elduderino

edit by Moderator Reach:

This post, and indeed most of this thread, contains inaccuracies that have been discovered through over 2 years of experimentation, research, and updated information and pinouts from the TSX audio system. As such, it is no longer to be used as it was originally intended, and is left in its original state and entirety for historical purposes.

For updated information, including correct pinouts and the correct way to bypass the TSX amplifier, please refer to this thread: https://acurazine.com/forums/audio-video-electronics-navigation-22/correct-way-bypass-tsx-audio-amp-360946/#post5283595

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____



(print and give to install shop)

Verified instructions on using the preamp outputs of the Acura TSX.

Most installers haven't come across an OEM head unit like this, and most haven't seemed to believe the car owner that this can be done - so here's a writeup for you explaning that...

It does NOT have RCAs on it, but the electrical signal is the same - it is not any funky balanced or DC-clamped signal or anything like that. It's a normal single-ended RCA signal without the RCA plugs. These wires have been tested with an oscilloscope. The output is the exact same level as a non-4V head unit.

The head unit also has NO equalization - flat response from 20-20k at any volume. In short, it's a great head unit, and many amps have been added to it with no noise and great sound quality. It''s actually very easy to do - so don't make it harder by ignoring this info and having to re-do your work, OK?


LOC's will add noise, both engine noise and background hiss. This is bad.

However, we have seen some engine noise if the mid/highs amp gain is raised very high. In these cases we have seen a line driver installed in the OEM amp location mentioned below solve the problem.

(IF YOU ADD A GLI FOR ANY REASON, DO NOT SET IT NEAR THE AIRBAG ECU IN THE FRONT CONSOLE AREA, IT IS A KNOWN NOISE EMITTER! The coil inside your GLI will pick up noise here! Also, do not set passive speaker xovers near this ECU)

Instructions:

Pull pocket and console around shifter. The OEM amp is a black box with a 20-pin harness and a 14-pin harness (it has "Made By Pioneer" on the bottom.) The 14-pin has a usable Remote Turn-On wire and the wires you need for RCAs. The 20-pin has speaker wires.

Take 2 1M to 2F RCA "Y" adapters. Chop the Male ends off. Strip back the outer insulation 1". Wrap the shield into a strand away from the center dielectric. Strip back the center dielectric 1/2". Now connect these directly to the wires below:

(Note: Each - is across form each + in the plug)

Right Front:
B4, Blue + (center of RCA)
B7 Red - (shield of RCA)

Left Front:
B1 Red/Blue + (center of RCA)
B8 Yellow - (shield of RCA)

Right Rear:
B6 Lt Green + (center of RCA)
B13 Purple - (shield of RCA)

Left Rear:
B3 Blue + (center of RCA)
B10 Pink - (shield of RCA)

B7 Yellow/Green is the 12V Remote Turn On wire. It can safely run two amps. Do not short it out, it also powers the FM amp in the C pllar (but it is powered with sources other than FM, don't worry).

B2 Brown/Yellow, B9 Gray/Blue, B5 Brown, and B12 Gray are extra shield grounds that are grounded inside the amp. You probably should ground them (although it doesn't seem to make any difference.)

Here's a wiring diagram:
http://www.shinzu.com/tsx/images/repair/tsxaudio2.jpg

(The author is a veteran of the 12V industry of almost two decades. He has been the manager of tech support for a major 12V manufacturer, he helped write the MECP tests, and he has written numerous articles for Car Audio and Mobile Electronics magazines. None of that means he's right about this... but he is.)

quintno

Another amazing collection of auto audio information! thanks so much.

glott

perfect, you da man

elduderino

Two forum members in three weeks have contacted me about how their install shop ignored their instructions and used LOCs, and had bad sound as a result. Wanted to make it turnkey as possible.

CCColtsicehockey

can a mod add a label in the main title that labels it for the tsx and sticky it so it is always available this is a great post

StreetEffectz

LOVELY information

LOCs are COCKY!

