sgroer

Premium Plus Non Bose Subwoofer upgrade.

I posted about a week ago about how I had discovered the miserable little sub Audi put in our cars. It's a 10 inch woofer, but weighs less than a pound.

Today I installed a DLS OA10D in the rear deck, with a SONY XM1S amp.

It involved removing the rear deck, removing the old sub, bolting in the new one, and installing the amp.

It took me about 4 hours to complete. I'll provide more details when I get time to take some pics.

Well, after the install was complete, the moment of truth arrived. I turned it on and it sounds unreal. Tight, beautiful musical bass. It really is amazing. I can't imagine needing more bass than this. Just phenomenal. If you want to crank it, it continues to give more and more...to the point it's probably embarrassing outside the car.

The MMI subwoofer dial, which previously did seemingly nothing now perfectly controls the aftermarket sub. I really had no idea an open air sub could sound this good.

So here are some Pics and a step by step.

1) Remove the rear deck - This sounds more daunting than it is. You need to remove the c pillar covers on each side - the ones along the side of the rear deck. They pop off easily with two clips each

2) Remove the drivers side speaker grille on the rear deck by pulling up on the front of it. It unclips and slides towards the front. Then remove the 5 screws unerneath the grille

3) Push up on the front of the rear deck, thereby unclipping the three large clips. The back of the deck is secured by 3 hooks, pull the deck towards the front of the car and the entire thing will slide out with a little maneuvering.

4) Remove the old "sub" - four obvious screws and the speaker connection and she's outta there!

5) Installing the new sub requires drilling holes. You will be dropping the new sub into the hole from the top. However, as you will notice, you cant drill from the top, because of the rear window. I ended up removing the rubber ring from the new sub, and using it as a template to drill the holes from the underside. I just lightly taped it in place and made my marks. Drilling the holes was easy. The pics show the sub from above and below

6) Bolt the new sub to the metal deck and reinstall the rear deck and c-pillar covers. You don't need to use any of the old subwoofer parts / grilles / etc.

7) Amp install - I installed the amp in drivers side cubby hole in the trunk. It lays neatly in there and I strapped it to the black plastic "shelf" by running straps in between the underside of the shelf and the top of the factory radio unit which sits one level below where the amp will now be.

I ran a 6 gauge fused power wire to the battery in the trunk. There is a perfect grounding spot on the driver's side rear wheel well - a couple of other wires are already grounded there. I attached a 6 gauge grounding wire to that point and connected it to the amp. There is a picture of the grounding spot.

Tapping the sub line , I used a wire tap and tapped into it at the radio unit, just below the amp. You will see a pair of twisted wires - one brown wire with a blue stripe, and one blue wire. The blue wire is the positive, and the brown with blue is negative sub feed. There is a pic of this. I connected it to the left speaker high level feed of the XMS1 Amp.

I then Ran speaker wire to the sub and connected it to the "L" out on the amp. This sony amp defaults to mono mode when only one speaker is connected.

Also, the amp I used does not require a remote wire - it uses the speaker inputs as a remote wire. It actually turns on when you open the driver's door and shuts off about 3 minutes after the MMI has powered down.

I made the appropriate adjustments to the amp, and fired it up!

I cannot recommend this $250 upgrade enough. It is night and day. I am so thrilled with the outcome.


Parts:

Subwoofer...
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...FZNV7AodkgjjTA

And the amp...
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-XM1S-Slim...0470538&sr=8-1

Metallic-Force

Congratulations, glad to hear it's fantastic, but would you recommend this even with people who have the Bose or the B&O sound systems?

sgroer

If there is a 10 inch hole on your rear deck on the drivers side, it can be installed. I don't know if that hole exists on prestige models. That's where the premium plus factory "sub" goes. The quality of the bass would match either system.

spoon2000

I'm sorry to say it, but I suspect that you would notice an improvement in a Bose or probably even a B&O system if you made minor upgrades, primarily in the speakers. If you went to Best Buy and got four mid-grade Sony speakers, you would probably end up with a much-improved sound over what Audi put in, Bose or no Bose.

CRAMAZING

if this is a simple DIY project, i may consider this as i too feel the bass is horrible, but i didnt expect much more from a stock oem system

at1183

which system do you have?

I am coming from many Acura TLs, which have notably been mentioned as one of the best OEM stereos in ANY car class.

I am hoping the Bose will suffice my inner "audiophile" needs. Really didnt feel like getting the B&O, or ripping apart my brand new $60k car to add audio components

3PedalMINI

bahaha you will be disapointed. This is the biggest complaint i have with the car. Stupid bose stero sounds like garbage.

No highs no lows must be bose

im going to see if its easy enough to do this upgrade with the blose system. Please post pics when you get a chance!

sgroer

As I said, from start to finish it took me 4 hours, and I am no expert at this. I'll post some pics of everything I can. The hardest part was removing the rear deck, which isn't hard now that you have me to tell you how to do it :-) Finding and tapping the sub line coming out of the amp took some time also. But again, that's why I am here.

I hope to take pics tonight and post them tomorrow some time along with a general write up. The bass, if you turn it all the way up is nuts - it's still very tight, but you can feel definitely it in your chest.

This coming from a guy who has buttkickers in each seat and 4 15 inch woofers in my basement theater.

mndesign74

please add photos. i would like to do the same install.

thanks

iaonbb

Would be interesting to see how the sub you pulled out compares to the Bose and B&O subs. I'll be getting mine with Bose in a coupe months and this is one of the first things I plan to check out...