[Asnipes]

Huge news! Metra finally released their Amy bypass/dsp interface for the premium sound system accords. This will allow you to turn that digital signal into RCAs for amplifier inputs, and it’s a digital signal processor as well. I plan on picking up this piece rather soon and then running a 6 channel amp (center, FR,FL,RR,RL,SUB). Honestly I have been hesitant on starting my system but now that this piece is released I think it will save a ton of headache and frustration. Let me know your thoughts and if you plan on using it!

AXDSPX-HN3 | Axxess Integrate

DSP Interface With Amp Bypass Harness - Honda 2016-Up

axxessinterfaces.com

 

[Asnipes]

Also, this will allow you to spare your factory harness and avoid cutting wires. Still browsing for speakers and a sub, will keep you guys posted!

 

[2005 6mt]

Also, this will allow you to spare your factory harness and avoid cutting wires. Still browsing for speakers and a sub, will keep you guys posted!

Any more news? I see this dropped but it's sold out or unavailable everywhere.

 

[Asnipes]

Hey Man!

So I ordered the piece from the guys at 5Star Car Stereo and they shipped it so I have it in the box. I haven't installed it yet because I've been bargain hunting but so far the other things I have are A kicker L7t Wedge 10 inch box that I got from Crutchfield and a Kenwood Excelon Xr901.5 that I will be running with component fronts and Coaxial rears. I got the xr901.5 from sonic electronix and it came with a 200$ Giftcard thats activated 60 days after purchase, so waiting on that to order plastic to build an underseat amp rack, RCAs, Sound Dampening etc.

Thinking of going with Morel Maximo Ultra or tempo ultra speakers, just waiting to pull the trigger.

5Star Car Stereo - Login • Instagram The shop owner shipped the piece from FL to TX for me because nowhere locally had it in stock.

Hope this is helpful!

 

[2005 6mt]

Those guys are the best. I'm looking at the Maximo's myself. I'll have to reach out and ask if they have any of the Metra dsp's

 

[Asnipes]

Those guys are the best. I'm looking at the Maximo's myself. I'll have to reach out and ask if they have any of the Metra dsp's

For Sure - also, this is the only video I've seen of the piece in action. The guy in the video used the piece on a new Honda Insight Touring with the 10 Channel system. Just an FYI

 

[2005 6mt]

For Sure - also, this is the only video I've seen of the piece in action. The guy in the video used the piece on a new Honda Insight Touring with the 10 Channel system. Just an FYI

Thank you man! I couldn't find any video anywhere! Let me know how your build goes. I'm still gathering parts myself.

 

[2005 6mt]

For Sure - also, this is the only video I've seen of the piece in action. The guy in the video used the piece on a new Honda Insight Touring with the 10 Channel system. Just an FYI

Now with this AXDSPX-HN3 we have 6 channels correct? I don't see any mention of it having the capability to sum signals however, I might've missed it.
I'm fine going w 2 way speakers in the back deck, but that still leaves 8 channels (I'd like to keep the center for navigation prompts etc.) Which I wonder if that is possible w this piece also?

The issue being I have a perfectly decent 5 channel pioneer amp, and I'd like to use it, but if the AXDSPX-HN3 can't sum signals, i have to buy another amp... Am I understanding all this correctly? This is my first solo build, I've helped out and read a lot, but never had to do all the planning.

 

[Asnipes]

Now with this AXDSPX-HN3 we have 6 channels correct? I don't see any mention of it having the capability to sum signals however, I might've missed it.
I'm fine going w 2 way speakers in the back deck, but that still leaves 8 channels (I'd like to keep the center for navigation prompts etc.) Which I wonder if that is possible w this piece also?

The issue being I have a perfectly decent 5 channel pioneer amp, and I'd like to use it, but if the AXDSPX-HN3 can't sum signals, i have to buy another amp... Am I understanding all this correctly? This is my first solo build, I've helped out and read a lot, but never had to do all the planning.

From my understanding, you can sum channels, which is how you can run Co-axial rear and also component fronts with a passive crossover. Also, from my understanding, you can divert that audio within the DSP to go to Front Left, Front Right, and completely bypass the center channel since the audio will be going to the front doors anyway. He talkes about channel summing around 11:30, but didn't explicitly answer the question we have.

I also have a 5 Channel amp, so I'm hoping this works. Maybe drop a comment on his youtube page. I found his video on a honda insight forum, so I will try to look through that again at some point and see if they have said anything about it.