Scott P

what amazes me is how few installers realize this kinda stuff but sure as hell they with use the metra harness that requires rca connection for speakers. . . .

elduderino

Hey, Scott, have you ever seen ANY Honda harness that uses a 14-pin version of that Honda 20-pin radio harness?

Tsx536

Great post Eld! Would it be possible for you to also provide a couple of pics of the RCAs?

Sticky please! Jonesi? Where u at?!

Scott P

To be honest I'm going to say no, but then again it seems like the only radios i do anymore are in gm vehicles. So needless to say outside of reading as much as I can on newer import radio I feel like I am starting to get out of practice

mshestop

Can I assume that the 01/02 CLs have the same needs?

elduderino

You can, but you shouldn't, unless you've done the same testing on that car that I've done on a TSX...

any Portland-area CL-s owners who want to test this, gimme a ping - shop should be going next week (phone/DSL on Friday).

glott

Right Front:
B4, Blue + (center of RCA)
B7 Red - (shield of RCA)

Left Front:
B1 Red/Blue + (center of RCA)
B8 Yellow - (shield of RCA)

Right Rear:
B6 Lt Green + (center of RCA)
B13 Purple - (shield of RCA)

Left Rear:
B3 Blue + (center of RCA)
B10 Pink - (shield of RCA)


Should the Front Right read B11 instead of B7??

elduderino

I don't know, I can't read the wiring diagram scan at the computer I'm at now. Can anyone else check that for me?

glott

I just checked the Connector Diagram and the wiring schematic. I'm pretty sure it shoudl read B11, note also that you listed B7 as the remote wire which is correct according to the connector diagram. Heres a link:

http://www.cifrancis.com/acuratsx_sm...udiosystem.jpg

glott

moderator should edit the first post ...thanks! don't want anyone making a mistake

elduderino

Since no one else has posted to this EXCEPT g, I see that someone else (xazn...) in this post

https://acurazine.com/forums/audio-video-electronics-navigation-22/tsx-replacing-stock-speakers-what-should-i-get-302163/

... has verified it, so Jonesi or Derrick, will you please edit my original post to fix that error?
Thanks!

T S X

I just got the JL Audio 500/1 and I'm going to try to install it myself but I'm a little confused. Can I connect a Y adapter to say just the Rear Left and connect that to my amp? or do I connect a Y adapter to say Rear Left and Right and use one connection each from each Y adapter? I'm probably making this harder than it is but I need help!

elduderino

With ONLY a 500/1, you might as well use the speaker level in feature and run it off the 6x9 wires. Don't use the auto turn on, it odesn't work reliably with just bass inputs, like in the TSX.

T S X

Thanks elduderino, I appreciate your help.

Spoon

This info. was extremely helpful as the idea of having both the OEM and an aftermarket HU in-dash kinda bugs me...but this solved my problem. One thing though, the wire colors in my car are different, and I do mean different, not red looks pink or something, it's a whole other color. I didn't bother to jot the differences down, 'cause it doesn't matter as the pinouts are the same. Just in the event anyone else encounters the same ('05 diff. perhaps?), go by the wire location in the plug, not the wire color.

elduderino

Glad it helped.

There's another post going where the '05 colors are supposed to be entered... just hadn't got it yet. Thanks for the reminder.

Apparently the only 2 colors the same in the '05 are GND and Remote Turn on, so that helps you navigate the plug.

sergeremi

What's that other post?

What would happen if things were wired by color and not diagram pin outs?

elduderino

They couldn't do it, the colors are too different - when it's been tried, they can't even start.

bbalestier

Are the 6x9's parallel to Left rear and Right rear?
Since the 6x9's only play low end.
What powering the 6x9,s?

bbalestier

Any pictures of this wire scheme?
Let me know.
Thank you

elduderino

No pictures, and I don't know what you meant in your earlier post.

The 2 6x9s are driven by two of the 8 amp channels.They get a mono signal but are driven by two different amp channels.

