View Full Version : Amp's & Speakers ?
My altea is now on its way here from spain on a train.
I always upgrade the stereo in my cars., but since this is my first brand new car im reluctant to modify the interior to much.
My question is, does the built in headunit(mp3/bluetooth version) have an Amp out ? I think it might since you can buy a subwoofer with built in amp as a factory accessory.
Secondly how much room is behind the speaker grill (space between actual speaker and grill)? I'm thinking of upgrading to the new Boston Acoustics Pro 60 component set where the tweeter sits in a holder in front of the woofer but elevated. It would be awesome to be able to fit a component this way and just disabling the built in tweeter at the doorhandle.
I already ordered the G4 spacer thing, somone wrote about in another post so i can fit a new pair of speakers.
Thanks for your help, those of you who already have their Alteas.
OK it's ALT54 [Paul] and myself on speakers. Paul did it before I did but then I had a learning curve I documented since you need the tube bit, that could be your G4 spacer. Not too sure. The cars own speakers protrude in their own custom body. They do this with all VW ones so I understand so you can't just bolt the speakers back into the door. They would hit the electric window which drop behind the front ones for a start and the back ones there is a fair bit of construction behind. Like the door frame as I recall. Hence you need to get the plane of the speaker back out to where it was with the custom ones.
I fitted the Infinity ones and you can get the size of these off their web site to work out how much room is behind. They fitted OK once I or rather my brother had hacked the speaker mounts that I also bought to size and they came with leads so you just disconnected the tweeter lead. As Paul said who was a great help the tweeters run in parallel so you just don't connect the wire going up.
The other thing, the problem with the Altea sound is that the speakers that come with it are Philips paper speakers, which are crap and give a mushy sound. The tweeters in the front and back door are at ear height since that sound, the high pitched one is the one that you can place the position of, in the Altea you have that one going at you from the back and front. Thus I think this is part of the mush as well as the mid range / bass not be able to handle what is inputted to it.
I'll give the link away below of what I did [my construction project] and Paul did fit a bass speaker in the boot as I recall to his. My memory is good:). The headend once you pull it out using four tab bits has a diagram on it, of the pin out of the Quadlock if you find out how to fit a Sony MD changer tell me.... Nobody in the UK has sorted out the interface between the Altea Quadlock out and non-custom CD or MD changers. Although Paul fitted a Kenwood MP3 thingey as I recall. Over to Paul....
Here's my link:
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=53642
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=53080
You can find all Paul's posts here:
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/search.php?searchid=743057 ;)
Bit of dialogue here with me and him when I was picking his brains:):
http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=51034
[The sound is great now with these speakers:) :worship: , oh and they too have the tweeters mounted in front of the bass / midrange so you adjust to the tweeter to your "sweet spot", I changed all four, I don't like boom boxes in the boot myself :hide:... I like that the speakers I fitted have just been superceeded with the Infinity KAPPA652.7I ha - New for 2005, speaker depth 2 and 3/16"... think it's protrusion in front to get the speaker grill on you need to worry about as well... still mine were OK once I sorted out the spacer thingey "AUTOLEADS-SAK-3103 16.5cm custom replacement speaker accessory for the Golf IV" and cut it to size just taking the flange off... with leads which is the selling point since you just clip these leads to disable the top tweeters rather than clipping the cars leads]
Thanks alot, yes i ordered this part "AUTOLEADS-SAK-3103 16.5cm custom replacement speaker accessory for the Golf IV" as you described, and i will probably have to modify it like you have...
Thanks again for the links, ill let you know how it goes when the car arrives in mid june.
It takes about two minutes per piece of plastic to cut of the flange. Your see the problem once you take the car's speakers out that it won't drop back into position with the flange in place. The flange doesn't do anything. My last finishing touches which I have done yet is to fill a small whole in each of the speaker adapter fits where the wire is designed to pass through, you send it up via taking out the rubber bung thing and pushing this back over the wires you have put in place. Windscreen sealant I'll use for this and the speaker adapter fit is designed for 16.5cm speaker so all of the holes line up for the adapter to go in the car and the speaker into the adaptor.
It was the adaptor kit that held me up in installing the speakers since the Pioneer one on the site was the wrong one for the Altea [which I bought which was just a 1/4" seal thing], then it turned out that they didn't make the right one....
pargyrak
23-05-2005, 18:05
I picked up my Red Altea 2.0 FSI last Thursday and I drove it for more than a thousand kilometers over the weekend.
The car seems GREAT a lot of power although I did not exceed 4.000rpm.
To get back into
The Radio CD seemed Ok at first, big screen, big buttons
BUT
a. the speakers sounded awfull
b. the cd player would not play some of my CD-Rs
c. No MP3s
SO
The back door woofers were replaced by 16" woofers (Peerless)
The front door woofers were replaced by 2way speakers (Helix) with the tweeter pointing upwards leaving the original tweeter as auxiliary.
