Surround sound in the Z3, any suggestions?

[Dobiwallah]

Hi all,

Since a few years I have the crazy idea that I want to have a surround system in my Zed. I have a huge collection of 5.1 dts wav music files. So last week I finally found the time to figure some stuff out and I decided to pull some cables before the hardtop goes up for the winter. (brrr, winter here in NZ is between 12 and 18 degrees Celsius during the day)

This what I had in mind: A old netbook in the trunk, connected to a external USB sound card (with remote control) The sound card will be connected to a car amplifier. I wanted to put instead of the head unit, a motorized touch screen. However, although these screens were readily available on the internet a few years ago, this market is totally vaporized. There is no single screen to find these days.

I came up with controlling the netbook with the smart phone, a Galaxy S4 in this case. I did some test during my night shifts and found out that using bluetooth has its limitations. I don't want limitations, so the next step was using wifi. I found a app in the app store with which I can control the netbook with the phone (but not while driving). Luckily, the external soundcard comes with a remote control (only in selected countries) to forward and skip music.

The netbook will serve as an AP. With the wifi I also can upload music from my server to the zed. The netbook has a ssd inside to reduce the power consumption. Theoretically my battery can feed the netbook 94 hours if it is on, and 1015 hour in sleep mode.

Untill so far I have:
A used netbook,
a pioneer woofer
pulled cables
Created a nice setup sheet

Unfortunately, this zed was not delivered with a amplifier, I have to sort that out yet.

If there is anybody with some good ideas, let me know. Below my setup and some pictures.

Keep the screws separate

 

[zedonist]

Looking good, one question from me at the moment is don't you need a centre speaker for 5.1?

 

[Cooper]

I am bookmarking this thread so please update as you make progress! Thanks.

 

[Dobiwallah]

Just a small update. I can't do a lot at the moment, I have to do a 8 night shift cover from 6pm to 6am. bad for the mood, good for the money

@zedonist. Uhh, yeh you're right, no 5.1, but 4.1. I think the software which comes with the soundblaster card divides the centre speaker over the front speakers.

I bought the Soundblaster card for $110 Ozzie dollars on ebay. And I bought a used JVC KS-AX3204 amplifier for NZ$57. Plus 1 RCA cable and 2 3.5 mm stereo cable to connect the soundblaster and the amplifier.

I still need to sort out the front and rear speakers..

 

[Dobiwallah]

By the way, my Zed went over the 60.000k last weekend. I am now on 61.000km, I had to go from Napier to Auckland for my sons eye operation, a nice long drive .

 

[Lewy]

Be interesting to follow this one. One question, if you're going to use a phone anyway, do you need the netbook?

 

[Lewy]

This is something I've been looking to do this summer

 

[Dobiwallah]

Be interesting to follow this one. One question, if you're going to use a phone anyway, do you need the netbook?

I need the netbook for the 4.1 music. I have many DTS 5.1 .wav music files. Means 4 channels instead of stereo. Or quadrophonic? The Galaxy phone can output surround sound, but only via a (mini) hdmi connection. There is no car amplifier with a hdmi input who can process pure DTS data. I have had a look at a used home cinema system, but that is getting to complex and difficult to control in a car.

Your harness adapter looks like a good idea, but not for me. I like to keep power on my stock radio in case I need to build it back for some reason. I don't know the master pincode of the radio

 

[Dobiwallah]

I finished my night shifts and was able to to some work on my sound system today and yesterday. I have connected my amplifier and the cables to the front. And because all the upholstery was removed, I have stuck pieces of sound deadener in the trunk. Don't get me wrong, I like the sound of the exhaust, but not if you drive 500 km from Napier to Auckland .

So on the end of today I tested my amp. The baby rear speakers worked fine, but the front speakers gave not a sound. I did some research and found out that the left kick panel speaker on the passenger side has a print circuit in it. The speaker has 3 pair of twisted wires, and 3 single wires. I am not sure yet, it looks like it is a crossover or amplifier or so. I have to check a diagram for this. If there is anybody who knows?
1 pair Blue/Purple Blue/Grey
1 pair Blue/Brown Blue/Black
1 pair yellow/Brown Yellow/Black
Single White
Single Brown
Single Red/White

My new second hand amplifier and new soundcard:

Taping the cable to the chassis:

Sticking the sound deadener to the end:

Fuses tapped directly from the battery. Amplifier wire is 4mm2:

One red wire for the amp and one for the netbook. Amp is fused 30A, netboor 2A.

Soldering the baby speakers to the new wires. Taped the holes with aluminium tape.

This was the plan. Using the original plug to connect the front speakers, and leave the original radio powered, so it won't loose its pin number. But now with my newly discovered connections in the left speaker, I don't know if this will work.

Since the original high input plugs did not come with my amp, I used plugs from my RC quadcopter project...

The speaker with 9 wires:

This is most likely why the left speaker is Euro130 and the right speaker only Euro30 on the parts list..

