the factory stereo

As with any fully integrated factory system, upgrading the stereo is tricky business. It can be done, but I hope you learn from my mistakes.

I don't have the Auditorium system. I began my stereo upgrade by rather innocently changing out the mid bass and tweeter drivers in the front doors with MB Quart units. Having done this sort of thing many times before, albiet not recently, I was very confident in my ability to do it right. Well, the entire system stopped working a couple of weeks after my upgrade. I couldn't imagine that a simple speaker upgrade could be responsible. Well, I'm afraid speaker compatibility technology has gone beyond me. It turns out that the separate crossover employed by the MB Quarts were, "Fooling," the factory amp into thinking there were twice as many speakers in the front, which was causing it to turn off. I'm told that the NIT unit is parceled with the factory amplifier, so it is unclear whether the NIT was damaged also (The NIT is the hardware that drives the InfoCentre's functions). The end result was that the factory amp was unable to drive just about any quality after-market product. If you saw the quality of the drivers in my non-Auditorium equipped car, you would understand that anybody with audiophile tendencies could never be happy!

Given this dilemma, I had an aftermarket stereo installer, recommended by the dealer, install a 6 channel JL Audio amplifier. They took the low level signal from the NIT/Amp module (located under the center arm rest) and rewired the system to the new amp and speakers. We kept the MB's in the doors, and upgraded the 5& 1/4's on the rear parcel shelf to coaxial Alpine drivers. We left the rear left and right panel speakers alone. Finally, I added an Infinity Basslink powered subwoofer in the trunk to carry some of the low end that the stock system doesn't naturally create because of the lack of a suitable enclosure. The sound is a significant improvement over the stock system, with much more stereo separation and, "Musicality," if that makes any sense to you.

The cost of the upgrade was about $1,500.00 including the MB's I put in. It was not without headache. The NIT module is very sensitive from what I'm told. The installers, despite routinely working on cars costing multiples of what ours does, sliced the black lower upholstered panel on the rear passenger side and chipped the burl trim piece (which must come off to get any panel off the car). They stand by their work, and the new parts are on their way, no questions asked. I suppose if this type of work is going to be performed, in small places by big people, this sort of thing can happen. On balance, I'm very happy that I decided to do the upgrade, because going backwards and re-installing the factory speakers just seemed wrong. Keep in mind, I am an avocational musician, enjoy a reference quality sound system at home, and have a home recording studio. Thus, I approach these things with a bit more, shall we say, "Enthusiasm," than others.

Feel free to contact me should you have any additional questions.

yeah, the ipod is the reason that i have been investigating this myself

we had a customer buy a car, and wanted to integrate his

it looks like dension usa makes a kit to integrate the ipod with the stock stereo, which replaces the cd changer in the system, both in phyiscal connection, and interface www.densionusa.com

here is where the fun comes in.. dension's international site www.dension.comlists the maserati as compatible, and using the becker cd changer format..

"Becker

Models compatible with the Becker Silverstone 7860 CD changer. This includes DTM, Mexico, Mexico Pro, Monza, Traffic Pro, Traffic Pro High Speed and Online Pro as well as selected manufacturer-branded head units used in Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and pre-2003 Porsche.

Please note that the following single-DIN navigation systems also use the Becker CD changer protocol: Sony MEX-100NV.

Dension's Becker interface cable set occupies the green and blue mini-ISO sockets on Becker head units. The blue mini-ISO socket is also used for telephone audio input and Dension's cable set includes audio positive and ground connections for connection to a handsfree cellular car kit."

now we know that maserati uses blaupunkt cd changers...

"Blaupunkt

Models compatible with the CDC-A08, CDC-A03 or CDC-I09 CD changers."


dension's usa site does not mention maserati at all

so first i tried to find out what model changer the maser's use. no luck there. so then i contacted dension. last i heard, they were still trying to work with maserati to make a compatible unit.


at this point, all i have are pinouts \ connecter diagrams \ specs, which i will post here asap.

Hardwiring a 1/8" stereo jack for Ipod type device

Dear Membership,

With these excellent diagrams and notations in hand, I sucessfully spliced into the CD changer outputs and installed a 1/8" stereo jack. While I was able to get IPod signal through the stereo, the system would not play the Ipod's output unless a CD was also playing at the same time. Pausing the CD apparently shuts down the output of the amplifier (preamplifier?), so that too killed the IPod's ouput. Also, the IPod was unable to put a signal out strong enough to be anywhere near the same volume as the other components i.e. radio, CD changer, in-dash CD, etc., when wired in this fashion. I used single strand #18 guage wire. Any better ideas as to where to splice in to the system? As I have an after-market amp which is fed by attenuated speaker outputs from the factory head-unit, I was considering splicing into the speaker output/amp input pair but fear the IPod will not have enough juice as a preamp. Any thoughts?

Frankie P

Final IPod Jack Configuration

Dear Membership,

With some additional research, and again assisted by the excellent diagrams herein, I installed a three conductor/five pin 1/8" female jack between the CD changer and factory amplifier inputs. When the jack is empty, the CD changer signal continues unabated to the factory amp. When the 1/8" male jack is inserted, the CD changer signal is interrupted, and the audio source connected to the male 1/8" jack plays. The InfoCentre thinks your IPod or MP3 player is a CD. While the output of the IPod is much less than the radio or CD changer, the InfoCentres volume has plenty of headroom, so I get a clean signal to my aftermarket amp despite the relatively high setting on the InfoCentre's volume control. The only strange thing is that unless an IPod or other device is actually connected via a 1/8" cable, I can hear a little bit of the CD that's playing in the changer. As soon as a component is connected via the 1/8" cable (plugged in to the female jack and plugged in to the MP3 player) the faint CD changer signal is completely distinguished. You cannot hear any CD changer signal when using the IPod. Just for elegance, I intend on recording a blank CD for insertion into one of the five available slots and using that CD when using my Ipod. While at it, I went ahead and modified a 12 volt DC IPod charger, connecting it to the cigarette lighter, so that the under-armrest compartment contains both the 1/8" female jack and the power cord for the IPod. I must say, considering the lousy reception of our stock radio and lack of diversity inherent in a 5 disc changer, I am very pleased with the outcome.

Ciao,