OEM underseat Subwoofer info

Peaty · 01-19-2002, 07:34 AM

Many people ask what the wiring code for the OEM sub is. The following information was provided to me by a fellow Subaru owner:

I have figured out the connections based on some measurements made on my Outback as well as by looking at a newer sub at my dealer.

First, the sub has 6 connections and apparently all versions of the sub are essentially identical.

Some of the wires (as shown in your photo) are black striped, but the primary colors are all unique, so the stripes are not important.

Here is the code:

Gray -- Chassis ground
Red -- +12 Volt, switched.

There is NO turn-on lead and the sub is powered whenever the ignition switch
is on even if the radio is off.
Violet -- Left Rear +
Orange -- Left Rear -
White -- Right Rear +
Black -- Right Rear -

Basically the sub can be run from just about any modern receiver unit with 'floating' (i.e. neither side grounded) speaker outputs. It probably isn't even necessary to find separate power for it (the factory setup just taps the power and ground leads between the 'car' harness and the receiver). Similarly, the speaker leads are also just tapped off between the receiver and the speakers.

Richard Melville
----------

Thanks Richard

Here is a pic of the harness that goes to the sub. As you can see there are also some adjustments there too. The sub will be under the Drivers seat in the Impreza and depending on the year for the Legacy it can be under the passenger or drivers seat. If the Legacy has power seats it will be under the passenger side. The sub workes off of hi level inputs.

It's not easy to get to the adjustments. It usually involves removing the sub. The sub is attached to the floor w/ double sided foam tape, there is also a bracket that attaches under the rear inside seat bolt.

Adjustment should be as follows:

"high pass" will just adjust the "crossover" frequency. Above a certain frequency, you don't want the sub to try reproducing the sound, because your normal speakers are better suited to that freq. range. Since this depends on your normal speakers.

The "gain" is just the degree of amplification. After you have set the high pass, adjust that at a fixed volume level on your head unit to vary the relative sound level from your main speakers and sub to what sounds right for you. Then try listening at some other head unit volume levels and make sure it still sounds OK.

Peaty · 01-24-2002, 12:38 PM

Thanks goes to Alan Peterman (screen name Alan on the i-club) for this interesting tid bit:

Well, I took apart an OEM Sub and found out a few interesting things.

First, there are 8 pins on the connector. Sorta like this:

1_____5_6
2_3_4_7_8

Pins 1 & 2 are ground. Pin 3 is constant power, pin 4 is switched power to turn on the amp. Which is easiest to just skip and wire both 3&4 to power. 5 & 6 are speaker input +, 7&8 are the corresponding negative inputs.

What's fascinating is how the internals actually work. There's an internal microphone that listens to the speaker and corrects the output with negative feedback in the op amp - and the speaker is NOT a paper cone. It needs about 6 volts of input signal to produce full output with the gain set up full. It's be easy to modify that for another 5-10db of gain so it could be driven from preamp outputs, but I'd also have to change the load resistors, as it has about 680 ohms resistance and will load down a preamp output drive.

Peaty · 04-22-2003, 04:18 AM

I purchased a used OEM sub for my WRX that came from a 2000 RS2.5. It came with the factory harness.

I took it apart to see what Peaty was talking about and found something different. The board has a spot for RCA jacks! I played around with it a little. I reduced the 10K resistor on the gain pot to 5k and line level inputs were working decently, but turning up the gain too much caused the amp to oscilate. There are some other resistors I will play with to make sure the amp input is not being overdriven and the sub out of my Sony deck is not being loaded down too much.

Also, the harness I got pulls power from the constant +12. If you tie pin 3 to 4 the amp will stay on all the time regardless of key position. You can however use the pin 4 input from an amp turn-on output from an aftermarket deck. There is a feedback circuit on the left speaker level input that turns the sub on when there is a signal sent to the speaker. This is how the factory does it. But if you convert it to use line level inputs, the level may not be enough to kick the sub on. I couldn't get it to turn on with line level inputs. You could probably just change the resistor that bridges the feedback circuit to the signal input though.

Regards,
Mike Montalvo
digital tuning, inc.
www.pocketlogger.com

----------

Thanks Mike

SVXdc · 07-06-2005, 10:42 PM

Update:

I recently identified the correct connector shell that plugs into the under-seat subwoofer (so I could make them for people who bought a used subwoofer that didn't include the harness).

The pins are numbered similar to the radio connector -- across the top row, then across the bottom row. So they really go like this (viewing the connector on the subwoofer, or the wires exiting the back of the harness' subwoofer plug, as in the picture in post #1 above):

Code:

3  ###  2 1 
8  7 6  5 4

The pin functions in Alan's post are, of course, accurate for the numbering scheme he used. But with the correct pin numbering, the pins/functions are as follows:

Code:

Pin  Function       OEM sub harness wire color 
1    Right Rear +   White/Brown 
2    Left Rear +    Violet/Brown 
3    Ground         (NC) 
4    Right Rear -   Black/Brown 
5    Left Rear -    Orange/Brown 
6    +12V remote on (NC) 
7    +12V constant  Red/Brown 
8    Ground         Gray/Brown 
 
NC = No connection -- the factory harness has no wire at this pin position

The wires have different colors on recent Legacies (and probably other models), but the pin-out has stayed the same.

For pictures and more information, see this thread on NASIOC: "Stock head unit information -- pin-outs, aux inputs, and more"

Peaty · 10-30-2005, 05:55 PM

Some pics of an under the seat sub for the 05 Impreza

Peaty · 06-07-2006, 06:05 PM

some install manuals

07-06-2005, 10:42 PM	#4
SVXdc Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Atlanta, GA Posts: 16 Threads: 8 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts	Update: I recently identified the correct connector shell that plugs into the under-seat subwoofer (so I could make them for people who bought a used subwoofer that didn't include the harness). The pins are numbered similar to the radio connector -- across the top row, then across the bottom row. So they really go like this (viewing the connector on the subwoofer, or the wires exiting the back of the harness' subwoofer plug, as in the picture in post #1 above): Code: 3 ### 2 1 8 7 6 5 4 The pin functions in Alan's post are, of course, accurate for the numbering scheme he used. But with the correct pin numbering, the pins/functions are as follows: Code: Pin Function OEM sub harness wire color 1 Right Rear + White/Brown 2 Left Rear + Violet/Brown 3 Ground (NC) 4 Right Rear - Black/Brown 5 Left Rear - Orange/Brown 6 +12V remote on (NC) 7 +12V constant Red/Brown 8 Ground Gray/Brown NC = No connection -- the factory harness has no wire at this pin position The wires have different colors on recent Legacies (and probably other models), but the pin-out has stayed the same. For pictures and more information, see this thread on NASIOC: "Stock head unit information -- pin-outs, aux inputs, and more" Last edited by SVXdc; 07-07-2005 at 06:36 AM..

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