Let me know if you find out anything else before then. I will download the app later today and see if you can sum 3 channels (Front Left Mid, Front left Tweeter, Center) Cause I think that will be the fix we are looking for.

 

[Asnipes]

From my understanding, you can sum channels, which is how you can run Co-axial rear and also component fronts with a passive crossover. Also, from my understanding, you can divert that audio within the DSP to go to Front Left, Front Right, and completely bypass the center channel since the audio will be going to the front doors anyway. He talkes about channel summing around 11:30, but didn't explicitly answer the question we have.

I also have a 5 Channel amp, so I'm hoping this works. Maybe drop a comment on his youtube page. I found his video on a honda insight forum, so I will try to look through that again at some point and see if they have said anything about it.

Let me know if you find out anything else before then. I will download the app later today and see if you can sum 3 channels (Front Left Mid, Front left Tweeter, Center) Cause I think that will be the fix we are looking for.

Here is a link to his post on the insight forum. Looks like he retained his center channel. This will be interesting, I've got to think through this one a bit more and maybe give metra a call.

Metra Axxess AX DSPX HN3 Amp Bypass

So like many with the Touring trim the “Premium 10 Speaker” system left a lot to be desired for my ears. In an effort to give the illusion of a high end audio system Honda outfits the Premium system with a 10 speaker system that includes front and rear component sets as well as a center channel...

www.insightcentral.net

 

[2005 6mt]

Same here. Let me know what you find out.
I was thinking the same thing, might have to call Metra. im going to download the app also and play with it.

 

[Asnipes]

Alright - time for an update - I've finally begun working on putting my system in. I'll start with a parts list.

Front Componets - Morel Tempo Ultra
Rear Componets - Morel Maximo Ultra
Amp - Kenwood XR 901.5
DSP - Metra Axxess Highlighted above.
Sub - Kicker L7t in a Factory Wedge box. 2Ohm

Install Things:
Dremel
ferrules
custom speaker brackets
ABS plastic for amp rack
Heat shrink
crutchfield amp wiring kit
Stinger 4000 2channel RCA (6)
Tesa Tape
Sonic Electronix 16 gauge wiring
Sonic 12 gauge wiring (sub)
4 inch zip ties
Harbor Freight hardware
Harbor Freight Threaded rivet tool
NVX Sound deadening
nvx sound deadening roller
stinger fast rings

ill update this list as I remeber all the other things

First things first - On the Five Star car audio channel there's a video of them installing tempo ultras in the front door of the new accord and they needed custom speaker brackets because the off the shelf ones were not deep enough - so, I went to a local shop and get custom brackets made. DO NOT DO THIS. The American international off the shelf brackets will fit tempo ultras and still clear the door, I already had custom brackets made before I took the door off, so I would just check whatever speakers you are running first. The AI brackets are 10$ on amazon. Custom brackets cost me 40$.

Also - I would really suggest coaxials for the rear. For me, I've owned the car for nearly a year, and don't think anyone has ever sat back there. I won the maximos from 5 star 12 days of xmas which is the only reason I'll be installing them.

Going with a Dean and Fernando style amp rack under the seat. Pics attached. I will be running signal wire directly up the center console to the factory amp location. For the power wire, I plan to go from the amp under the passenger seat, across under the driver seat, and up the driver side foot rail. I plan to drill through the stamped metal where the clutch pedal mounts on manual models.

Amp Rack, I would say just triple/quadruple check your measurement here. It took a few times to get the amp and crossovers mounted in a way that clears the seat. On the touring, and I assume exl and above, having a power passenger seat takes up some room compared to the sport,LX models with manual articulation. I could only fit the passive crossovers for the front components on the amp rack, no idea where I will put the crossovers for the rear components yet.

Front doors are pretty smooth for the mid base - I've only test fitted, so I haven't done full sound dampening yet and my fast rings should come in the mail over the next couple days. For the tweeters, the Morel is definitely bigger, so a Dremel is your best friend. Just be careful not to take out too much material, because its nearly impossible to add back. also, the plastic welds I just replaced with the screws that came in the box. I did come through the front of the tweeter pod just a bit, so I'd suggest shorter screws and you should be good.

That's it so far. Feel free to reach out with questions, and I've added some pics below.

Also - the tempo ultras on factory power are terrible. I think its a combination of two things. 1) the factory crossover points leave no room for real base and the tweeters start way too high. 2) the tempo ultras have a huge magnet and made of thicker material so the factory power simply isn't enough to these speakers do any good. I wouldn't recommend only a speaker upgrade unless you are going with something extremely efficient, but you still probably won't get too much bass out of them. Just my thoughts.

