P38A Stereo replacement

I have a 2001 Vogue SE which has Sat Nav and Harmon Kardon set up but I have no sound from the rear door speakers or Sub and at low volume there is lots of hissss. I suspect the amp but the cheapest ive found is £400 second hand plus I want to add Bluetooth which is another £100. As much as I want to keep the old girl original I am considering replacing the original head unit but will the Sat Nav still work?

TIA

I think you can get the units serviced for about 150 quid. MrGorsky had his done.

Sat nav is separate system so yes it will still work - be interested in the servicing of the amp option as i have similar fault on mine. However mine sometime flicks to rear only for a second or two when radio turned on, but never any sub

Falk said:

Sat nav is separate system so yes it will still work - be interested in the servicing of the amp option as i have similar fault on mine. However mine sometime flicks to rear only for a second or two when radio turned on, but never any sub

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Although they are mainly separate systems the navigation instructions are given through the audio system so you will need the amp in good working order for that to work. However just changing the radio is not that easy on a high spec P38 I believe you will still need the factory amp to be in good condition to use the existing speakers.

Mine is an older car than yours (I think) with the Harmon Kardon speakers, but the Clarion head unit.

Clarion do a great £99 flat fee service for the head unit though. Full service, change the bulbs, repair any damage, and turn off the security code thing, plus they'll add an aux lead for £12. Mine was turned around in 24 hours.

I think you might have the Alpine head unit, so all of this may not apply, but they might do a similar service, you could ask them, and Harmon Kardon too. Mine is as good new now.... although no bluetooth.

Had my Clarion done a couple of years ago. Good system, good enough for me anyway.

Alpine on late vogues - i replaced my head unit at the loss of CD (but single CD built in) and steering wheel controls - however now have all the new features. Nexia do a harness adapter tailor made for a P38 alpine/harmon kadon system

From where did u get the Clarion serviced?

kapilamuni said:

From where did u get the Clarion serviced?

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Direct from Clarion. They have a really good service dept...
http://www.clarion-service.co.uk/cs/Clarion_Radio_Repairs.html

Alpine won't repair their P38 head units, I did find a company that will repair them but they dont promise a repair. Nexia loom very interesting, to be fair I looked a few years ago with my first P38 that was also an Alpine unit but the screen had died and it would no longer accept its unlock code, i ended up buying a good used unit.

DodyDisco said:

I have a 2001 Vogue SE which has Sat Nav and Harmon Kardon set up but I have no sound from the rear door speakers or Sub and at low volume there is lots of hissss. I suspect the amp but the cheapest ive found is £400 second hand plus I want to add Bluetooth which is another £100. As much as I want to keep the old girl original I am considering replacing the original head unit but will the Sat Nav still work?

TIA

Click to expand...

Yes its the amp that's the hiss of death iv recently concluded, best rip it all out and replace the lot with a modern head unit

One of my current projects is working on a replacement system for the DSP amp to remove it, and effectively replace it with 4x standard door amps, on a metal plate and a custom wiring loom which will connect to the vehicle wiring and then run the extra rear door signal feeds back to the head unit.

Granted a lot of people are happy to do away with the DSP amp and go aftermarket (I did!) but for those that want to keep the factory head unit, this will then allow that.

To start with I'm going to get a system up and running where it will get all the doors running properly, and then look to add in a switching relay on the drivers door speakers to allow the navigation audio to be heard, for vehicles with this.

I've already proved the concept by doing a quick mock-up on my bench - so the next step it to get it as a built up unit and do a test install in my other Vogue model which has the DSP amp in the back of it.

Keep up the good work Marty I think iv decided to replace all of mine head unit and DSP amp for something newer simple enuf to run new speaker wires to the doors will upgrade the speakers to me thinks but not until warmer weather iv still got sounds at the mo

Cheers - I am waiting on a few bits to turn up before I can make the plate and then start getting to work assembling it... hopefully in the next week or so I'll be able to start making some progress... though I have a couple of BECM's to work on in the mean time and starting to put together some Audi heater core kits aswell with everything required in one package to do the conversion, as it took me ages to track down all the exact parts needed when I did mine... plus the advantage of things like hose clamps and hose being a lot cheaper when bought in bulk!

I went aftermarket in my RR aswell for the reason that I couldn't be arsed buying a replacement DSP amp which may or may not just decide to fail on me.. but I didn't think that the HU might be compatible with normal door amps and be able to get a semi-stock solution when I was working on mine 4 years ago... still... it seems there is still interest from people on keeping the factory HU, which is the main reason for persuing this!

On my setup I ran additional wires into the loadspace for the rear left/right, and then made myself a passive crossover network for each door to filter the audio signals to the appropriate speaker, and then wired in my own connector - so that now lives down the back where the DSP amp used to be - only the amplification is done by the aftermarket head unit.

I also used a SWI-RC unit from the US to get the steering wheel controls to work... it's programmable aswell so I've changed the mapping of the buttons on my wheel to suit me better (I'm left handed so automatically go to do the volume with the left hand, which is seek by default). It's a bit more expensive than the autoleads stuff, but when I first tried their unit from Nexxia for the steering wheel controls and found it just wouldn't work, wasn't programmable, and best of all tech support wouldn't talk to me because I wasn't a trade customer... I decided to bin their ****e off and get something that was customisable! Again been in there for the last 4 years and all happy!

If you need a hand with wiring colours or anything when you go to do your project, then drop me a message - I did a bit spreadsheet on all the wiring colours, signals, connectors in the DSP system when I was researching mine...

Cheers,
Marty