Speakers everywhere! Has anyone installed a legitimate aftermarket system at this point? If so, are there any learning curves or gotchas vs. ICE cars? Is it even possible to find good speakers to replace every single type in the model 3?
aftermarket sound system info thread
Drizzle
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Thanks for the info, just ordered some sweet T taps on amazon, I didn't even know these things exited. Now I have to find a amp and sub.
What amp and sub combo have you guys used?
Any advantage to adding some sort of disconnected switch to the aftermarket amp, for lets say road trips when you are cutting it close to not making it to the the next charge location?
Glad to hear no noticeable effect on range. Was the use of the LC2i done to improve and allow for adjustment of the stock subwoofer signal? The r500x1d has high level speaker inputs, could you not theoretically just take the stock sub signal into the high level speaker input of the fosgate amp? Please excuse my ignorance and barrage of questions amigos.
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I used the LC2i to clean up the signal and get a more stable level coming into the RF amp. The built-in LOC on the RF amp is not the best quality.
The other reason is that I'm able to boost the frequencies being attenuated by the stock amp (20-40hz).
The other reason is that I'm able to boost the frequencies being attenuated by the stock amp (20-40hz).
Great news! I've convinced the wife and ordered sub and amp. She drives it way more than me. Anyway, I plan to use the big storage compartment in the trunk for my sealed box, is there a benefit to making the box big and take up most of the compartment? Or are there guidelines for box size? I ordered the same kappa 10"
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Every subwoofer is going to have an ideal enclosure size. I believe for that Infinity speaker, it is around .6-.75 cubic feet. My box fits nicely in the sub-trunk, allows me to put the lid back on flush, and only takes about 1/2 the available space. I just drilled a hole in the sidewall of the compartment and ran the wires under the liner into the compartment.
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Just a small update. I ended up getting Pioneer gm-d8601 for $120 shipped. I think a newer model is coming out. It is similar to the RF r500x1d amp but the one benefit is that it can go to 1 ohm. I originally used it on a dual voice coil Kenwood 12" sub for $60. Blew that thing in 20 minutes. It is only designed to handle 250W RMS and 1000W peak. My mistake was that the amp had two outputs for speakers. I thought that it would be 4 Ohm for each but I was wrong, the two speaker outputs are combined internally inside the amp. So what I thought the amp was outputting 300W but was really putting out 500W.
After a few days of thinking, I ended up getting a speaker that could handle the full power of the amp . I bought a 12" NVX sub that can handle 1000W RMS. The system is up and running but I will have to some mods to the box so it will fit right in my car.
The good news is that the new sub hits low really hard. Shakes the whole car. The bad news is that I don't get the hard hitting thumps. I'm not sure if it is the sub or signal to the sub only contains low frequency.
After a few days of thinking, I ended up getting a speaker that could handle the full power of the amp . I bought a 12" NVX sub that can handle 1000W RMS. The system is up and running but I will have to some mods to the box so it will fit right in my car.
The good news is that the new sub hits low really hard. Shakes the whole car. The bad news is that I don't get the hard hitting thumps. I'm not sure if it is the sub or signal to the sub only contains low frequency.
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I used the driver's side kick panel to remote turn on. It shouldn't pull the much power. Right now, that kick panel is powering my dash cam, radar detector, and remote on for the amp. All appears fine.
For 12v power, I tapped the penthouse (red plug under passenger side rear seats) as mentioned in this tread using a 4 gauge wire. For ground, I just bolt it to the body with one of the existing car bolt.
Could you let me know how that goes? If you get any error messages about battery problems, things like that.
I'll be installing amps soon and I have three amps "rated" for a total of 2300W or 160A, but in reality they use <10A even at very high volumes so I might be able to power the entire system from that 10A dashboard connector. We'll see.
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Ahh, I didn't realize you hadn't tapped the penthouse yet @_Travis_.
@hamtonp, any chance you could post pictures of how you routed your main power and how you tapped into the penthouse? I'd love to see how you did that.
Oh, and I agree, please do let us know if you end up throwing any codes in the computer.
Thanks!!!
@hamtonp, any chance you could post pictures of how you routed your main power and how you tapped into the penthouse? I'd love to see how you did that.
Oh, and I agree, please do let us know if you end up throwing any codes in the computer.
Thanks!!!
Edit:
Some of this information has been improved or corrected. Please check out this more-recent post.
Here's another random info dump, this time on the subject of the front amplifier and front door speakers.
As I've posted before, I'm attempting to reconstruct a full-range stereo signal that I can then feed into my full-range aftermarket system. This requires you to combine either five signals from the rear amp or seven signals from the front and rear amps. @Ingineer mentioned that the front amp is integrated into the ICE computer, the top-level computer that runs the higher level functions like infotainment and Autopilot. It turns out it's very easy to get the audio signals straight out of the front amp, just like with the rear amp. There's a connector on the bottom right corner of the ICE computer that contains all of the speaker wires for the front half of the car. That includes the three mids and three tweeters in the front dash, and the two imaging tweeters above the A pillars.
Remove the panel underneath the passenger side of the front dash. It's held in place with three plastic push rivets. Behind that you can see the ICE computer. It's a big silver box, kind of hard to miss. Also remove the panel at the bottom of the front passenger door. It pops right out. Behind that you'll see the VC_RIGHT computer. Laying on the floor in front of the front passenger seat, this is what you'll see:
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This bottom connector has sixteen pins. I traced ten of those to the speakers in the front dash. I didn't bother to trace the last six. I would assume four of those go to the imaging tweeters above the A pillars, and I don't know where the last two go. There is a small speaker underneath the passenger side dash, but my multimeter didn't find a connection between it and this connector. Interestingly, the center mid and the center tweeter are connected in parallel to a single output. Here's a partial pinout diagram for that connector:
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For my installation, I tapped into the mid and tweeter signals here and routed four wire pairs from this connector to my signal processor in the trunk. You could get pretty much the same signals from the rear dash mids, but their high-end is significantly attenuated, as I mentioned in my previous post about the rear amp.
