Come at me with all you audio questions!
- Thread starter Dumdum
- Start date
I’ll keep that offer in mind mate. If I’m up that way can I drop you a message?
I’ll give you a drink obviously
@Dumdum dunno if I'm being thick, I've installed radios before. I just can't get my new Pioneer HU to "click" into place. I bought a Pioneer DAB unit (contrary to what I said earlier), a connects2 clio faceplate adapter. I've connected the stereo and it works fine. It feels like it's pressing against cables at the back although I've moved them out the way, and Pioneer unit is shorter than the stock one. Am I missing something?
Not really, it’s very tight, when fitting mine with adaptors etc I removed the glove box, five torx t20’s, one tip centre about 3” inside the glovebox, three behind trim at the top (comes off very easily!) and the remove the left hand side plate, again, unclips nice and easy, then it slides out, there’s a few plastic clips around the glove box but a firm tug and it slides out
As you can now see the side of the stereo plastic slot for want of a better description I attached everything bar the cars iso leads and fed them all through and used the end to pull them all through, the control units etc all fit up the side of the heater controls between glovebox and heater controls...
It all laid up the front nicely be the glove box only has the banana shaped opening parts nearby, all fitted lovely
No, I am not sure which part gives you that idea as I dont mention putting screws into it??? you use the normal cage that comes with the radio, the glovebox removal is to allow you to pull the leads through the side at the back of the slot, then it clicks in like normal, the leads behind are what’s stopping the stereo fitting far enough in
It wasn't that clear what you meant tbh!
Yeah I'm using the cage that came with the Pioneer HU as well as the plastic surround.
I'll see if I can pull the cables through via the glovebox tomorrow, cheers
Sorry wasn’t meant to sound condescending, I have encountered stuff like that from all sorts of people though.
It will all become clearer when you read it with the glove box out, becomes far easier with something to look at
It will all fit once you get the iso plugs out of the way, with my pioneer I didn’t have length in the iso loom to get the iso plugs far enough in to tuck them to the left through the hole towards the glovebox so they got stuck behind the stereo just as you describe and it won’t go back the last 5-8mm, if you struggle I will whip my glove box out and show you it pic by pic
The issue with aftermarket speakers is they are generally designed to work with subs and don’t tend to perform well in a leaky door environment, so I would recommend sound deadening and sealing your doors to get the most out of your current speakers as they are far better suited to the environment they are in and then you will optimise bass from any speakers you then choose to upgrade to rather than throwing them in and potentially getting a worse sound that’s thin and watery than it is currently
Most speaker upgrades will result in clearer treble and mid... but due to bass staying the same this results in the thin watery sound a lot of people find after doing such an upgrade alone
It’s kind of like fitting a bigger downpipe (sound deadening) to a turbo car which will improve its breathing and power (better bass)
Fitting a new bigger turbo (speakers) with a standard downpipe will give a little benefit in some areas but struggle elsewhere (better mid and treble)
If you fit the two together (speakers and sound deadening) you will then benefit overall and have a big difference (better balance overall and more clarity)
I hope my analogy makes sense and you can see the benefits sound deadening and sealing doors properly makes and then doing speakers
There are also various ways of deadening vehicles that don’t cost a fortune and are easy to apply and more importantly cheaper than dynamat type products
You can do rear quarters with celotex very effectively... pick big flat areas and bond it on with pu type sealant...
Cut it into smaller pieces for curves etc very lightweight but effective
I used it on my campervan as insulation but it made it very quiet also as a by product!
Same with the roof if there’s enough space between roof and lining (generally strengtheners will take up some space... do between these with anything you can to add thickness and weight to the panels)
Even bonding thin aluminium plate to panels that are big and flat is an excellent way of stiffening and quietening them
Dynamat extreme is thick ally foil with a bitumen sticky substrate, pu seal 0.3mm ally sheet and it does the exact same thing Line rear quarters with carpet underlay also and they become quieter
All this will benefit your sound as the quieter the outside noise is the less cancellation you get and the louder inside will seem (it’s a thing and almost magical but does work in reality)
You can do rear quarters with celotex very effectively... pick big flat areas and bond it on with pu type sealant...
Cut it into smaller pieces for curves etc very lightweight but effective
I used it on my campervan as insulation but it made it very quiet also as a by product!
Same with the roof if there’s enough space between roof and lining (generally strengtheners will take up some space... do between these with anything you can to add thickness and weight to the panels)
Even bonding thin aluminium plate to panels that are big and flat is an excellent way of stiffening and quietening them
Dynamat extreme is thick ally foil with a bitumen sticky substrate, pu seal 0.3mm ally sheet and it does the exact same thing Line rear quarters with carpet underlay also and they become quieter
All this will benefit your sound as the quieter the outside noise is the less cancellation you get and the louder inside will seem (it’s a thing and almost magical but does work in reality)
Is it easy to apply sound deadening to the doors of my 197? What is the best deadening to use? Is it something I should try myself or get a professional to do?
Many thanks
Many thanks
A hair dryer is essential to soften it and get it to stick better and form to the contours of the door... and you need to degrease the inner and outer skins as it needs to stick to work whatever you use generally has adhesive quality’s
Wallpaper seam rollers are the best things for applying it, use a wooden roller though as the plastic ones break as they aren’t designed to have loads of pressure applied in various angles
The inner skin is more awkward as you have to skin over holes and panel gaps to effectively seal the cabin from the inside of the door to reduce cancellation from the back of the speaker
It’s why you put subs in boxes so the rear of the wave of the speaker can’t interfere with the front wave (ported boxes act as if they were sealed and the port acts like another speaker which adds to the power of waves produced and prevents cancellation)
Hi Dundum, I'm quite happy with the standard radio, at the moment, but what is letting it down is the RDS tuning to a new stronger signal. If I go up and down motorways it is fine, but my drive to and from work, the signal will fade but I can often override it by pressing a preset button and forcing the unit to search for a stronger signal which it very often finds. So the question is, is this inherent in the head unit or is it likely to be something else?
Could be your aerial is on its way out, and it can latch onto the weak signal but can’t register the second signal so doesn’t flick, mine did similar although I dropped the standard unit and swapped it to a dab and a new dab bee sting, 39.99 for the aerial and it swapped a treat, ideal if you may wish to upgrade later on, or I bet a new aerial base (with amplifier built in that’s probably failing) will only be 20 sheets or so from Renault and relatively easy to swap
Aerial plug is mounted on rear drivers side pillar by the boot, remove plastic panel and unplug old, plug in new after undoing the awkward 24mm (from memory, may have been 22mm...) and swapping the base over and re routing the cable down the pillar
Hope this helps... that’s where I’d start...
(I’m presuming you have AF switched on so it can retune it’s self automatically?? If not sure defo check that first)
Aerial plug is mounted on rear drivers side pillar by the boot, remove plastic panel and unplug old, plug in new after undoing the awkward 24mm (from memory, may have been 22mm...) and swapping the base over and re routing the cable down the pillar
Hope this helps... that’s where I’d start...
(I’m presuming you have AF switched on so it can retune it’s self automatically?? If not sure defo check that first)
after further research into more bass, the best and easiest way i think im going to go down is to get a flat under seat subwoofer. Boom!
If you go into audio settings on your headunit, see if there’s a section for hpf (high pass filters) this will then cut sub bass frequency’s from the front and rear speakers and allow them to sound better and suffer less distortion as a result, I’d start at 80hz and set the lpf (low pass filter) to the same for the subwoofer preout also (Some with limited preouts may need the rear/subwoofer set to subwoofer to feed the under seat unit and then you will also have a level control on the headunit if equipped)
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