Harmon Kardon Retrofit Advice
 

Hello chaps,


I'm planning to install the Harmon Kardon speakers in my tourer but I was hoping I could get some advice on the best set-up. I'm keen to keep it original which is why I'm going for the HK speakers and not after-market ones. My current head unit is the Iovox CD-80 with a CD changer in the boot but I want to replace it with the M3-100 once I find one.


I'm not planning to have the subwoofer so do I need the amp or not? What I assumed I'd have to do was replace the four door speakers and front tweeters which would be simple enough then and one way or another get the rear tweeters in. Is that the case or is there any more to it than that?

Shouldn't be an issue if you are not going to use the HK sub. I've got HK speakers retrofitted in mine and they sound fine without the amp however they are a little bass light but probably no more so than standard speakers.
I have enhanced this with a under seat sub that is discreet but just gives the extra warmth that i found a little lacking.
Ive got one of these https://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/pro...11_p-31239.htm which will accept either a high line output or a low line if there is a sub output on your head unit.

That sounds like a really good system, I might go for something like that. I can check my head unit and work something out from there but I think I'll get the speakers installed first. Thank you for your answer.

You may well be happy with the difference you get with the HK speakers and not need the extra bass... It's easy to add in later if you want to and has a wired remote so you can set the levels if your head unit has no sub control.

I've bought all 8 HK door speakers but not the subwoofer or the amp as they don't sound all that good. I'm keen to keep an original head unit as I like having 'Rover' pop up when I turn the car on; mine is the Iovox CD-80 at the moment which I gather is not the best. If I were to get an amp, will there be much difference based on the head unit the signal is coming from? Since I gather the signal comes from the speaker output I would have thought that the quality of the in-built amp going to the external amp would make a difference. In that case, which would be the best original head unit to have?


Edit: Looking at the manual for the Blaupunkt CD-32 it seems to have a 4-channel pre-amp out which would make it a good factory-fitted head unit to pair with an external amp.

In terms of working out the wattage, I've read that the Harman Kardon amp puts out 180 Watts over 6 channels, so assuming that two are for the subwoofer and given that the tweeters apparently wire into the same feed as the door speakers that's 30 Watts per channel and so I think the HK door speakers are indeed 24W as that would make sense with 6W left for the tweeter on each side. I would like to find out the full range of the HK speakers as the 24 number could be the minimum or maximum for all I know.

If that's right, though, the Blaupunkt head unit should be fine at 45W per channel to drive them without an amp but it doesn't have a subwoofer output so if I decide to put one in, that would be the time to get an amp and thankfully the blaupunkt does have a line out so that would not be a problem; this is shown on the service manual here. You can also set up an aux in place of the CD changer if wanted, though I think that's possible on a lot of these head units.

Reading through some old forum posts, the Iovox head units do not have a good reputation and it is sometimes noticeably bad on mine. I've no experience with the satnav systems but I feel, mainly given the line out, that if you want to keep a factory head unit the Blaupunkt is the best option. Now I just have to find one!

I can't really help you with the head unit as i replaced mine with an android Xtrons unit which sounds really well with my HK speakers without needing external amps although it does have preouts as well.

Hi there

please don't let me put you off this upgrade but I had the full HK setup in my 2005 contemp se 75 and its really not all its cracked out to be - I am led to believe that this is because the HK amp gets its power from the headunit rather than a seperate power feed. In turn the sound quality suffers from this at higher volumes.

Thanks for your reply, I've heard of this issue so I'm not going to install the HK amp; the set-up I'm thinking of now is the Rover Blaupunkt head unit which should power the speakers on its own well enough, and it also has a line out so if I do install an amp it should avoid the problem that the HK amp has.
I know I would definitely get better sound from modern speakers but I'm keen to try to get the best of out some original ones - even if I end up going for modern ones in the end!

Hi Craig,

The reason for the distortion at high volume is because the head unit's power amplifier stages (speaker outputs) are used as the input to the separate HK power amplifier. It has nothing to do with the power feed which appears to be directly from the battery (fuse 33, later passenger footwell fuse box) with an "on-off" switching signal provided by the head unit. Unfortunately the RAVE information is sketchy and sometimes contradictory. :o

JefferiesFarnol has said that if he does go ahead with an additional power amplifier he will use the line output from the head unit which is the correct way to do it. :}

Simon