Quick question guys - on the double-DIN Symphony factory radio setup, what speakers are amplified and which are powered directly from the head unit? I'm doing the console swap this week and I'm debating running my existing DVD head unit on a dash adapter kit, vs buying a Symphony from ECS for a cleaner look. I removed all my factory speakers and factory rear amp from my stock Concert setup and gave them away years ago, so I'm trying to figure out what I'll have to do if I run the Symphony - can I power the fronts off the head unit and pick up an amp for use with the rears, or what. Anyone know?

 

My none-bose setup. I'm quite sure the front speakers are powered by the symphony head unit, and the rear by a built in amp in the right rear speaker. (I've also replaced my front speakers to kickerz, which only lasted 7 months.)

 

I think that the symphony uses a separate amp to power all speakers and none are powered from the head unit.

Check out post #9.
VWVortex.com - Concert Radio Swap to Symphony

 

My 99.5 with concert radio was a direct plug and play. So whatever wiring your old concert setup was, should work with the symphony radio. With bose setups, it has the 2 rear door card speakers and I think they were powered by the more powerful bose amp that was supplied. You would also need to enable the bose feature on the radio through vag if you had bose speakers I think. That shouldn't matter to you though.

I noticed the music was louder when I installed the symphony radio. If I blasted my music, there would be times when the radio shuts off then goes into safe mode.

 

Let me ask you a couple questions first. Did you remove or snip any of the connectors when you put in the aftermarket head unit? Did you remove any of the stock wiring leading to the rear harness to the drivers side rear speaker? If you didn't remove or snip anything then it is easy to add the Symphony Double Din head unit back into the system assuming the Concert connectors are the same as the symphony which I think they are.

What is your current set up? Do you have 1, 2 or 3 amps running your system? i.e. Is your aftermarket deck powering the front and an aftermarket amp powering the rear?

I would highly recommend you find the wiring diagram from Concert head unit and compare it to the one from the Symphony diagram like this

to make sure all the pin outs match. I was helping someone else and the diagram from the old head unit did not match up to the one from the new head unit so he had to remove some of the crimps and swap them.

As far as the Symphony head unit is concerned, you are correct. Front's are powered by the head unit and rears are powered by the OEM amp. If you are already in there and have aftermarket speakers with an amp(s) already powering both front and rear, there are RCA signals for both front and back right at the wiring harness. The crimps are not in the harness for the front but the pins are coming out of the back of the deck. Here is a picture of the missing crimps for the front pre amp signal in the upper connector circled in red.

If you can find small crimps or "borrow" some from the cd changer section of the connector that are not used, then you can pop them in and splice a set of female RCA's like this

for a pre amp signal for your front and rear directly from your Symphony deck. Of course this all depends on how you have it hooked up currently.

Let me know your current setup so I can more accurately help. I too like the OEM look of the Symphony which is why I kept it. I added a Virtual CD Changer like this

That plays MP3 from an SD card or USB stick. 6 directories allowing 99 songs per directory. It also allows you to hook up a media player like your iphone via a 1/8" headphone adapter. This way I get to keep the OE look and move into the right decade. Good luck with your decision.

Doug

 

Doug, that virtual cd changer is a great find!

 

I'm pretty happy with it but it's a little quirky as the random button on the head unit is not functional and trying to scroll through 99 songs to get to #50 is a PITA but the sound quality and the media player hook up are some of the main reasons for getting it not to mention not having a crap load of CD's in the car. I just have 2 SD cards; one in the car and one in the house. When you get some new songs, load them up on the one in the house and swap it in and away you go.

Doug

 

Sorry about the late reply to this guys, been a busy few days. Excellent info from everyone.

My current setup is all aftermarket. My car was the partial Bose system with front door and rear deck speakers only. I replaced all the speakers except the front door tweeters with aftermarket speakers, and I ran new wiring to the rear. Being that the front door speakers were powered directly from the head unit, I simply cut the OEM speaker connectors off and terminated them with female blade terminals to connect to my RF speakers. All of the factory head unit connectors are still intact in the dash, and I used a Metra preamp harness to hook up my DVD head unit.

Doug, thank you VERY much for the connection info in your post. I run a two-channel amp with a 10" sub, and because all my OEM rear sound gear is long gone, I'll pop those pins and solder the RCAs on to feed the amp once the Symphony is in place. I can drive the amp with that, and change from my current configuration (bridging the two channels into the sub), to using one for the sub and one for the rears. The amp has good power (200w RMS) and I don't try to thump the mortar off the buildings with bass, so one channel is fine for the sub and one for the rear 6.5s.

Where did you pick up the virtual changer? I really like that since most of the music I listen to regularly is on my iPhone and I'd love to connect it that way.

 

A couple things to think about when you are running your system like this. You will lose left to right in the rear which is not so important in today's music but if you listen to classics like the Beatles where they do multi track with no voice on the left, voice on the right, bass on the right, drums on both, etc. you will get odd sounds from the rear since you will be running only one channel to run both left and right rear. In addition to that your sub will respond oddly to this too as it lacks a true "Monaural" signal from both left and right sides. I guess as a solution you can splice the L & R together to get monaural then Y it off to get 2 monaural channels again.

Another thing to think about is crossover cut off. Does your two channel amp have a crossover built in? If not are you ok with the sub spewing out higher frequencies? Are you ok with your rear speakers farting out low bass frequencies?

If you are ok with all these quirks then go for it. If you are not then what I suggest is getting a mono amp or another 2 channel for the 10" sub which should have a built in crossover and run your rears with the two channel amp you already have. Hopefully the two channel amp you have has a crossover built in to block the lows. If you go this route just use a couple Y RCA splitters to split the rear signals for the 2 amps.


It's been a couple years but here is the link. Charmlink Ipod interface,Ipod integration,USB/SD Interface,Digital Music Changer. I only have a Blackberry so I have to run everything from the phone which is fine for me. I think there are other units out there like Denison's ice link or something like that that will allow you to control your ipod from the head unit but I really haven't done any research on this at all. I believe all of these aftermarket add-ons run through your CD changer port so if you are needing to "borrow" crimp ends and want to run one of these units, don't take them from that section of the connector. Not that you would if you are only planning on running rear RCA's

Well whatever you decide, good luck. Post up if you need any advice or help in any way.

Doug

 

Good point on the monaural info - I haven't done audio in years and wasn't thinking right about it. I do have built-in switchable crossovers on the amp but to simplify it all I may just buy another amp for the speakers. Thank you also for the link to the virtual changer - ill look into it and compare price etc to that of the IceLink. I really appreciate all the info - its a big help.