Door Speakers & Subwoofers in my Leaf

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Gascant,
I hear what you're saying....I'm okay with the non-premium sound system because I knew I would do some upgrades. I've heard some factory premium sound systems that sounded very nice, and I've also heard some that really weren't worth the money...This way, some people will live with what the Leaf offers, and others like us will upgrade...

Leaf Stereo Phase 2 will be beginning soon for me, as I'm expecting a small subwoofer to come via the brown truck in a day or two... :cool: I'll be sure to post more photos....

Randy
 
gascant said:
A bunch of early delivery owners were bemoaning the stereo system a while back--I still think it's a shame that, as quiet as the LEAF is (and I've ridden in it 3 times now), Nissan didn't elect to put in a Bose sound system like the one that's in my wife's Altima Hybrid. Maybe they were trying to save some money? I would gladly have paid for it despite my high frequency hearing loss.

Likely because, the entire control system OS in the radio and Bose does not have the ability to do that type of software integration so they had Clarion use an existing unit with new internal software. I wish they had used a better vendor over Clarion as they have always had a bad rep on audio from day one but they likely fit the bill for the spec. The radio directly controls many car functions directly.
 
It does control a lot of items in the car. In addition to the standard radio / satellite / CD / iPod / USB functionality, it also interfaces to the backup camera, bluetooth, cell antenna, pedestrian sound system, handsfree functions, charging timer, A/C remote functions, NAV system, plus more...

I'd hate to see what the price is for this unit as a replacement if it breaks down the road....
 
Herm said:
EVDRIVER said:
The radio directly controls many car functions directly.

Thats a scary thought.. what functions evdriver?


Whatever you see on the screens. I'm really surprised how poor the UI works, on a 2005 Acura you can push a steering button and say many commands like "find nearest Chineese Restaurant" and a list pops up and you can select one or call directly from the screen, that works on many verbal commands when driving and it makes finding things VERY easy. In the LEAF you need to stop and use the painful interface that looks like it was pieced together from five different outdated products. Far too many layers to get to the information needed and redundant paths. I also doubt there will be any upgrades to existing units so it will stay this way. I suppose Clarion was the cheapest bidder to slap some software into one of their Euro DD units. I mean really Nissan, an EV with a slow clunky interface in "tech car" and poor audio quality, is this another "ground up" component like the EV conversion heater? Some of the LEAF features were touted as high tech but in reality they are average components pieced together from Clarion and antiquated heating systems used in EV conversions. That's all fine but don't make it seem "ground up" and cutting edge, more like "shelf sideways, vendor modified" :lol:
 
Nice mod! After Nissan gets a good feel for the EV market, I'm sure they will provide more audio options.
 
+10!

EVDRIVER said:
Whatever you see on the screens. I'm really surprised how poor the UI works, on a 2005 Acura you can push a steering button and say many commands like "find nearest Chineese Restaurant" and a list pops up and you can select one or call directly from the screen, that works on many verbal commands when driving and it makes finding things VERY easy. In the LEAF you need to stop and use the painful interface that looks like it was pieced together from five different outdated products. Far too many layers to get to the information needed and redundant paths. I also doubt there will be any upgrades to existing units so it will stay this way. I suppose Clarion was the cheapest bidder to slap some software into one of their Euro DD units. I mean really Nissan, an EV with a slow clunky interface in "tech car" and poor audio quality, is this another "ground up" component like the EV conversion heater? Some of the LEAF features were touted as high tech but in reality they are average components pieced together from Clarion and antiquated heating systems used in EV conversions. That's all fine but don't make it seem "ground up" and cutting edge, more like "shelf sideways, vendor modified" :lol:
 
TRONZ said:
Nice mod! After Nissan gets a good feel for the EV market, I'm sure they will provide more audio options.
The Nissan engineer I met with also indicated as much when I asked him about it. But he's probably just guessing, like you. :)
 
On to Phase 2 of the Leaf speaker improvement - Subwoofer additions

Malcolm and I had a wild Saturday last week and decided to upgrade our Leaf sound systems with some subwoofers at the same time. I'm still trying to talk him into upgrading his door speakers :)

After scoping out the rear, I was determined to get a sub that would ride on the charger "Hump" and somehow use the seat belt hooks on the rear of the seat to anchor it down...We ended up choosing the Bazooka BTA 6250D Series amplified 6 inch sub from Amazon, and then ordered a companion BT6014 non-amplified tube that hooks up to the output of the first one...These subs use speaker connections from the Leaf head unit to get the signal...On to the project....

sub01.jpg
 
One of the first things you have to do is disconnect the negative terminal from the battery. We wrapped it in a towel and stashed it to the side.

