Base audio system line level interface possible | mObridge

[mObridge]

If you have the base system you’ll retain the chimes and turn signal. You’ll need a T harness which routes speaker wire inputs into the dsp. There’s other systems that use DSP even the kicker

How do you propose your equipment will change the output if the output is already filtered from low frequencies? I suspect that you’ll use the front channel signals which are already full range and sum the signals without using forscan to change syncs eq settings to flat?

Once you swap the ACM module over to the A2B one and code the car accordingly (If we end up doing this kit, it would include a coding dongle that does all this for you) the signal is then sent over A2B raw. So we get sent a unfiltered digital signal straight to our amp.

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[mObridge]

Yes. San Diego. Currently running key 200 and key 500 setup with Blam components in front, Blam coaxial in rear, and tailgate box and sub.

Will keep you in mind if we move forward with this kit for sure.

 

[Brnzbronc]

Those are all very good points. Budget doesn't matter but I do need to be honest in that I will probably be using Spotify to stream 99% of the time.

I don't want to give up space either. I have the base system with space for a sub.
I would love to fit a focal utopia m 10in sub in a custom enclosure that fits in the stock location.
Utopia all around would be sweet but I think unnecessary since I'll be streaming and I don't think it's worth the cost in this situation.
I will do all the work myself because I like doing that sort of thing.

So yeah will probably run a T harness and throw in new speakers and dsp amps.

This guy has a nice build and I like the custom mounting solution for the dash.
I dont need or want the giant bass in the though and I would need to find amps small enough to power all the components and still be able to hide them.



I haven't worked with newer vehicles so I was just concerned about seamlessly tieing all this in to sync4

So with Spotify they filter low frequencies so music can be played in headphones. I’m sure you have the app but the eq frequency only adjustable at 60hz, so the crazy thing is also you’ll notice a difference in frequencies coming through with radio, CarPlay, and Bluetooth. This is why I went with audio control dsp, you can make multiple bandwidth maps for each source you want to use and switch through them with the knob control. In the process of setting up my box, amps and custom cargo tray to cover..

 

[Keerplunk]

Im in over my head I guess, I just want my rear speakers to have greater range, I currently have an amp/sub tapped into my front speakers, wonder if I should just run new wires to the rear speakers from the amp and that would resolve my issue.

 

[BlarneyStoned]

I'm interested if the A2B module includes HD Radio and is something that would be available soonish (say the next 3-4 months). I've been researching what would be needed to take an ACM from another Ford model (F-150, Lincoln Aviator/Nautilus) and making the Forscan changes, which in turn would necessitate an A2B interface convertor and new speaker wiring. Your A2B amp would probably be one of the 1st considerations given it's fully integrated. I've got a Badlands with High package sitting on the lot waiting for my dealer to call me. The only thing that keeps me from picking up a cheap eBay B&O ACM in the mean time is that I don't have an A2B amp and wiring harness or interface to verify things with.

 

[mObridge]

I'm interested if the A2B module includes HD Radio and is something that would be available soonish (say the next 3-4 months). I've been researching what would be needed to take an ACM from another Ford model (F-150, Lincoln Aviator/Nautilus) and making the Forscan changes, which in turn would necessitate an A2B interface convertor and new speaker wiring. Your A2B amp would probably be one of the 1st considerations given it's fully integrated. I've got a Badlands with High package sitting on the lot waiting for my dealer to call me. The only thing that keeps me from picking up a cheap eBay B&O ACM in the mean time is that I don't have an A2B amp and wiring harness or interface to verify things with.

I am pretty confident the ACM does encompass the HD radio, so if this is a feature you want then you would need to try find one with it.

Otherwise, there are plenty of cheap used A2B ACM modules on ebay without this that would work just fine.

We have done an A2B conversion with a 2017 mustang, using a newer Ford Escape ACM module, its fairly simple.
Happy to help you out with what coding needs to be done to set up the system for A2B.

Once you have this up and running all you would need is our amp and an A2B cable and you would then have audio.

 

[BlarneyStoned]

I am pretty confident the ACM does encompass the HD radio, so if this is a feature you want then you would need to try find one with it.

Almost all of the ones I've found have HD, I'm just not completely confident to blindly purchase a used ACM from a Sync 3 to put into a Sync 4. As best I can tell from the listing photos, the ACM box itself is consistent it's just mounting brackets that appear to vary from model to model for the most part.

The Bronco B&O ACM appears to be M2DT-18K810-FEE or M2DT-18K810-G. Either way, it's listed as a discontinued part and when they pop up on eBay they're all >$500.

I notice the Bronco ACM has 3 antenna adapters and not 2, I'm not sure exactly what they are since I haven't found the right wiring diagrams just yet to compare the different trims.

I think any of these would work (they have the 3 antennas) and they can be found on eBay for much less than $500: ML3T-18K810-FEE, LC5T-18K810-SCE, or LJ7T-18K810-SCC/SCD.

Happy to help you out with what coding needs to be done to set up the system for A2B.

Once you have this up and running all you would need is our amp and an A2B cable and you would then have audio.

I'm picking up my Bronco this weekend hopefully, it will be a few weeks before I'm able to play with the audio system but I may very well take you up on this cause I'm pretty sure I won't be able to live with the stock audio for long.

 

[BlarneyStoned]

@mObridge I started to DM you then thought I'm probably not the only one with these questions so figured I'd ask here instead so everyone benefits.