After you figure out your signals, you need to get them to the speakers, some of which are in the doors. There's one flex boot that carries all the wires going into each door. Instead of attempting to route new wires through that, I just tapped into the existing wires. The wire colors are fairly constant throughout the car (a given signal's wire color typically remains constant no matter how many different connectors the signal passes through), so that's the easiest way to trace signals. There are at least four wire bundles going through the front door boot, but most of the wires are in the one large bundle with one large connector that goes into VC_LEFT or RIGHT, respectively. That big connector contains an 18-gauge pair for the door woofer which is white/blue on the left and orange/gray on the right. The door tweeters actually have their own dedicated connectors, so those are easy to find. I used butt connectors to splice into those wires, so the end result is that my aftermarket speaker wires run from my aftermarket amps in my trunk up to the VC connectors's, they then connect to the OEM speaker wires, and pass through the boot, into the door, to my aftermarket woofers and tweeters.
![]()
Some of this information has been improved or corrected. Please check out this more-recent post.
Here's another random info dump, this time on the subject of the front amplifier and front door speakers.
As I've posted before, I'm attempting to reconstruct a full-range stereo signal that I can then feed into my full-range aftermarket system. This requires you to combine either five signals from the rear amp or seven signals from the front and rear amps. @Ingineer mentioned that the front amp is integrated into the ICE computer, the top-level computer that runs the higher level functions like infotainment and Autopilot. It turns out it's very easy to get the audio signals straight out of the front amp, just like with the rear amp. There's a connector on the bottom right corner of the ICE computer that contains all of the speaker wires for the front half of the car. That includes the three mids and three tweeters in the front dash, and the two imaging tweeters above the A pillars.
Remove the panel underneath the passenger side of the front dash. It's held in place with three plastic push rivets. Behind that you can see the ICE computer. It's a big silver box, kind of hard to miss. Also remove the panel at the bottom of the front passenger door. It pops right out. Behind that you'll see the VC_RIGHT computer. Laying on the floor in front of the front passenger seat, this is what you'll see:
This bottom connector has sixteen pins. I traced ten of those to the speakers in the front dash. I didn't bother to trace the last six. I would assume four of those go to the imaging tweeters above the A pillars, and I don't know where the last two go. There is a small speaker underneath the passenger side dash, but my multimeter didn't find a connection between it and this connector. Interestingly, the center mid and the center tweeter are connected in parallel to a single output. Here's a partial pinout diagram for that connector:
For my installation, I tapped into the mid and tweeter signals here and routed four wire pairs from this connector to my signal processor in the trunk. You could get pretty much the same signals from the rear dash mids, but their high-end is significantly attenuated, as I mentioned in my previous post about the rear amp.
After you figure out your signals, you need to get them to the speakers, some of which are in the doors. There's one flex boot that carries all the wires going into each door. Instead of attempting to route new wires through that, I just tapped into the existing wires. The wire colors are fairly constant throughout the car (a given signal's wire color typically remains constant no matter how many different connectors the signal passes through), so that's the easiest way to trace signals. There are at least four wire bundles going through the front door boot, but most of the wires are in the one large bundle with one large connector that goes into VC_LEFT or RIGHT, respectively. That big connector contains an 18-gauge pair for the door woofer which is white/blue on the left and orange/gray on the right. The door tweeters actually have their own dedicated connectors, so those are easy to find. I used butt connectors to splice into those wires, so the end result is that my aftermarket speaker wires run from my aftermarket amps in my trunk up to the VC connectors's, they then connect to the OEM speaker wires, and pass through the boot, into the door, to my aftermarket woofers and tweeters.
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AWESOME. Thank you so much for that picture. How did you wire in your fuse under the red "boot"? Did you just stack the fuse connector on top of the existing connector?
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Basically yes. I just shoved into the boot and stacked it on top. It wasn't too bad getting the 4 gauge wire through there.
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Whatever you do, do NOT try to power amplifiers from the dashboard connector (assume you're talking about tapping VCLeft?). It is not rated for that type of continuous load, and you will most likely fry the wiring (or worse).
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You're not getting the hard thumps because the OEM signal is heavily attenuated at around 25-45hz. I used the LC2i to boost the signal in that range, and it helped some.
I just saw your pictures and funny enough I used the same "Install Gear" amp installation kit and used the same location to power my amp. As for ground I used the same ground the stock amp uses. BTW, I actually didn't know where the stock amp and sub were lol.
Anyway, I would like to thank everyone for their help. This past weekend I installed, LC2i, fosgate r500x1d amp and Infinity Kappa 10" sub (sealed box). The LC2 is awesome, no remote 12v needed from the drivers kickpanel.
I had planned to do that but 1st I tried using the built in remote turn on feature of the LC2i. I tapped into the stock sub woofer signal and put that into the LC2i, when it senses a signal it turns on, I then used the remote out on the LC2i to turns on the amp.
It works great and turns everything off when the car is "off". I verified this by using the turn off feature on the car and then walking outback (with trunk open) and seeing everything turn off.
Did someone mention they changed the tweeters on the doors? What did you use and did they bolt right in?
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