The headunit was replaced by my old but trusty Clarion DXZ738RMP and my PocketPC/GPS was also mounted next to it.
http://www.argyrakis.gr/AlteaICEGreen.jpg
http://www.argyrakis.gr/AlteaICERed.jpg
I am still missing the adaptor to connect the steering wheel remote controls to the clarion but as nothing is available in Greece yet (not Alpine, not Kenwodd, not Pioneer) I'd rather have my MP3s then steering wheel controls.
It is nice not having a lot of Alteas around but it is also a drag not having a lot of options for the car...
pargy
That is the problem with replacing the headend that it defeats having the steering wheel controls. I did think about leaving the original tweeters connected but thought, why bother given the inbuilt ones in the replacement speakers were quality ones whilst the custom Altea ones are probably crap. This was the problem that the sound, didn't sound good on these tweeters with weird sounds picked up from odd directions. Note the back tweeters only 12 " or so from your ears and the front ones 18" or so all pushing out the same sound which should be point sourced in that frequency range and the mid range / bass pushing out mushy sound. It's not a good set up at all once you have connected something better.... I don't think the Altea headend is too bad. My CD player did play up at first but perhaps this was running in, now it gives no problems.
Yes but Pargyrak you have now got a big hole in your dashboard. I was attracted to having my old Kenwood MD radio back and a Kenwood three disk din mounted MD changer in the second slot below, if only I could have the steering wheel controls connected and Kenwood still made the MD changer.... such is life. But a boring old Altea custom fit radio with the inbuilt security tends to suggest you won't get your car broken into for your HiFi set up. So there are advantages :) .
I was really hoping you could get a line out from the original headend, it seems its not the case, havent heard of anyone with at seperate amp and the original in dash headend...
For what it's worth there is a picture of the sat nav pin out of the Altea which must be a super set of the Altea normal Quadlock connection on page 5 of this http://people.freenet.de/mhain/Seat/DvdAUX/EBA%20VideoAUXin.pdf - it's all in German [this is the page that helpful hands burried on this site in techi stuff since it would be useful for non Altea users except it's only the Altea and the new Toledo that have the quadlock connection :censored: ]. When you get the car and take the headend out if you so wish you'll find a sticker on it showing what are on the pins.
Do you spot your line out on the sat nav option ?.
pargyrak
23-05-2005, 22:39
The sound is ok the original tweeters are pretty descent. I chose the Helix and Peerless ones because theis sound matches the one of the tweeters.
In any case if I don't like it I can always unplug them. It takes roughly 10 minutes :-)
Regarding the big hole in the dashboard, you can place some electronic gauges there or, as in my case the cell phones, the earpiece and a button to turn on and off the radar detector
Just got my altea a few days ago and speakers Boston Acoustics SL65 (http://www.bostonacoustics.com/ca_product.asp?ProductID=265&CategoryID=14) arrived yesterday, i installed them promptly with the adaptors mentioned above and it took just under 2hrs in all.
The sound is lovely now with the built in mp3 dash player. Thanks for the adaptor research and guides, it would have been pretty imposible to do without the adaptor.
Oh and its a joy to ride with the 2.0TDI sport, having it remapped soon...
Just got my altea a few days ago and speakers Boston Acoustics SL65 (http://www.bostonacoustics.com/ca_product.asp?ProductID=265&CategoryID=14) arrived yesterday, i installed them promptly with the adaptors mentioned above and it took just under 2hrs in all.
The sound is lovely now with the built in mp3 dash player. Thanks for the adaptor research and guides, it would have been pretty imposible to do without the adaptor.
Oh and its a joy to ride with the 2.0TDI sport, having it remapped soon...
Glad to be of help.... were they the same Philips speakers that you took out. Seat hadn't changed too anything else have they - well I mean we could be rubbishing wonderful speakers these days but I doubt it. They sound crap don't they although I did try to believe they were OK but after some long journeys it became clear that they could not handle the sound and as said, the tweeter set up I think is all wrong in the Altea in positioning.
I'm impressed with my Inifinity ones and I got the headend swapped out which had a row of defective dots on the screen and this one sounds better than the other one. So I reckon they have also improved the headend ... perhaps Seat thought it was the headend rather than the speakers;). Nothing wrong with the headend:).
yep, same shoddy phillips speakers in a plastic basket - glad to be rid of them. The headunit sounds pretty decent and mine plays MP3's as well so its just fine
Is there a designation on it that it plays MP3. Given that my original one was swapped out, well you never know the new one could if it was just an upgrade... one can live in hope. Does it say MP3 on the front of it or in the menus... if not perhaps I should try.
it says MP3 on the dash just below the CD slot, it was an option with the bluetooth pack, 8 speakers and multifunction steering wheel here i Denmark.
When i insert a MP3 cd i get the folder name and file name displayed in the dash, pretty nice :P
Mind you my Samsung D500 wont load the phonebook, even after an upgrade to the latest firmware :(
Oh well, then mine is not going to work in MP3 [it did cross my mind] since it's just the standard Blaunkpunk headend. I ordered my Altea in July 2004 when the bluetooth option wasn't available and it arrived in the country in November.
Glad your speaker are sounding fine, mine are sounding outstanding now. One of these days someone in the UK may sort out the quadlock connection for connecting up third party equipment other than an IPod.... so I can play my MD collection in the car using the Sony MD changer....