I plan on finishing everything by Saturday hopefully. Let me know if you guys have any questions.

Thanks!

 

[Asnipes]

Ok so first wanted to shot out @tommypenguin for his install video on youtube. Definitely followed in his footsteps on this build. Also the guys at 5 star have an accord series that came in great help even though it was on a sport and not a touring.

Overall the install was quite a beast, took 2.5 days and a few days of troubleshooting things (will mention later) so was it worth it??? HEII YES! Not only does this get pretty loud, but the detail of audio and is so much more apparent, plus sound deadening makes a world of difference in this car. Alot of the build time was honestly spent sound deadening and everything besides the floor has NVX dampening material on it.

As for the Axxess DSPX - it just does what its supposed to do. I have not worked the equalizer yet, but with everything flat, and some quick time alignment, this thing sounds amazing. My only reference is my girlfriend's RX350 with mark Levinson and it blows that out of the water. So yes - im happy. I use Car Play 90% of the time so it re routes all the sound of navigation/siri/phone calls to the front doors. I got rid of the center channel.

Also, please sound dampen your car, it really makes the car so much more enjoyable and honestly quieter than the brand new Lexus I mentioned before. I did the front/rear doors (behind the vapor barrier) under the rear seat, top, and bottom of the rear deck, and a good amount of the trunk/spare tire area. Honestly, the car is almost too quiet. My GF describes it as really good sound-canceling headphones on an airplane - you know there's noise, but you can't hear it where you are.

I set gains with a multimeter, so I honestly may have left some juice on the table vs an oscilloscope, but I didn't want to buy one so it is what it is. I would say that 60 watts/channel is just enough, but honestly, I do want a bigger amp, but there aren't many 5 channels that can both fit under the passenger seat and also provide more juice. I really didn't want to lose any trunk space because I do use my trunk for work sometimes.

Another gripe - the Kicker L7T factory 10in box has a ton of great bass "sound" but lacks the airspace to really get good bass "feel" in the back of your seat.

Below are some random pics I took along the way. Let me know if you have any other questions!

 

[tommypenguin]

Great job on the install! Am with the Kicker 12 I have in my accord does a good job for filling the cabin, with a seat folded down its great. However because never have a seat folded down because of 2 car seats it only does a good job. Had I done the 10 would have been slightly underwhelmed. Fortunately that is something you can easily swap out.

 

[Gbennett21]

Hey Man!

So I ordered the piece from the guys at 5Star Car Stereo and they shipped it so I have it in the box. I haven't installed it yet because I've been bargain hunting but so far the other things I have are A kicker L7t Wedge 10 inch box that I got from Crutchfield and a Kenwood Excelon Xr901.5 that I will be running with component fronts and Coaxial rears. I got the xr901.5 from sonic electronix and it came with a 200$ Giftcard thats activated 60 days after purchase, so waiting on that to order plastic to build an underseat amp rack, RCAs, Sound Dampening etc.

Thinking of going with Morel Maximo Ultra or tempo ultra speakers, just waiting to pull the trigger.

5Star Car Stereo - Login • Instagram The shop owner shipped the piece from FL to TX for me because nowhere locally had it in stock.

Hope this is helpful!

Thank you so much for posting this i have been looking for months on how and what to do about my 2019 accord touring i have watched so many videos of 5 star and others on YouTube.So not having the center channel you still get all the nav and do you notice not having it? I will be following and maybe ask questions as I do mine i was also thinking of morel tempo ultras components front and coax back. So are they worth the money?And are you running them active or passive on the crossover? Sorry just been waiting to fix this aduio

 

[Asnipes]

Thank you so much for posting this i have been looking for months on how and what to do about my 2019 accord touring i have watched so many videos of 5 star and others on YouTube.So not having the center channel you still get all the nav and do you notice not having it? I will be following and maybe ask questions as I do mine i was also thinking of morel tempo ultras components front and coax back. So are they worth the money?And are you running them active or passive on the crossover? Sorry just been waiting to fix this aduio

I do notice not having the center channel, compared to our lexus, but I don't miss it at all . I think the trouble/cost of finding another amp to add a single 3 inch speaker is not worth it to me. I think the center fix can be solved with time alignment honestly. plus the morels do such a great job of filling the cabin, I don't think you are missing much.

Although I have the touring - I've never used the factory NAV so I'm not 100% sure if it still comes through but all of the other chimes, carplay, siri still works so i'm sure its fine. There is NO functionality loss at all.

