Help Fitting In Phase Usw10 Under Seat Subwoofer In Aygo Go!

[Guest]

Hi Guys/Girls,

I’m looking to install an In Phase USW10 active Subwoofer into my Aygo Go and could do with some help.

Due to the Sat Nav integration, I want to keep my factory Head Unit. I don’t really know much about car audio and wanted to know the best way to wire the sub.

Ok, so here is an image of the sub at the back showing the connections:

I have never seen the back of an Aygo head unit, but I’m assuming there is no RCA output to connect to the sub. So would I need to get a high to low level converter such as...

Or is there a better way to connect to the sub? My other issue is, the RCA converters look like they need 4 speaker wires and I don’t want to lose/unwire any of my Speakers. How could I make sure all Speakers AND the sub are wired up, is there some kind of splitter I could get? Sorry if I’m being stupid!

Any help would be much appreciated as I want to get it fitted this week!

[Jan van de Wouw]

You don't need a convertor, as it is included in the Sub.

The connector to the right says "Power/Speaker Input", which clues me in that it takes power there AND high-level inputs.

Since there are 10 pins I'm wondering how exactly it's supposed to be wired up (7 pins would be enough),

but that should be coveren in the installation manual of the actual subwoofer...

If you DO decide to get another head unit it IS possible to keep the TomTom-system! I can supply you with a cable

that provides power to the TomTom and features a plug you can hook up to a (rear)AUX-in for playing the TomToms'

music over the Speakers of the car. Navigation-voice and HandsFree sounds are still handled by the existing mute-box...

[Unklian]

Agree with Jan......

You don't need a convertor, as it is included in the Sub.

The connector to the right says "Power/Speaker Input"

If you have the instructions which came with the amp so you can find which are the correct inputs.

What I did was......Using the Power / Speaker input.

If you lift the door rubber where it runs along the sill at the bottom of the door,

you can then lift the carpet edge where you will find lots of wires.

On each side of the car are the speaker wires which run to the rear of the car.

They're a fairly obvious "extra" pair of wires, taped to the main loom.

Sorry, I can't remember the colours but I believe on each side is a black wire and a coloured wire.

I cut into those, spliced a wire in and made the joint good with heat shrink tubing.

These wires were then run under the carpet to exit where the seat air-bag wiring exits.

I placed the amp under the passenger seat.

You will also have to run a fused power lead to your Battery under the bonnet & an earth lead.

Looking at your amp, you will also need an ignition sense wire so the amp. is only powered up when the

ignition is on. If it is left powered up all the time, your Battery will soon go flat.

I'm unsure what your "rem" input is for?

Possibly a remote on / off switch or is it to adjust input levels via a rotary knob?

It's difficult trying to explain without more detail.

Ian.

[Jan van de Wouw]

Since Stokenash has an Aygo Go! I doubt if there will be wires running to the rear:

current Aygo's have the "rears" fitted in the front door pockets...

It'll be much easier to run the entire iring through the center: you can remove the plastic around the gear lever with one bolt

and the bit over the radio removes with just one screw. Then you can tap into the Speakers and the ignition (from the radio,

so the sub powers up when you use the radio with the ignition off).

The only wire you'll have to run to the Battery is the main feed; you can get ground at one of the bolts at the ECU that sits

underneath the heater-box. Do NOT use the bolts for the gear lever or the seats: they doe NOT give you good ground!

You can tap off the ignition-wire from the loom to the TomTom at the green mini-ISO on the back of the radio.

My guess on the "REM"plug would be a bass-controll, so you can put the sub somewhere unreachable and still control

the amount of bass. On the Pioneer TS-WX11A I have there's ONLY a remote, no controls on the sub itsself...

[geezbeez]

Don't know what people think about these, Aygo is not as bad as most cars bad but changing head units can be a problm with radios integrated into dash, and sat nav, steering wheel controls, in dash lcd displays sometimes rear parking sensors etc..

http://www.avantalk.com/products02.php?id=58

should be possible to leave Aygo head unit on the front dash Speakers for satnav and FM radio use an under seat sub, front and rear Speakers with amps, have everything hidden and just do everything thru bluetooth.

[Jan van de Wouw]

The radio in the Aygo is just a 1DIn-unit with an oddly shaped front, so you can replace theat easily.

SatNav can be kept with an after market radio by use of a special cable. They don't seem to exist in retail,

so I spent some time on researching and built them myself. I've helped out 3 or 4 people so far

and they were very happy. Steering-controls and in-dash displays are no issue on our cars.

The thing you're showing looks nice, but then you've got a small box dangling at the front of the radio

and you're still relying on the internals of the OEM radio to get the sound to the rest of the system...

[Guest]

Thanks for all the advice and fast responses! I’ve been told using the speaker input would be worse quality that using the RCA converters, is this true?

