Soundstream Lil Wonder III (Part 2 Final) Audio Upgrade For Bass Lover

I have a long holiday last week and I invited my friend to install the Soundstream Monoblock amplifier to his new car. It is a Suzuki Swift 2015. You can read my preview for the Soundstream amplifier here. My friend is a bass lover. He love to hear electronic music, hip-hop, R&B, pop and worship songs. (worship songs in the middle of that said genres?) He is not to much concerning about sound quality, his goal is having an audio system that deliver deep, tight and powerful bass.

Although he is not concerning about the sound quality as much as I do, I still don't wan't bad sound quality in my setting. I am checking and testing the OEM audio before doing this installation. My first impression about this OEM Suzuki Swift audio is quite good. The sound clarity from front speakers components is also good. I could say for the mid-level car, this is the best OEM audio I've ever heard. The little downside, just like most OEM car audio is at the high frequency tends to roll-off quick. Perhaps by changing the OEM tweeter to higher grade tweeter could be give a better result.

The first problem appears, open up the OEM head unit is quite difficult. The locking pin from the upper panel is very tight. A little force is needed. Once I open them up, I can now release the head unit by release the 2 bolt on bellow the vent. I spent almost an hour or more to finding the way to open them up.

The head unit is Panasonic. Not quite famous for OEM car audio. If I could remember, on 90's, almost all OEM car audio comes from Alpine. Then the global crisis on 1998 are turning the car industry to the cost oriented. The most cut cost is by downgrading the OEM head units to Pioneer and Fujitsu. Early 2000 and up to now, I found that they are using even worse audio system, especially for mid to low end cars. Mostly JVC head unit with no-name speakers.

Looking at the back of this head units, I don't find any RCA output. I also don't find any remote-turn on or auto antenna voltage output. To solve this, I could do connect the remote turn-on in the amplifier by connecting directly to the ACC wire. The amplifier will always on once the key is turning on. I don't like that way but have no choice.

Aside from head unit headache, I am better doing something more useful. While I also think what to do with the no RCA and no remote turn-on output from the OEM head unit, I am now installing the power cable. This power cable is a 8 AWG cable from Stinger. This cable is become one of my favorite for price-performance ratio aspect.

Safety first, all wire are properly installed with the heat jacket. The fuse is from Critical-mass which is affordable but good in quality.

The power amplifier is seated nicely at the trunk, all power and ground cables are installed properly.

The sub-woofer is using 12 inch Crossfire in the sealed 30 liter box. This is a dual voice coil sub-woofer and I setup at single 2 ohm impedance. This is an old trick by lowering the speaker impedance to get the bigger watt output from the amplifier. This trick is always work very well in order to get more decibel, as long the amplifier can handle the low impedance speaker.

The trunk size is small Even with this little sub-woofer box, there is almost no free space for the huge luggage.

Back to the no RCA output from the HU, I am very lucky that the Soundstream monoblock amplifier has high level input. Means output speakers from head unit can be use to feed this amplifier directly.
For the solution for no turn-on remote from the HU, at my table, I am now drawing the schematic for solving this issue. I am using my experience in building timer and trigger from small IC NE555 combine with NPN transistors. This is still a prototype module and the basic concept is the audio signal from high input will be detect and trigger the IC to turn on the amp. If after 30 second there is no audio signal, then the IC will shut the voltage output and the amp is off.

Starting the first components and all connection are connected by point-to-point wiring.

On the testing process, it work like charm. Around 30 second idle with no signal in the input, then the led will be off. Once you touch the input, the led will lit again for another 30 second.

The installation of this auto on is take no time. I already provided the socket and they are just plug and play.

This is the cable installation. The white wire is actually rear speaker output from head unit to trigger the auto-on module and then goes to the high level input at the amplifier. One benefit from using the high output to the amp is no need to worries about interference audio signal issue. I could install the cable in the same side with power cable with almost zero risk having the audio interfere from the power line.

The white cable is directly taken from the head unit speaker output cable. I also take the ACC voltage from power antenna line.

It is now finish with a great result. The music play and the bass is shaking hard and loud. You turn off the head units more than 30 second, then the amplifier will automatically turn off.

Disclaimer: Any statement and photos in this article are not allowed to copy or publish without written permission from the writer. Any injury or loss from following tips in this article is not under writer responsibility.