CJams

Ok, so it's an 8ch stock amp? So if I use a 4ch aftermarket replacement and connect the FR R (door and seperate) to one ch (now down to 2ohm), FR L (door and seperate) to the next...and so on. I would be able to get full range from the rear 6x9's if I were to connect them to a ch with the rear door? Correct?
It's the stock amp that converts the 6x9's to the low freqs, right?

Also, Using this 4ch RCA conversion technique, would I still retain my Navi voice?



Off topic...since I can't have my 8"s in the rear deck yet....I have purchased 6x9's with a larger lip(?) that makes the speaker grills stick out a bit. I don't want to shave the grills in case I get those 8's in sometime and would like to keep that grill as close to the rear deck as possible. So have you heard of anyone mounting the 6x9's from the bottom with the screws going upwards(for now)?

elduderino

Yes, it is.

This is hard for me to explain without a drawing, but lemme give it a shot. I'm not just wanking, so stay with me.

DC is like battery voltage - it's more or less constant. AC - alternating current - technically is electricity that varies from (+) to (-) and back again. So speakers, which move in and out, do so with (+) and (-) electricity pushing and pulling them.

AC has frequency. Frequency is the rate that the signal changes from (+) to (-) and back again.

Resistance is a DC thing - it's always the same. IMPEDANCE is a function of frequency. That means two things.

1) A speaker's impedance changes at different frequencies.

2) The way that passive crossovers work is by progressively increasing the impeadance above or below the xover point. Increasing the impedance decreases the amp power.

Here's my takeaway.

So if you have a 4 ohm woofer, and a low pass passive xover at 100 Hz, and then you have a 4 ohm midrange that has a bandpass passive xover at 100 Hz and 4000 Hz, and then you have a 4 ohm tweeter with a high pass passive xover at 4000 Hz, you have a nominal 4 ohm load. It's a 3-way speaker system, but to the amp, it looks like 1 driver (if it's done well).

Why? Because the passive xovers keep the speakers from overlapping in frequency, and thus also in additive impedance. It's still 4 ohms.

(Note: I have simplified this a good bit, but this is the gist).

If you use a 4-channel replacement you have full range out of it to whatever speakers you connect to it.

Yes, it's in the amp.

Yes, the TSX is different from the TL - the Nav HU voice is integrated.

With larger 6x9s the magnets come awfully close to the torsion bars, so I'd rather buy a set of new grilles (which I've done). Regardless of whether you shave them or not, there will be a gap and you'll need to seal themwith a ring of some sort, so just use a slightly thicker ring...?

CJams

I wasn't realy concerened with the load amount, but thanks. I was just trying to figure out if it could be done that way. Those damn torsion bars...arrrggghhrrr. I may just connect my 6x9's as full range for now and shave the grills to top mount them. If I ever change it I will just add some padded tap to seal it up better.

lazybum

does this work for the navi head units?

vasu

yeah, no difference. Both the regular and navi headunit use an external amplifier, and that's what's being bypassed

sniff

I have already tapped three pairs of RCA into the 14-pin input connector to the oem amp for my JL amps. I have also tapped the speakers lines in the 20-pin output connector to be connected to the amps. My question is do I keep the two connectors connect to the oem amp or do I disconnect them completely and only have the JL amps power the speakers and woofers?

elduderino

I disconnected mine completely.

CJams

3 Pairs? Front, Rear, and Sub? This confused me a bit. Are there 3 pairs of RCA's to hook up? Or just 2...front and rear?

I am getting ready to do thid and wanted to make sure before I rip open my car again.

elduderino

Two sets. F and R.

BallsOfSteel

Or you can buy a set of Rockford Fosgates P1692S that fits perfectly without any modification.

sniff

I said three pairs of RCA because I split the rear into two to connect to the subwoofer amp.

bbalestier

If I use these preamp modifications and replace the OEM amp can I use the rear 6X9's in full range mode or do they have to be powered seperately.

elduderino

The HU OPs are full range.

What you do with them is up to you.