 

[zedonist]

Thats looking good, yes you are correct the left speaker is also an amplifier one of the many in the BMW system (depending on which one you have), This is one of the reasons why i left all the oem wires in place and ran all new speaker wire. I was not bothered about the door tweeters as they are in the wrong place anyway for good sound stage, and put the tweeters in front of the windscreen by the A pillar.

Just another thing, i cant see from the pictures but i think you will have it sorted, make sure the Amplifier ground wire is as short as possible, otherwise you will pick up the sound frequency of the alternator and have a very nice revving sound through your stereo.

 

[Dobiwallah]

I have found indeed on http://www.zroadster.net/forum/view...ostdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=iso+adapter that it is an amplifier, and how to bypass. I am gone unsolder the plug from the speaker amp and use it to bypass the amp. I don't like to cut in my wire harness. I brought the ground wire directly to the battery, which is about 30 a 40 cm away.

 

[Dobiwallah]

I disassembled the amp from the speaker and had a look at it and thought, nah. I pulled 2 new cables to the side speakers because:
Otherwise the speaker wires of the right speaker are 2 meters longer than the left speaker.
The stock speaker wires are hardly 0.5mm2, which is rather thin for speaker wire.
And I want as less connections in the cable as possible.

I couldn't get a good sound out the front speakers, the rear ones worked fine. It took me half an hour to find the crossover of the new amp on woofer position

The sound is already better with the new amp (via the fone). I hoop my new speakers will arrive soon.

 

[zedonist]

You won't get a good sound bypassing that amp, plus the stock speakers are not that good.

It will sound nice when your new speakers arrive.

 

[Dobiwallah]

One update. I have placed all the gear I wanted and had a lot of hurdles to take. To control the laptop with my smartphone, I needed to install an access point. I tried 4 pieces of software to do this, but some of them just stopped after 20minutes. After a long search on the net I finally found a .bat script which was setting up a virtual access point. Now I could connect to my phone with the app https://www.unifiedremote.com/

The real test I did when I was driving to my work. I found out that the netbook was not capable of processing the 5.1 DTS sound. The processor just couldn't handle it. I beefed up the FSB of the netbook and got 1800mHz instead of 1600mHz out of the processor. But this was still not enough. The music was stuttering, and the remote control was not always responding, because the processor was busy.

After one night shift I found my Zed with the battery flat. Theoretically the battery could supply the netbook 48 hours of power (calculated), but it didn't make even 12 hours....

Then I found out that if the netbook goes in sleep mode, the wireless access point is not starting up, so no remote control with the phone. At that point I decided to postpone the 5.1 project for a while. The only solution I can think of is a more powerful carputer and a remote wired screen. These items has not been on my budget for this project, so it will be a future project.

In the meantime my new speakers arrived from Germany, and I used this weekend to build them in. I thought I can do this in a afternoon, but that took 2,5 days. I placed the tweeters also in the corners of the front windshields. Pulling the wires for this was another yoga session for me. Lying on your back with the feet in the air trying to make all the wires invisible. The new speakers are making a big difference. Just awesome I also placed the hardtop back, winter is coming. (that's what they say on Game Of Thrones anyway)

I am using my phone for the music, and have disabled the business radio. The phone is attached with velcro on the dashboard. First I used a mr. Wong Bluetooth dongle, but it just looked like the music was missing something, like a kind of flat, now I just plug the phone in with a 3.5mm audio jack. The galaxy S4 has a great DAC inside I read somewhere.

Some pictures:
My intentional setup:

The remote control/external audio card stitched with Velcro on the side. The idea was great of course...

This is the part I never like, cutting in a unharmed original part of a car...

Opened up the crossfader, just a coil and capacitor inside:

Wrapped the crossfader in packing material, so it won't make a annoying noise when driving:

Pushing the wires in with a creditcard:

Front speaker:

Rear speaker:

Tweeter front:

And on the end, mrs Dobiwallah was able to rip the door handle off when her dress was between the door....can't glue that back

 

[Jack Ratt]

@Dobiwallah your last post may as well have been written in "Klingon"

Wish I was a techy.

When I left school we didn't even have pocket calculators, we used slide rules or a pen and a big piece of paper

I've just fitted a new Alpine mechless head in my Zed and I feel like I've re wired a jumbo jet.

Have to say though that my electrical/electronic capabilities don't stretch much further than putting batteries in a torch

 

[Dobiwallah]

@Dobiwallah your last post may as well have been written in "Klingon"

Wish I was a techy.

When I left school we didn't even have pocket calculators, we used slide rules or a pen and a big piece of paper

I've just fitted a new Alpine mechless head in my Zed and I feel like I've re wired a jumbo jet.

Have to say though that my electrical/electronic capabilities don't stretch much further than putting batteries in a torch

electrician ghaH broad Daj, bit QaH 'e'...

(edit: translate to Klingon)

 

[Cooper]

@FluxMorz have you read through this thread? Thought you would be interested.

 

[zedonist]

How good are those Hertz Speakers