claw951

For completeness, I might as well add some detail on the dual-voice-coil subwoofer found in the 2009 Outback with the Harmon/Kardon sound system. I've attached several pictures that show the dimensions of the subwoofer and the mounting location. The sub is interesting in that the voice coils are in front of the conical woofer, while the spider is mounted behind (the spider is just visible in the attached top mount depth picture). I'm not planning on doing so immdiately, but it seems that a low-profile 8" sub, like the JL Audio 8w1v3 would fit--if just barely--into the stock location. I think the only modification needed would be a custom spacer--about 1.5"--with lips to match the three stock bolt holes, as well as a wiring adapter of course.

I wanted to provide an update and some additional info following my adventure replacing the stock Subaru head unit, H/K speakers, and H/K amp in my 2009 Outback. For background, the saga began when I decided to replace the head-unit in order to add an integrated Bluetooth solution. While I was at it I added a rear-view camera (they’re stupid cheap on Amazon, I got one for$18.99). I figured with all of that work I might as well replace the factory speakers, since the front ones were distorting noticeably after 5+ years of use. I thought replacing the speakers would be one of the easiest tasks. I was wrong. The stock speakers are, in fact, fairly easy to replace by themselves. (There are good tutorials such as http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/2006-legacy-front-door-speaker-installation-diy-96931.html and http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/2006-legacy-rear-door-speaker-installation-diy-96930.html?t=96930 ). The major problem with the H/K setup is that the factory amp has distinct channels—with an integrated crossover and likely EQ!—for the front door woofer and tweeter. Also, all of the factory H/K speakers are 2-Ohm units, so replacing with 4-Ohm speakers probably would halve the amp’s output capabilities. Note that the front speakers use a standard toyota speaker wiring harness but the rear speakers use an unidentified harness and very short leads. You'll want to extend the rear speaker leads during the install The bottom line result is that when I replaced the front speakers (I used Alpine SPS-610C 6.5” components) they sounded like crap using the stock amp. So I decided to bypass and replace the H/K amp. My goal was to drive the four door speakers (SPS-610C components in front and SPS-610S coaxials in the rear) with the newly added Pioneer AVH-4600BT head unit and use a new Blaupunkt EMA-255 to power the factory dual voice coil sub. I debated retaining the factory amp to drive the sub, but in the end I decided to replace it because 1) amps are chap, 2) replacing the amp, which likely isn’t bridgeable, makes replacing the factory sub with a single-voice coil unit much easier if the factory sub fails and 3) I wasn’t really sure of the factory amp’s input impedance and how the system would cope with running a speaker-level input in parallel to the amp and the front components. In order to bypass the factory amp I cut the factory wiring harness and used pigtails to splice the amp’s inputs (which are speaker-level outputs from the head unit) to the output lines to each speaker. In my 2009 Outback that resulted in the following connections (note: The H/K speakers have no markings to identify positive/negative inputs, so I verified the factory configuration of all but the right front using a 9V battery and ensuring the speaker moved outward. I double checked all connections but I may have made an error or two; of course it doesn’t matter for the end result as long as you’re consistent in reconnecting what you think is positive/negative) The below table lists the connection, input harness/pin, input wire color -> output harness/pin, output wire color: Right Front: +: R316/5, Red -> R317/3, Black/Red stripe - R316/4, White -> R317/9, White/Red Left Front: (note: opposite polarity on output from previous posts) + R316/3, Black -> R317/10, Brown - R316/2, Green -> R317/4, White Right Rear: (note: opposite polarity on output from previous posts) + R316/23, Blue/Yellow -> R317/8, White/Black - R316/22, Blue/Green -> R317/7, Yellow Left Rear: + R316/18, White/Blue -> R317/2, Black/Blue - R316/17, White/Blue -> R317/6, White/Blue Amp power/remote signal: R315/6 and R315/7, black -> Ground R316/12, yellow -> Amp remote (as SVXdc noted, this is an accessory-on signal, not the head-unit’s amp power signal) R317/1 and R317/5, red, -> +12V battery Subwoofer output: Voice Coil 1 +, R315/4, Brown/White Voice Coil 1 -, R315/10, Green Voice Coil 2 +, R315/5, White/Green Voice Coil 2-, R315/12, Pink I made bypass pigtails out of 12” lengths of 18 gauge speaker wire (and used the same wire for the amp power connections). Looking at the picture of the replacement amp, the bundle of red plugs are the 4-speaker outputs (8 total wires/16 total connections). The bundle with the black electrical tape is the amp power/ground/remote signal. The subwoofer outputs are the red heat-shrink connectors (bottom). The bundle of twisted wires at the bottom are the 4 factory front tweeter outputs, which I didn’t use. Somewhere in this mess there are also cut leads for the VSS output and an unused ground. I cannibalized one of the factory amp mounts to secure the new amp, cutting off part of the bracket and adding holes for the amp mounting screws and to secure the wiring with zip ties. My head-unit has line-level subwoofer outputs, so I ran that to the amp using the pictured RCA cables. Another install note is that removing both the front seat (to replace the amp) and rear seat (to run the rear-view camera signal) is quite easy; just be sure to disconnect the battery about 30 minutes prior to messing with the front seat due to the integrated airbag. Once the connections were made, I needed to set the gain on the amp. This involved a bunch of guesswork. I assumed each voice coil could handle at most ~30W RMS based on the published difference in (peak?) power output of the 7-channel sedan and 8-channel wagon H/K amp, assuming both voice coils are otherwise identical, and assuming a .7 peak/RMS wattage conversion. With this in mind I connected both voice coils in series (to double impedance and thereby cut power by half) to one of the amp’s output channels and ran a 50hz test tone at my expected max listening volume. I adjusted the gain until the output AC voltage was about 8V, measured using my fluke DMM. As a side note, it seems the factory sub channel(s) also has a high-pass filter at circa 40Hz, as a 30 and 20 Hz test tone using the factory amp didn’t produce an audible response, while it did using my replacement amp. The 30Hz tone didn’t sound aweful, but the 20Hz tone was heavily distorted, fwiw. Overall, the entire AV update took several days. I also added dynamat/fatmat while I had the panels off, which made a noticeable improvement but added a lot of install time. Below are my estimates of how long it would take a skilled novice (doing this work on this vehicle for the first time) to complete the stages of this project. Add an hour or two to each step if you choose to dynamat. Mount rear-view camera to tailgate/run wire to headunit: 4-5 hours Replace headunit: 2-3 hours, plus time to complete the wiring harness adapter and aux-in adapter (if desired) Replace front speakers: 2-3 hours Replace rear speakers: 1-2 hours Replace amp: 3-4 hours (if you trust my notes and don’t verify where all of the connections go)