S60 shelf speakers upgrade and hidden amp?
 

first of all i have an original HU-650 in my 2006 S60 and according to mathews volvo site i have 4 ohms speakers in the doors (unconfirmed by me) and 8 ohms in the shelf (confirmed by me)

im going after market with a pioneer AVIC-F77DAB which is 4 ohms im getting people saying i shouldn't use 8 ohms speakers with it its going to damage it but according to an audio specialist it shouldnt cause a problem it would only cause a problem if the ohms were lower not higher.

anyway i might want to change the shelf speakers not sure if i need adapters or not? also anyone done this and found any after market speakers? not after high power just something average.


also im told i may have a hidden amp i definitely dont have an external one under the seat thats for sure but im told its possible there may be one elsewhere and i was told i could check it by using a multi meter on the speaker wires behind the stereo but not how to test it!

As far as I am aware, the only possible position of the amp on the S60 P2 model is under drivers seat. That is where mine is. If I am correct, the speakers are 8 ohm, connected in parallel, so the amp (internal in head unit or external) sees them as 4 ohm. If you plan to replace the head unit with aftermarket one and you leave the speakers the way they are you shouldn't have a problem. If you meter the impedance of the speaker itself, you get 8 ohm, nut if you meter it at the speakers outputs on the back of the head unit you would most likely get 4 ohm, because of the parallel connection. Even at 8 ohm, they shouldn't damage anything. The issue would be loss of power. Higher impedance means more power needed to drive the and less impedance means the amp will output more power but also generate more heat and this case you are risking a damage to the amp.

Not sure why you would want to replace the shelf speakers. Regardless of whether you are after sound quality or sound power you would be better off (and to me it seems easier) with sub woofer. If you don't want to take space in the trunk, then I would go with just quality component set in the front and nothing on the rear. I am saying this as someone who installed one component set in the front and one in the rear, both powered by external amp and was very sorry after this. I removed the rear ones and sold them. Just front and sub is the optimal option in my opinion, unless you have sound processor and the ability to cut the frequencies on the rear for just bass and nothing else.

Is this another car? Or did you solve your battery issue?

thank you seems someone else was talking a load of bollocks then because what you say there seems a lot more sense. also i spoke to an audio specialist after i posted this and they said they would only worry if it was lower ohms like 1ohms

now i just got to figure out what to do with the dash speaker instead. its not working bare in mind it didnt work with the old HU650 but it did work with my other head unit. apparently the wires go through the green connector but which ones?

i was thinknig of getting an amp and using it as a sub and connecting the amp to the rca on the head unit

yeah fixed it there is a block of wires that sits down the side of the battery with supposedly self resetable fuses that was the problem!!! so no wonder i couldnt find it with taking all the fuses out, they are not even connected to any fuses on the boards f*****g stupid! all of them are permanent live's direct from the battery

As far as I know, the dash speakers is powered by the head unit. That would mean that in case you don't have external amp, the factory head unit's internal amp would be 5 channel. I personally don't know any aftermarket head unit, that has 5 channel internal amp. So I don't think you would be able to power all speakers in the car using aftermarket head unit. I personally prefer the sound from my HU850, when using 3 channel mode (dash speaker off). I find ProLogic mode (which uses the dash speaker) useful when the windows are down or on high speed, when is noisier in the car. Of course, you could use aftermarket 5 channel amp, but that would mean to run the speaker wires from the amp to the dash, behind the head unit. Important question is - what is the factory size of the mid bass cut outs in your door panel? I have heard info that they are for 6.5 inch and for 8 inch. Not sure which one is true for your car. If it is 6.5, I would go for component set of speakers and 5 channel aftermarket amp, powering the components in active mode and sub or 3 channel, powering the components in passive mode and the sub. If they are 8 inch, then you could just skip the sub and go with just components and 2 or 4 channel amp, depending on the mode.

Well least it's fixed,perhaps you may end your other post saying that it's fixed then it may help out other people with the same issue if you haven't done it already. After all we are all here to help even if the answers you hear aren't what you want to hear if you get what I mean. If you have done it already then I've missed it lol

my old after market unit operated the centre speaker, as you say the head unit poweers it so it is in the green connector then? just case of getting wiring pin out then. i found some for the stereo end but not for the car side the stereo has a couple not connected.

they are 6.5 inch speakers in the doors i think 8 in the shelf and i think 8 again in the dash. i dont really want to run an amp f or all the speakers i just want to get the dash one going again qas to me it sounded better with it

I can't help with the wiring, I am afraid. I have never disassembled mine. Besides, mine is different model so maybe the wiring is different too. One way to tell is to get a small battery, 1.5 volt should be enough. Connect it to the wires you want to check (don't worry about positive and negative) and you should hear a pop from the corresponding speaker(s). Just a thought, are you positive the centre speaker isn't turned off or lowered down from the menu? There should be a hidden menu, from you can control the surround levels, level of centre speaker and so on.

even if it was in a menu it wouldnt work anyway because i remember the wires on the iso adapter and on the stereo harness all wires matched and it didnt have any extra's on either harness so the car side has all the wires but beyond that there is only the list below

black ground
red ignition
yellow battery/permanent
blue antenna (think its for powered antenna)
orange speed sensor wire


but the other option is finding the 2 wires adding the pins to the iso wiring adapter and wiring them to a mono sub and then the rcas's to the amp/ or i could just not pin the iso adaptor and just go direct to the speaker


either way i need pin outs for volvo and/or pioneer..... i guess i could do it another way see if the wires in the speaker match up colours on the green connector or do a continuity test to the green connector and the speaker