Headrest speakers work only with radio
04-19-11, 10:26 PM
#1
Headrest speakers work only with radio
I followed Jackhild's writeup on vert aftermarket headunit installs. My only problem is that my headrest speakers only work if I have the radio on. When I switch sources to CD they go out.
My headunit has both amp turn-on(remote turn-on) and antenna turn-on. I'm currently using the antenna-on to relay 85. Should I connect BOTH amp and antenna to relay 85?
I've read about people needing preamp signals and speaker level signals to turn on the headrest amp. I have not done either of those things. When I have the radio sourced the sound from the headrests are clean. It simply blinks off when I source the CD.
My car is outdoors and a big bad storm was coming so I had to stop abruptly. BTW it was a good one. Tornado warnings, hail, horizontal rain. I got a glass of wine and sat on my porch and watched!!
Oh BTW this is only a temporary stereo setup. I'm in the process of swapping all my parts from one turbo vert to my soon to be turbo vert. Once I'm done I'll not be using any of the OEM speakers or amps. Well, I take that back. I may relocated the headrest amp and keep using it...if I can get it working consistently.
My headunit has both amp turn-on(remote turn-on) and antenna turn-on. I'm currently using the antenna-on to relay 85. Should I connect BOTH amp and antenna to relay 85?
I've read about people needing preamp signals and speaker level signals to turn on the headrest amp. I have not done either of those things. When I have the radio sourced the sound from the headrests are clean. It simply blinks off when I source the CD.
My car is outdoors and a big bad storm was coming so I had to stop abruptly. BTW it was a good one. Tornado warnings, hail, horizontal rain. I got a glass of wine and sat on my porch and watched!!
Oh BTW this is only a temporary stereo setup. I'm in the process of swapping all my parts from one turbo vert to my soon to be turbo vert. Once I'm done I'll not be using any of the OEM speakers or amps. Well, I take that back. I may relocated the headrest amp and keep using it...if I can get it working consistently.
04-20-11, 08:52 AM
#3
I followed Jackhild's writeup on vert aftermarket headunit installs. My only problem is that my headrest speakers only work if I have the radio on. When I switch sources to CD they go out.
My headunit has both amp turn-on(remote turn-on) and antenna turn-on. I'm currently using the antenna-on to relay 85. Should I connect BOTH amp and antenna to relay 85?
I've read about people needing preamp signals and speaker level signals to turn on the headrest amp. I have not done either of those things. When I have the radio sourced the sound from the headrests are clean. It simply blinks off when I source the CD.
My car is outdoors and a big bad storm was coming so I had to stop abruptly. BTW it was a good one. Tornado warnings, hail, horizontal rain. I got a glass of wine and sat on my porch and watched!!
Oh BTW this is only a temporary stereo setup. I'm in the process of swapping all my parts from one turbo vert to my soon to be turbo vert. Once I'm done I'll not be using any of the OEM speakers or amps. Well, I take that back. I may relocated the headrest amp and keep using it...if I can get it working consistently.
My headunit has both amp turn-on(remote turn-on) and antenna turn-on. I'm currently using the antenna-on to relay 85. Should I connect BOTH amp and antenna to relay 85?
I've read about people needing preamp signals and speaker level signals to turn on the headrest amp. I have not done either of those things. When I have the radio sourced the sound from the headrests are clean. It simply blinks off when I source the CD.
My car is outdoors and a big bad storm was coming so I had to stop abruptly. BTW it was a good one. Tornado warnings, hail, horizontal rain. I got a glass of wine and sat on my porch and watched!!
Oh BTW this is only a temporary stereo setup. I'm in the process of swapping all my parts from one turbo vert to my soon to be turbo vert. Once I'm done I'll not be using any of the OEM speakers or amps. Well, I take that back. I may relocated the headrest amp and keep using it...if I can get it working consistently.
Your issue is that the rear amps are running when the antenna is up due to using the antenna turn on lead. On your unit, the antenna is up only when the radio section is on.
Don't use both wires, that *could* cause problems in your headunit. At minimum it would cause the antenna to rise anytime the HU is powered up. Hmmmm... We might be able to use both with an appropriately applied diode in the circuit...
Solution is to merely switch from using the antenna wire to the using amp turn-on wire.
While the down side is that the antenna will rise any time the unit is powered on, at least the HU will have no other issues.
