Freelander 1 Fitting aftermarket stereo

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Boelle

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39
Location
Denmark
Hi

Sorry for asking as I know they are long threads about car stereo and changing to all kinds of non-standard stereos, but I have searched all over the Internet and the more I search the more confused I get. It's quite simple what I want to achieve; fitting an aftermarket stereo (Eonon G2110F) instead of the old 2 DIN Cdchanger Head unit from 2004. So that's easy, but figuring out where to get a wiring harness for this is really difficult. I have the HSE model with the Harman/Kardon amplifier below the front seat + steering wheel control (volume +/- and next/previous). I would like all this to keep working after the switch. There are tons of wiring harnesses out there, but none of them state whether they support the Harman/Kardon amplifier, only one website explicitly told that it didn't. So what to do? I removed the original HU this evening just to find out what the cable looked like and hoped that would get me somewhere. There's only one cable attached to the HU (except for the antenna). Looks like the attached picture.

All the websites selling these harnesses has been a dead end. Either no response, or a; "sorry, no can do"

Anyone that can point me in the right direction, or tell me to forget about it and live with the CDChanger HU :)

Best regards

Christian
 

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This is the lead i got so my steering wheel controls would still work on my kenwood radio. All from halfords, they had to buy it in but they knew exactly what to get. As for your amp, i cant help you with that. Halfords might be able to though. Good luck :D
 

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teddywood1 said:
why do you want to change I think it is a good unit especially with the cd unit under the seat
Click to expand...
It's with an "in-house" CD-changer in the head unit. Under the seat is the amp. Wan'g to have Bluetooth, Navigation and a decent screen for OBD-output :)
 
openfold said:
This is the lead i got so my steering wheel controls would still work on my kenwood radio. All from halfords, they had to buy it in but they knew exactly what to get. As for your amp, i cant help you with that. Halfords might be able to though. Good luck :D
Click to expand...
Thanks, I will try asking Halfords. Hopefully they can help me.
 
First off, you won't be able to use the Harmon Kardon amp with any Head Unit other than the factory HK HU. You should be able to get the HU working as a stand alone HU to power the 4 main speakers directly. You would then need a separate amp to power the boot mounted sub. The steering wheel controls should work but something is telling me they are on the CAN bus, I could be wrong on that detail though. If they are just a resistive ladder, then it is relatively easy to do with a conversion cable.
I'm not familiar with Eonon but I would think they are chinese. From experience, these are generally of poor quality with below average sound quality and often ridden with software glitches.
I'd probably go for one of the heavy weight in car audio manufacturers to avoid disappointment.
 
Nodge68 said:
First off, you won't be able to use the Harmon Kardon amp with any Head Unit other than the factory HK HU. You should be able to get the HU working as a stand alone HU to power the 4 main speakers directly. You would then need a separate amp to power the boot mounted sub. The steering wheel controls should work but something is telling me they are on the CAN bus, I could be wrong on that detail though. If they are just a resistive ladder, then it is relatively easy to do with a conversion cable.
I'm not familiar with Eonon but I would think they are chinese. From experience, these are generally of poor quality with below average sound quality and often ridden with software glitches.
I'd probably go for one of the heavy weight in car audio manufacturers to avoid disappointment.
Click to expand...

What's the reason for the original amp not working in this setup?
I would think that the only difference is that I have to go with the RCA output on the headunit instead of the amplified outputs. Secondly finding the correct wire in the HU connector to turn on the amp when the Head unit is turned on. Or is there something I'm missing here?
Can't seem to find which wire turns on the amp though. It's not clearly stated in the electrical library in the RAVE manual. But OK there are several PDF's so probably have to investigate further to find it.

/Christian
 
Boelle said:
What's the reason for the original amp not working in this setup?
I would think that the only difference is that I have to go with the RCA output on the headunit instead of the amplified outputs. Secondly finding the correct wire in the HU connector to turn on the amp when the Head unit is turned on. Or is there something I'm missing here?
Can't seem to find which wire turns on the amp though. It's not clearly stated in the electrical library in the RAVE manual. But OK there are several PDF's so probably have to investigate further to find it.

/Christian
Click to expand...
If you can identify them, you might be able to rig something.
The wiring colours are on the 2003 on electrical PDF
 
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Boelle said:
:)
Click to expand...
Openfold, did you do anything special to make the steering wheel controls work? I've connected Key1, Key2 and ground between the new steering wheel control box and the head unit, but doesn't seem like the head unit reacts on any commands from the vol+/- or Next/previous buttons .. quite odd I think.

/Christian
 
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So now it gets weird .. really really weird. :eek:
I have bought all harnesses and hooked up the new head unit. SWC works, amplifier turns on, everything OK so far .. but as I didn't have the ISO -> RCA connector before today I connected the amplified head unit "ports" directly to the cars connector, sending an amplified signal to the amplifier. Thought this wouldn't work, but just tried to turn the HU up to 1, and it worked. I was like .. how the h*** is this possible? But sound was OK so thumbs up even though it didn't make sense to me. Then I tried to use the balance on the HU and found out that it was only the tweeter in front left that was playing, and rear left had lower sound volume than rear right? So low volume on the left side and normal on the right side .. weird I thought, but maybe the fact that it was the amplified output I used. So I waited to get the RCA->ISO adapter (received it today), so I could feed the amplifier with a normal line out, which I would expect it would like the most. But balance issues was the same, and actually the sound was poorer when using line out than amplified output. Then I thought; OK let's try the original HU. Same result, bad balance! So now I though WTF???. Then I removed the left door trim and removed the speaker, thinking that was making the mess. Hooked it up to my amplifier in my living room, and it played just fine. Then I thought maybe there's something wrong with the H/K amplifier. Unmounted it and took a look inside. No faults visual there either (even though I have a hard time understanding how H/K actually put their name on a device looking that sad inside :))

So now I'm at a loss. Does anyone have any idea what I should look at next, or should I just drive the car into a lake and get the insurance-money - haha.

Sorry for the long story, but really hope someone can shed some light on this and help me in the right direction.

(Probably not gonna get any sleep tonight, my head is spinning around o_O)
 
Found out. Speaker's is dead. Tried moving it to the other side, same low sound. So now Iøm up for new speakers as well. Think I'm going to change all four, but keep the tweeters.
 
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