galman67

Joeboost, I was reading through your post again and I just want to clarify with you since the Alpine 660 will cost about the same as the Sony head unit/sync harness, which do you recommend. It sounds like having a clean source (such as the Sony HU) should be better than using a product (such as the alpine 660) to fix a crappy source? So I am leaning towards getting the Sony HU. Is my thinking correct on this?

galman67

Okay, so I've been doing some more searching and reading on the forum about this. I'm trying not to ask questions that have already been covered, but I've been reading for hours, and am not making much progress.

It looks like it is a very involved process to make sync work with an aftermarket amplifier and HU, so I am shying away from that idea now. Maybe I'm best off to hook up an aftermarket HU and stop using Sync all together. We rarely use it anyways, and don't care much if we keep it or not. However, if I use a product like the alpine 660 my sync wouldn't be affected (right?).

So if I decide to use the aftermarket HU without sync adapter, what wiring harness do I need to use? Also will I be able to buy a steering wheel control adapter that will work with this setup to retain volume/station preset controls on the steering wheel?

JoeBoost

Correct. Everything stays the same and you take high level outs from the HU and put directly into the DSP.

Adding a DSP to the facotry HU will do wonders! You can stop there and probably be very happy. I was using a Bitone with factory HU and it sounded great.

While a HU would be a great improvement it will not replace the function of a true DSP. Good clean source is a great start but will not come close to getting a real sound stage. You can through fading/balancing/speaker placement/components/phase swap, etc) get a HU to produce an ok stage but you really need the key features of a DSP to make the magic happen ( time alignment, delay, channel specific level setting, 31 band eq/channel, de-equalization, etc).

If your going to swap the HU and drop sync then I beleive a basic harness such as the Metra BT5220 will do everything you need. The HU you buy will need to have remote control in via 3.5mm plug to have steering wheel controls. If your going to that level I would run new speaker wire (14g) and just use the Metra to tap into the non-output side of the harness. Call Metra tech support with your plans and they will tell you everything you need.

Other things to consider - run a componet set up front and get the tweeters out of the doors! It will bring your stage up and make a huge difference in SQ!

galman67

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it. It's looking like a DSP will be the way to go for me.

The components sound like a good idea too.

galman67

Does anyone have any ideas on where to to mount an alpine h660 dsp in a 2010 screw? I already have an amp taking up the space under the passenger seat.

galman67

Alpine h660 is on its way! I will update on how it works.

JoeBoost

If you have the attitude for it I would move everything to the back wall.

galman67

Yeah, I spose that would be the cleanest looking. I think I could handle that.

galman67

OK, so it's just a few days until I get my h660. I've been reading the manual for it that I found online and any other info I could find on forums etc. My knowledge of car audio installation is pretty basic. In the past I have installed a few head units, amps & speakers/subs in my own vehicles, but the h660 will be a bit more complicated. I'm sure I will probably end up calling Alpine, but in the mean time I wanted to see if anyone was able to answer a couple questions I have. Any help is greatly appreciated.

1. Currently the factory HU has RCA connectors wired into the speaker wire outputs (these are plugged in to the PA660 4 channel amp that was previously installed). When connecting the front two channels to the h660 can I simply plug the RCA's into the h660's auxiliary inputs or am I better off to remove the RCA converter and wire directly to the autoranging input of the h660?

2. Before tuning I need to find the max volume of the head unit without it distorting. Since I have an aftermarket amp, do I just use the max volume without distortion for how I currently have it tuned? If this is the case, it leads to another question. The manual says to turn the amp gains to 1/2 during the tuning process. That's about where the gains are currently set, so do I just leave them where they are during tuning, or do I drop them to 1/2 of where they are at now?

galman67

Well, I have the h660 installed in my truck now. I went through the four position calibration with the unit. I then spent some time tuning the system and got it to sound pretty decent. I then waited until today to tune it more with the laptop. I noticed right away that it lost its tune and sounded pretty crappy. I called Alpine three times, and tried something different every time to fix it. Did the troubleshooting on all my connections, and everything is right except the signals being put out by the unit. Now both left side speakers produce little or no sound, and the h660 has decided my rear left 5x7 is a sub and my rear right is a satellite (whatever that means). It seems to lose its tune every time and revert back to a low output with high distortion. Of course Alpine says this is all wrong, and on top of it, they don't know why it is functioning like that or how to fix it.

To make matters worse I don't have the factory warranty. I thought I did since it was brand new and unopened, but I don't since the seller was not an authorized Alpine dealer (I bought from the best rated seller I could find on ebay not knowing about the authorized dealer thing).

I'm pretty certain the unit is defective. If anyone experienced with these can confirm this or tell me otherwise please let me know because I only have two business days to work with before I am stuck with it according to the seller's policy. Thanks in advance.