Where do i connect the speaker wires to the back of the head unit As there is no spare connections? Do i have to split one of the speaker wires that are already in use? Would this result in losing power to the Speakers? Is there a splitter that could be used rather than damaging the wires? Or is there actually a spare connection on the head unit for this kind of thing?

Sorry for all the questions, it’s just this is the only part i don’t understand.

Many thanks!

[Unklian]

Thanks for all the advice and fast responses! I’ve been told using the speaker input would be worse quality that using the RCA converters, is this true?

Where do i connect the speaker wires to the back of the head unit As there is no spare connections? Do i have to split one of the speaker wires that are already in use? Would this result in losing power to the speakers? Is there a splitter that could be used rather than damaging the wires? Or is there actually a spare connection on the head unit for this kind of thing?

Sorry for all the questions, it’s just this is the only part i don’t understand.

Many thanks!

Direct connection to RCA is ideal.

We don't have that option on the Aygo.

So, direct connection to the speaker wires is (I believe) the best option.

Adding an RCA converter simply does externally at extra cost, what the innards of the amplifier does to the speaker level inputs internally.

And also adds more connections and potential for losing sound quality.

(Jan may know better, I bow to his wisdom with things electrical).

Tapping into the speaker wires......

You are not disconnecting the rear Speakers, you are joining another wire to them along their length.

The best way to do this is to cut the wire, trim the ends then solder back together with the extra wire attached.

(Sort of like a lower case "l" turned into a lower case "t")

The Speakers are still powered but the extra lead goes to your amp. One from the left channel, one from the right.

Cutting, soldering & using heat shrink gives a good quality, neat, insulated connection.

Ian.

[Jan van de Wouw]

I can't add much to Unklian's explanation.

You won't loose power to the Speakers as the impedance of the inputs on the sub is very high.

Ther will be a VERY small amount of loss, but it'll be unnoticable.

Cutting into the existing wires may be a pain in the backside, so I'd get a n ISO extension-lead

and splice into that. Common practice is to tap a sub off at the REAR Speakers, so you'd use

the "outer" connections. Wires on an extension will probably be purple a+ purple w/ black stripe for right rear

and green + green w/ black stripe for left rear. The black stripe denotes the negative lead.

The white and grey pairs are for the front Speakers, you leave those as they are.

[Guest]

Thanks again everyone, I’m going to attempt to install tonight and will post back with the results. Two more questions, where do I connect the ignition sense wire? I understand what it’s for but where do i connect it and how? I read somewhere there is a connection at the back of the headunit for this.

Also, any recommendations for the best place to earth the sub? Playing it safe and double checking to avoid destroying my new car!

Thanks :)

[Guest]

Just tried and failed :( I was ok with every wire, tapping Speakers etc. but really couldn’t figure out the "ignition sense" wire. Obviously one end goes into the Sub, but the other end has 2 connections, see below image:

I really don’t know where these connect. Do the both need to be connected? Where to? I read there is a connection on the back of the sat nav that can be used, which one? What colour?

Really need precise details as i don’t want to tap the wrong wires.

Alternatively could they be connected directly to the fuse box? And how would this be done?

Thanks again!

[Jan van de Wouw]

You can cut off the plugs on the blue wire, or you can make a wire wth an opposite to one of those onto the power of the TomTom.

Looking at the bundle of wires there should be a red wire, leading into the GREEN bit

of the mini-ISO plugset. It should be in the middle row, next to the yello bit.

This red wire will go "live" when you switch on the ignition, but it wil ALSO do so when

you turn on the radio without the ignition on, so that wre should be the one of choice.

[Guest]

You can cut off the plugs on the blue wire, or you can make a wire wth an opposite to one of those onto the power of the TomTom.

Looking at the bundle of wires there should be a red wire, leading into the GREEN bit

of the mini-ISO plugset. It should be in the middle row, next to the yello bit.

This red wire will go "live" when you switch on the ignition, but it wil ALSO do so when

you turn on the radio without the ignition on, so that wre should be the one of choice.

Thanks for this Jan, starting to make a bit more sense! Do you know why there are 2 connections at the end of the blue wire? do i only need to use one? or do i cut off the end before it splits into 2?

[Jan van de Wouw]

There are two possibilities for having two connections: you can easily plug it in between an existing wire,

or so you have more chance of allready having the appropriate "opposite" on the wire you need to connect to.

Since for plugging in between it would make more sense to have a male and a female plug I'm thinking it's the second option.

Either way you can just cut of fthe plug or plugs and solder the remaining end to the red wire on the green mini-ISO...

Do NOT use a ScotchLok, als with the thin wire and the wires being different

gauges I can allmost guarantee the connection to be bad to non-existent...