2018 Honda Accord Forum banner

Audio upgrade tips from someone who did it diy

13K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  Fired00d 
#1 ·
I recently finished my audio upgrade and thought I'd give back with tips that I didn't find before I had to figure it all out myself. This was my first ever car audio experience. Hopefully this gives people confidence to take the plunge :). I have a 2019 1.5 sport 6 spd manual.

My gear:
Dayton audio dsp-408
Alpine X-A90V 5 channel amp
Alpine r-s65c.2 component speakers (2 pair)
Ai hsb524 Honda speaker adapters (2 pair)
Kicker 12 inch sub, simple down firing sub box.
Ax-dsp-hon2 wire harness
Misc speaker wire, 4 awg ofc amp kit, etc.

1. The tear apart and install start to finish I'd estimate to have taken about 20 hours of time. At least half of that time and probably more was figuring out things that I hope this post can help people avoid.
2. The crutchfield tear apart instructions were worth it. I didn't buy much from there due to the cost, but I found these invaluable.
3. Problem one was figuring out the wire harness. See the attached wire harness pic.
4. Even with the picture, I got confused for a bit about the power vs. acc wires and how to send that to the Dayton audio DSP.
12+ : Pin 11 Yellow wire from HON2 -> Dayton Pin 11 Yellow
GND: Pin 14 Black wire from HON2 -> Dayton Pin 14 Black
Switched 12v: Pin 1 Red wire from HON2 -> Dayton Pin 9 Red
The DSP sends the blue wire out to the amp control in. The power and ground for the DSP are joined to the amps power and ground.
5. Speaker adapters... These took me forever to figure out. Note the rear deck stock speakers are the same height as the adapter plus the speaker lip, this no spacer needed. In the front, the stock speakers are thicker, so I needed one of the provided Alpine spacers to make them work.
6. None of the holes in the speaker adapters lined up with the Alpine speaker screw locations. I ended up drilling holes in the adapter to line it up.
7. I had to cut off all of the plastic tabs on the adapters so that the speaker fit properly.
8. I ran the 4 awg amp wire through the firewall in the stock opening above the gas pedal. I untaped the wires on the engine side, lubed up my amp wire with wd40, lubed up the wires already in the grommet with wd40 and worked it through. It sucked. This location is really hard to get to. If I had to do it again i would get more than 20ft of power wire (it was too close with 17') and run it through a similar grommet on the passenger side which is a lot easier to get to. If you look at the instructions for the Alpine all in one underseat upgrade kit, they clearly show where it is.
9. I was able to get the new speaker wire through the factory door grommets by a trick I found on you tube. I got a foot of flexible plastic tubing, about a quarter inch, and lubed it up with wd40. I pushed it from inside to outside into the door relatively easily. Once the tube is in, pushing the speaker wire through the tube is easy, and once it's all hooked up you just pull the tube out.
10. I got it all done, finally. Now to turn it on for the first time. No sound. Panic. 1 hour later after double checking all connections, decided to connect my laptop to the DSP. Silly me assumed input1 on the DSP was automatically mapped to output1, etc. Nope, all output is not mapped my default. Clicked some buttons in the DSP app and it all worked!
11. Disconnecting the ANC is required... But I think it actually only is required if you use the signals going to the rear speakers (i suspect the output for the ANC noise cancellation goes only to the rear channels). In my setup I found duplication of the front left and right to rear left and right (but turning the volume down in the DSP for the rear channels) sounds better. I suspect that running it this way you don't have to disconnect the ANC, but functionally it will still be disabled because the output isn't used. Someone can confirm?

Because people always ask... No you don't need to cut any stock wires. Also, Android auto, Bluetooth streaming, normal system chimes and notifications, and phone calls etc. All still work fine.

If I think of other problems I had I'll add to this post. Hopefully this helps someone!
 

Attachments

See less See more
1
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top