[Ez_linear]

After 5 months, new 6.5" speakers, 2 different amp1 units, and new EHU, I finally figured out what the problem with my door speakers were. It hit me after I had 2 different amps giving the EXACT same 'popping noise' in the door speakers. Turns out there was something wrong with the wires going from amp1 to the speakers. I haven't figured out exactly what it is just yet, but I moved amp1 to the rear and got clean sound out of some 5.25" speakers.

Essentially, if your door speaker has bad sound, but your O-Bus loop is still complete, amp1 is probably still useful.

Now I have it in the trunk, and took the line output into my sub amplifier and I have full bass now. I'm planning to run new wires into the door speakers but haven't figured all the specifics out for that yet. If anyone wants more info I have photos and stuff I haven't uploaded anything yet, but I'm thinking of putting up a blog with all the tests and stuff I have discovered with this audio system so far. Plus its a messy install right now (again, no time for pretty stuff) but I'll tear it all down and do a clean install and probably put some worthwhile equipment instead of the budget stuff I threw in for testing. I'll put up more details when I have the time, I just got into work and I'm just so excited about how good it sounds now I just had to announce it lol.

Thanks for all the excellent insight and great tips I got from all of you guys too. I definitely couldn't have gotten this far without your help!

On a related note, I need to find a techII programmer to add aux-in to my ICM2. CD changer skips like crazy on this car.

 

[davidlyx]

Share the with us! Thanks in advance.

 

[Ez_linear]

Sorry I haven't had a chance to gather everything but I'm just gonna make this short. My phone actually crapped out on me and I lost all the photos I took while doing this. It's pretty straight forward though.

Basically I followed what this guy named gfgf had shared. He has a whole list of instructions here and also another detailed guide on the swedish forums - theres a link there for it. here's the first thread:

http://www.saabcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85538&page=2

The signal ground was a little tricky for me to figure out, I'll try to take a picture of that in case anyone else has the same trouble I was having.

As for moving amp1, all I did was use a loopback under the seat, and removed my onstar system and installed amp1 in the trunk where the onstar used to be. I borrowed the connector for amp2, which has the same power pins, although if you want to run speakers, you probably would need to take the original connector from under the seat. I didn't connect speakers to amp1 I just took the line output and fed a sub amplifier.

The reason I moved amp1 to the trunk, as I mentioned, was because of the water damage and corrosion that many people have been talking about, I figured it would be better to just avoid that all together. Since the MOSTBus is a loop, it really doesn't matter where each piece connected as long as the loop remains closed. And actually you can probably install amp2 in place of the onstar as well, you just need to run the electrical connection over there.

Now for the technical details:

-I used onstar +12 / GND lines, spliced into amp1 connector for the power. Since there is no speakers being driven, the amp1 load is well under the 7.5A available on that circuit.

-If you do plan to run speakers from amp1, you obviously want to run some new power lines to it to handle to load.

-Used the Fiber optic connections that were already there as well.

-As far as the door speakers go, I am not going to bother with those, I'm pretty satisfied with the sound right now. The bass does sometimes is more pronounced in the rear - a problem which a little mid bass in the doors would rectify, but for now I have more important mechanical stuff to fix before the summer (AC AND WINDOW REGULATORS!!!!!).

-Threads that helped me out with figuring this stuff out:


http://www.saabcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175903

http://www.saabcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52374