Then one of the next things we did was to remove the head unit to get at the wiring...Now we know how to do it, but we spent a lot of time making sure that we didn't break or scratch anything!! Just use your fingers to pry it loose from the clips on top and then the clips on bottom. Then unhook the clips in the middle...Having two people actually made it easier with 4 hands and prying power...Whatever we did on one car, we immediately did it on the other car...It is helpful to use a small screwdriver to pop the locking tab on each clip before you can pull it out of the rear of the head unit...

sub01a.jpg


sub01b.jpg


sub01c.jpg
 
Here is the rear of the head unit after it has been removed. This baby is definitely the centerpiece of the Leaf with all the connections...Just take your time and pop each tab. Then there are 4 screws to remove to get the head unit out.

sub01d.jpg
 
We decided to run the power and remote turn on wires down the drivers side of the door frame and the speaker wires down the passengers side of the car. Then the wires join up under the passenger seat and go under the seat to the trunk area....The cushion of the rear seat just pulls up and out of the two connectors (Thanks to the service manual). Just tug hard and the clips will come out...See the two hooks on the underside of the seat? They just lift up and out. Also note the "hump" and how the rear seat belt hooks are oriented...That will be part of our mounting method for the subs....

sub01e.jpg


sub01f.jpg


sub01g.jpg
 
Here are a few shots showing the wire path and the wires running from front to back. The plastic moulding is held on with clips (be careful not to break them) and the seat belt assembly between the front and back seats is held on with different clips (it's helpful to have the mini plastic crowbar tool pictured in the beginning of this thread)...We ran the wires as inconspicuously as possible and used cable ties to anchor them to other wire assemblies as we could...As an aside, people have been talking about replacing the carpet, but that would seem difficult because it is molded to the floor and has lots of curves and edges built-in.

sub01h.jpg


sub01i.jpg


sub01j.jpg
 
We used crimp-on wire clamps to attach to the head unit speaker and remote power wires. The new green speaker wires go to the rear and have connectors crimped on so they mate up with the head unit wires. By the way, there are errors in the service manual wiring diagram. I'll post more information later with the corrections, but this took us a long time to figure out....The colors are correct, but the positions shown on the connectors are not correct.

sub01k.jpg
 
The ground wire for the amplified sub comes from under the passenger seat where the seat belts screw to the frame. We tried to run the power wire from the battery through the firewall, but had a heck of a time getting the power wire through the bundle of wires that penetrate the firewall. They were sealed.

After some time, we gave up on that because we didn't want to damage those wires and decided that we didn't want to drill a hole in the firewall. So we connected the positive wire for the sub (7.5 amp fuse) to the 20 amp circuit that feeds the cigarette lighter adapter. If we had a more powerful sub, we'd have to connect to the battery, but this seemed like a good compromise...As an interesting aside, I thought that since we were connecting the power to the cigarette light adapter, the power draw of the subwoofer would show up on the energy display in the other systems graph in the lower right. In my car with the music running, it measured about 500 watts previously and about 500 watts after the subwoofer install. So it looks like the cigarette lighter / power adapter circuit is not included in that energy reading.

Now it's time to solder all the wires we ran to the sub...I have a little soldering jig that makes it easy and we used shrink tubing to protect the wires and then spiral wrap after that to bundle up the speaker and power wires separately...

sub01l.jpg


sub01m.jpg
 
Finally, like a cooking show that whips out the souffle from the oven, here are a couple of photos of the finished product...We put in about 12 hours on that Saturday, and a couple of hours on Sunday / Monday to finish up. I ended up having one of my speaker connections out of phase so I had to reverse one pair of my soldered connections at the subwoofer. But after fixing that, I can tell you that the subs sound great!!!

And, we have an installation that can be removed with almost no evidence the subs were there. The seat belt loops hold the speakers just fine, two loops for the heavier amplified sub, and then one loop for the lighter non-amplified sub. I put a little bit of double-faced tape on the bottom of the plastic base assemblies under the subs that the straps go through to hold them steady, and as you can see the rear trunk cover goes back in place and the cargo organizer also fits back in just fine!!!

It really adds another dimension of sound to the previous door speakers I installed....I'm working on Malcolm now to get him to upgrade his door speakers...

sub01o.jpg


sub01p.jpg
 
Randy,

Are there any spare pin positions in the audio plug? I'm wondering if any could be line level out.

Thanks.
 
EVDRIVER said:
Randy,

Are there any spare pin positions in the audio plug? I'm wondering if any could be line level out.

Thanks.

There are some spare open slots in the connector, but no wires installed and they're not mentioned in the service manual. There may be line level outputs or at least they could be retrofitted into the connector with enough time and patience. But there was no evidence that they were there and ready to go...
 
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