When my busy season is finished, I will revisit the diagrams and give a solution that will work for every HU. June or July timeframe.
Good Luck!
04-20-11, 06:21 PM
#5
I worked out the problem. All I needed was to connect my amp-on(remote-on) from the HU to the amp-on(remote-on) on the Metra harness. Whaaa Laa everything is working as it should be! I don't think that bit is in your archived thread, or if it is I missed it.
To summarize:
I did everything as written in Jackhild's thread. Only difference is that my HU has both antenna-on and amp-on(remote-on). So all I needed to do was connect my HU amp-on(remote-on) to the Metra harness amp-on(remote-on).
It works so well that I'm definitely keeping my headrest amp and functionality. I'm in the slow process of moving all my parts from one turbo vert to a new soon to be turbo vert. I'll eventually have a sub box where the headrest amp is. I'll need to relocate that amp, but it's worth keeping. The headrest speakers are really only used to fill and for highway top down driving. I wouldn't want my headrest speakers on all the time or powered by an aftermarket amp that doesn't allow me to turn them off or down. When I have the whole system in and blasting those poor speakers would pop in a second.
In the vert that the parts are coming out of I had previously used the HU rear speaker level outs to fire up the driver headrests. Then I used the HU RCA rear out to an aftermarket amp with the gain turned way way down. To control volume on the headrests I'd use the fader on the HU. It was a PITA fumbling through the HU controls to get to and they most often stayed off because of that.
Perhaps down the road I'll look into upgrading the headrest speakers and finding a way to use an aftermarket amp wired into the OEM headrest controls
Thanks again for the write-up and the other work you've shared on the forums. Many years ago we swapped PMs about me doing my vert top. It turns out being a wise decision for me NOT to do that top because now the turbo rebuild is going into a new vert whose top still has some life left in it.
To summarize:
I did everything as written in Jackhild's thread. Only difference is that my HU has both antenna-on and amp-on(remote-on). So all I needed to do was connect my HU amp-on(remote-on) to the Metra harness amp-on(remote-on).
It works so well that I'm definitely keeping my headrest amp and functionality. I'm in the slow process of moving all my parts from one turbo vert to a new soon to be turbo vert. I'll eventually have a sub box where the headrest amp is. I'll need to relocate that amp, but it's worth keeping. The headrest speakers are really only used to fill and for highway top down driving. I wouldn't want my headrest speakers on all the time or powered by an aftermarket amp that doesn't allow me to turn them off or down. When I have the whole system in and blasting those poor speakers would pop in a second.
In the vert that the parts are coming out of I had previously used the HU rear speaker level outs to fire up the driver headrests. Then I used the HU RCA rear out to an aftermarket amp with the gain turned way way down. To control volume on the headrests I'd use the fader on the HU. It was a PITA fumbling through the HU controls to get to and they most often stayed off because of that.
Perhaps down the road I'll look into upgrading the headrest speakers and finding a way to use an aftermarket amp wired into the OEM headrest controls
Thanks again for the write-up and the other work you've shared on the forums. Many years ago we swapped PMs about me doing my vert top. It turns out being a wise decision for me NOT to do that top because now the turbo rebuild is going into a new vert whose top still has some life left in it.
04-20-11, 06:37 PM
#6
Obviously I hope you find no damage on the Anni. Part of my reason for sitting out and watching the storm was reports of hail. Watching the storm turned into quite a National Geographic adventure. It must have been the city's failsafe to keep from loosing power. As I watched the storm street lights were spontaneously going out. But houses all kept power. After a few minutes select streetlights would flicker back on, but very very dim. It made things so dark that I couldn't see if there was hail coming down or not. But I could hear what sounded like hail hitting off metal objects. I kinda felt like I was a French invader from the scene in The Holy Grail where the French can hear the knights in the woods building the rabbit but cant' see anything and grow all the more curious because of that.
What made the whole thing even more surreal and over the top was in the middle of the worst part of the storm a man comes rolling down the street in a wheel chair???? I mean the guy is literally in the middle of the road and rolling into the horizontal rain. So to keep the rain out of his face he is pushing himself backwards and facing away from the rain. But because he can't see where he is going he is meandering back and forth across the street rather than going in a straight line. This was all happening while the street lights were out. I'm quite sure that had any cars come along between the heavy rain and no street lights the guy would have been a speed bump.