I am running into a problem where I get amplifier turn on POP, I need to call metra to get that figured out.

Let me describe the stages of my build and that will help describe how i feel about the morels:

First I did the speakers and sound deadening and drove around for two days with the stock power. My thoughts are there is a huge difference in a high-quality tweeter. Even on stock power, there was so much more "life" to the high - so much more articulation to the music. the mid bass just wasn't there even with sound deadening.

Then I added in the metra piece and the kenwood amp. Then I thought the same thing honestly, great highs and lack of midbass. I did notice a better "fill" of the cabin though.

Then I adjusted the crossovers and the equalizer. This is really where you get the juice out of the moreIs. If you just replace the speakers the stock tune coming out of the headunit still limits the amount of low frequency going to the mid-bass. you MUST change the crossovers and eq to get the money out of the morels. and yes they are AMAZING. You can honestly run these without a sub and it will still have a good amount of bass.

The only draw back is the music types. I listen to alot of rap so the tweeter isnt as bright on high hats and other "brighter" instruments (obviously). When I listen to R&B/Soul/Country anything else, these really come alive.

so yes, they are amazing, but depending on the music you listen to, make sure a soft dome tweeter is what you want.

I'm running them passive. The crossovers for the fronts are under the passenger seat with the amp (the kenwood amp is super small) and the crossovers for the rears are in the dash on an ABS plastic mounting board connected to the ANC module bolt.

Feel free to reach out with questions!

 

[Gbennett21]

Thank you, I also mostly listen to rap so that helped I was afraid if I ran them passive then I wouldn't be able to gain them down if they were to much in my face. From my understanding I could run them active but I would need atleast two 4ch amps to cover front 2 tweeters and front two mids then rear coax. Then I would have just a mono amp for a sub. Not really sure on the sub I want I been out of the music game so long. Kids telling me sundown is good and skar is good.I just want somthing that can hit when I need to but I still sounds good clean bass to go with the morel setup. All my kids are teens now so I would like to play around with them. You know there about bass. Which I like but most days will be sound quality for me.If you know what I'm saying. Did you have to do the big 3 upgrade or not. If I do 3 amps in this car I'm just wondering if I would need more power.My whole system i want to try and not need a second battery or anything of that nature. Thanks man you made my Christmas with me finding this out.

 

[Asnipes]

Thank you, I also mostly listen to rap so that helped I was afraid if I ran them passive then I wouldn't be able to gain them down if they were to much in my face. From my understanding I could run them active but I would need atleast two 4ch amps to cover front 2 tweeters and front two mids then rear coax. Then I would have just a mono amp for a sub. Not really sure on the sub I want I been out of the music game so long. Kids telling me sundown is good and skar is good.I just want somthing that can hit when I need to but I still sounds good clean bass to go with the morel setup. All my kids are teens now so I would like to play around with them. You know there about bass. Which I like but most days will be sound quality for me.If you know what I'm saying. Did you have to do the big 3 upgrade or not. If I do 3 amps in this car I'm just wondering if I would need more power.My whole system i want to try and not need a second battery or anything of that nature. Thanks man you made my Christmas with me finding this out.

Glad to help man. So i'm not too familiar what the big 3 is. I did upgrade the factory ground off the battery with a 4 gauge that came with my amp wiring kit. Even if you do run them passive, the morels have +3db +0db and -3db tweeter attenuation on the crossover. I'm running mine at flat and I don't think they are too loud. I definitely agree that active tweeters would be cool, but I didn't want to run multiple amps. The kenwood is 60wattx4 and 600wx1 at 2 ohm. I feel like thats a good amount for a subchannel but the 4 corners could use some more uhmph. The rockford 1000.5 Is 100x4 and 600x1 @ 2 ohm which I feel is the perfect sq setup honestly. I didn't want to lose any trunk space so my sub definitely isn't the most bass-heavy but it does sound great!

 

[Gbennett21]

Thanks the big 3 is negative wire upgrade as you did and the positive lead from alternator and ground from engine block.

 

[Asnipes]

Got it. Yeah I probably won’t do the other two. I will say I used the ohms law formula to set the gains and honestly 60 watts isn’t enough for the tempo ultras. They are listed at 120watts rms on Crutchfield and after a few weeks it’s clear this isn’t enough power. I will probably be adding a mini 2 channel or 4 channel brief. I plan on removing the front crossovers and running the front tweeter active off of the 5 channel, and also leaving the rear passive and the sub from the 5 channel. Not excited to spend more money, but I’m already in deep so might as well just finish it out