1. What size wiring is recommended to power the K2 A2B amp?
2. What size fuse on the wiring?
3. Besides power and A2B and the speaker outputs, are there any other connections required?
4. How much air space does this amp need to not overheat? I don't see any traditional looking heatsinks or fans and for the wattage claimed and the size it seems like this thing would get pretty hot.
5. If I have a base stereo system and do the ACM swap, what happens with the center channel signal (since no center speaker)?
6. Will this fit in place of the B&O DSP/Amp on the factory B&O sub enclosure?
7. If it won't fit where the B&O DSP/Amp fits, is there a recommended location?
8. Since there isn't an external control knob, do you just adjust the bass output via the Sync screen?
9. How are extra Sync audio things like handsfree calling, navigation prompts, chimes and parking alerts handled? Are they all just amplified like if you amplified the base stereo signal or do you get some kind of control over them as a digital signal?

 

[mObridge]

@mObridge I started to DM you then thought I'm probably not the only one with these questions so figured I'd ask here instead so everyone benefits.

1. What size wiring is recommended to power the K2 A2B amp?
2. What size fuse on the wiring?
3. Besides power and A2B and the speaker outputs, are there any other connections required?
4. How much air space does this amp need to not overheat? I don't see any traditional looking heatsinks or fans and for the wattage claimed and the size it seems like this thing would get pretty hot.
5. If I have a base stereo system and do the ACM swap, what happens with the center channel signal (since no center speaker)?
6. Will this fit in place of the B&O DSP/Amp on the factory B&O sub enclosure?
7. If it won't fit where the B&O DSP/Amp fits, is there a recommended location?
8. Since there isn't an external control knob, do you just adjust the bass output via the Sync screen?
9. How are extra Sync audio things like handsfree calling, navigation prompts, chimes and parking alerts handled? Are they all just amplified like if you amplified the base stereo signal or do you get some kind of control over them as a digital signal?

1. We initially had hoped 6AWG would be ok, but given the long run in the Bronco minimum of 4AWG is required.
2. 100A to be safe, 80a is probably fine.
3. CAN is required also.
4. It runs D class chips and a demand varied power supply, efficiency is around 90%+. Yes it gets warm but this is not something you need to be too concerned about provided you don't wrap it up in a towel. It will also dissipate heat through the stainless steel mounting plate too.
5. It will be unused, You aren't required to map all channels.
6. Yep is mounts exactly where the factory B&O amp sits on a stainless adaptor plate (see photo).
8. Yep, these messages are all on CAN and simply tell our DSP what to do! We even repurposed the speed dependant volume settings to toggle between 4 saved tune presets on our DSP.
9. These all come across on different audio streams, individual volume and which speaker plays these is full configurable.

 

[BlarneyStoned]

@mObridge so are you looking for guinea pigs to test/document the base to B&O ACM swap?

 

[mObridge]

@mObridge so are you looking for guinea pigs to test/document the base to B&O ACM swap?

We are not going to pursue this for the time being just purely because the cost of the module from Ford is too high, this kit is unfortunately not viable.

Happy to help with whatever questions you might have if you wanted to go down this path. We have done this conversion on a Mustang before so we have all required coding documented.

Sorry to disappoint.

 

[BlarneyStoned]

@mObridge, That's fine, I was more concerned about a harness to tap into CAN (I'm presuming from somewhere in the front) and whether there are specific ACM parts I should be looking for, since the Bronco one is unobtainium (or stupid expensive when they do show up on eBay). I listed some part numbers I think would be valid in a previous post above. Can all of the programming changes be made with Forscan or would I need FDRS to do module initialization? From the F-150/Mavrick swap threads I've read, SiriusXM shouldn't be a problem the radio just needs to be activated.

I'm still waiting for the StealthBox to ship and my SiriusXM trial to expire, but given my goal of trying to keep a stealth install your amp checks the most boxes with the fewest compromises, and as long as I can keep the ACM + Amp cost around $2000 I'm coming out ahead of some of the other options on my list with less wiring and fewer boxes.

 

[Geomanis]

8. Yep, these messages are all on CAN and simply tell our DSP what to do! We even repurposed the speed dependant volume settings to toggle between 4 saved tune presets on our DSP.

Hi Fraser,

When your adjusting bass eq on the screen does that just lower the subwoofer output, or is it adjusting bass on other outputs as well? I really like all in one amp solution, but no bass knob is killing me! I'm just looking to adjust the sub level only.

 

[mObridge]

Hi Fraser,

When your adjusting bass eq on the screen does that just lower the subwoofer output, or is it adjusting bass on other outputs as well? I really like all in one amp solution, but no bass knob is killing me! I'm just looking to adjust the sub level only.

Bass adjustment does change all speakers that play below 200hz.

You do have the ability to change between 4 saved tune presets via the speed compensated volume settings in the headunit, this means that you can setup only the subwoofer to have varying gain between the 4 subwoofers.

If you would rather though, we can provide you custom software to repurpose the bass setting in the sound settings to just set the subwoofer gain.

 

[Geomanis]

Bass adjustment does change all speakers that play below 200hz.

You do have the ability to change between 4 saved tune presets via the speed compensated volume settings in the headunit, this means that you can setup only the subwoofer to have varying gain between the 4 subwoofers.

If you would rather though, we can provide you custom software to repurpose the bass setting in the sound settings to just set the subwoofer gain.

YES! If you could change the bass EQ to only affect the subwoofer output I would buy the bronco kit. To set this up, should I have the bass eq maxed out and then set my subwoofer gain in the dsp? This way I will never run into clipping when the bass eq is all the way up?

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