I know, I know I could have gone out and helped the guy...but it was all so surreal I just sat there watching and half thinking I was having some lsd flashback or something.
What made the whole thing even more surreal and over the top was in the middle of the worst part of the storm a man comes rolling down the street in a wheel chair???? I mean the guy is literally in the middle of the road and rolling into the horizontal rain. So to keep the rain out of his face he is pushing himself backwards and facing away from the rain. But because he can't see where he is going he is meandering back and forth across the street rather than going in a straight line. This was all happening while the street lights were out. I'm quite sure that had any cars come along between the heavy rain and no street lights the guy would have been a speed bump.
I know, I know I could have gone out and helped the guy...but it was all so surreal I just sat there watching and half thinking I was having some lsd flashback or something.
04-20-11, 09:54 PM
#7
I worked out the problem. All I needed was to connect my amp-on(remote-on) from the HU to the amp-on(remote-on) on the Metra harness. Whaaa Laa everything is working as it should be! I don't think that bit is in your archived thread, or if it is I missed it.
To summarize:
I did everything as written in Jackhild's thread. Only difference is that my HU has both antenna-on and amp-on(remote-on). So all I needed to do was connect my HU amp-on(remote-on) to the Metra harness amp-on(remote-on).
It works so well that I'm definitely keeping my headrest amp and functionality. I'm in the slow process of moving all my parts from one turbo vert to a new soon to be turbo vert. I'll eventually have a sub box where the headrest amp is. I'll need to relocate that amp, but it's worth keeping. The headrest speakers are really only used to fill and for highway top down driving. I wouldn't want my headrest speakers on all the time or powered by an aftermarket amp that doesn't allow me to turn them off or down. When I have the whole system in and blasting those poor speakers would pop in a second.
In the vert that the parts are coming out of I had previously used the HU rear speaker level outs to fire up the driver headrests. Then I used the HU RCA rear out to an aftermarket amp with the gain turned way way down. To control volume on the headrests I'd use the fader on the HU. It was a PITA fumbling through the HU controls to get to and they most often stayed off because of that.
Perhaps down the road I'll look into upgrading the headrest speakers and finding a way to use an aftermarket amp wired into the OEM headrest controls
Thanks again for the write-up and the other work you've shared on the forums. Many years ago we swapped PMs about me doing my vert top. It turns out being a wise decision for me NOT to do that top because now the turbo rebuild is going into a new vert whose top still has some life left in it.
To summarize:
I did everything as written in Jackhild's thread. Only difference is that my HU has both antenna-on and amp-on(remote-on). So all I needed to do was connect my HU amp-on(remote-on) to the Metra harness amp-on(remote-on).
It works so well that I'm definitely keeping my headrest amp and functionality. I'm in the slow process of moving all my parts from one turbo vert to a new soon to be turbo vert. I'll eventually have a sub box where the headrest amp is. I'll need to relocate that amp, but it's worth keeping. The headrest speakers are really only used to fill and for highway top down driving. I wouldn't want my headrest speakers on all the time or powered by an aftermarket amp that doesn't allow me to turn them off or down. When I have the whole system in and blasting those poor speakers would pop in a second.
In the vert that the parts are coming out of I had previously used the HU rear speaker level outs to fire up the driver headrests. Then I used the HU RCA rear out to an aftermarket amp with the gain turned way way down. To control volume on the headrests I'd use the fader on the HU. It was a PITA fumbling through the HU controls to get to and they most often stayed off because of that.
Perhaps down the road I'll look into upgrading the headrest speakers and finding a way to use an aftermarket amp wired into the OEM headrest controls
Thanks again for the write-up and the other work you've shared on the forums. Many years ago we swapped PMs about me doing my vert top. It turns out being a wise decision for me NOT to do that top because now the turbo rebuild is going into a new vert whose top still has some life left in it.
I would have done the same connection except my HU did not have both antenna and Amp turn on, so I had to make the connection at the relay. Thinking back, if I did have both wires, I would have had to use the antenna turn on with the relay for the antenna trigger. I would have then used the amp turn on from the HU to the amp turn on wire- JUST LIKE YOU DID! I just never went down that mental path. Good job.
Again, I am glad to help and thanks for making the adjustment and bring it to the attention of the board.
Jack
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