NVX Boost Subwoofer upgrade - installed

[t-mo]

Let us know if you find a good replacement sub that hits a bit deeper. Sounds like you wired it to the

Let us know if you find a good replacement sub that hits a bit deeper. Sounds like you wired it to the battery vs penthouse, that would definitely add some time.

In this thread there was discussion of a Kicker and JL Audio sub installed in the factory sub enclosure:

New/Better Subwoofer for Tesla Model Y!

First off... The Tesla model Y sub sounds good. Now... it sounds incredible! I love turning my music up loud and actually feeling the music. I found a mobile audio company in Orange County. They took the stock sub box and swapped the stock with a Kicker 8” sub woofer. They installed the amp...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[C-Bus Y]

Stock speakers for now. I would be interested to hear from those that replaced everything. The stock speakers sound ok to my semi trained ears, just pull down the bass on the factory EQ

 

[Doclindy]

Some more images

Thank you! Where did you mount amp and other appliance? No error codes from computer with this install? I’ve read some people say it’s best to pull all the way from battery up front others say no way just penthouse. Both sides say it’s best to negate error codes so kind of confused…. Thank you for any advice woth install too. I have the kit in my garage. Ready To install this weekend.

 

[C-Bus Y]

Thank you! Where did you mount amp and other appliance? No error codes from computer with this install? I’ve read some people say it’s best to pull all the way from battery up front others say no way just penthouse. Both sides say it’s best to negate error codes so kind of confused…. Thank you for any advice woth install too. I have the kit in my garage. Ready To install this weekend.

Amp and LOC installed under the smaller panel in the trunk. For the first few weeks I made minor tweaks to dial it in and wanted easy access.

No error codes with this amp and setup at all. I would like a larger amp to supply a bit more power to two 10’s but this setup has worked very well.

Good luck and give yourself plenty of time! I suggest fully shutting down vehicle and disconnecting 12v battery before connecting power wire to penthouse.

 

[Doclindy]

I got it installed! Now to tune. Any advice on where to start? Do I tune both xlca2 and vadm1? Any ideas on settings? Thanks!

 

[C-Bus Y]

Congrats! Yes, you actually need to tune both. I set the bass on the Tesla stereo at 0 as my start.

Would totally take pics of my settings but car is still in body shop.

From memory. Sensitivity on the amp is almost on lowest setting. Subsonic filter is around 20 hz. No bass boost used on amp. From there you adjust the XLCA to dial it in. I did use a hair of the bass x option, personal preference.

Add some pics!

 

[TheLex]

How much kick does this sub add? I'm not looking for rapper levels of horrible bass. I want realistic reproduction of drum kits and other musical instruments with low bass. For rock, I'd like enough bass that I can hear and feel, but not distorted bloaty bass - kind of like what a really good 10-12" sub would reproduce.

 

[C-Bus Y]

How much kick does this sub add? I'm not looking for rapper levels of horrible bass. I want realistic reproduction of drum kits and other musical instruments with low bass. For rock, I'd like enough bass that I can hear and feel, but not distorted bloaty bass - kind of like what a really good 10-12" sub would reproduce.

A single 10 with decent power will do what you want. I installed both sides and love it.

Could use more power or a ported box if you are doing dual 10’s, I would like it to go a bit deeper but it is very nice low end fill with a solid kick. Happy to demo for anyone in the Columbus, OH area.

Some others on here have installed a nice box in the sub trunk area but I wanted to keep that usable space.

 

[TheLex]

A single 10 with decent power will do what you want. I installed both sides and love it.

Could use more power or a ported box if you are doing dual 10’s, I would like it to go a bit deeper but it is very nice low end fill with a solid kick. Happy to demo for anyone in the Columbus, OH area.

Some others on here have installed a nice box in the sub trunk area but I wanted to keep that usable space.

Thanks for the info. Yeah, like you, I would prefer to preserve the the trunk space. Whatever sub I get has to be not intrusive. I wonder if the NVX sub would sound better with a bit more power, but presumably they match the amp to the sub.

 

[Mixman]

I have done both the sub box and the NVX stealth box. Right now I have two stealth boxes instead, with these subs running at 1 ohm to get full power from the NVX amp.

To tune the system you should get a multimeter. Search on YouTube as there are several good ways to tune. You should first make sure the line amp is tuned to just below distortion then make sure the amp is at the correct volts.

 

[Vicj]

I have a question. I'm going to do a ported 12 inch JL sub with vxi Amp, so I can have all the digital processing to really blend it with the rest of the system. My questions are these...1. Are the NVX instructions pulling PRE-amp signal for the bass, or post-amp? I want pre-amp, of course. 2. Is the factory amplifier in the back ONLY for the subwoofer, or does it also power the rear mids? I'm going to remove the plastic factory sub 'enclosure" completely, and would remove the Amp, as well, if it's not running other speakers...thanks

 

[C-Bus Y]

I have done both the sub box and the NVX stealth box. Right now I have two stealth boxes instead, with these subs running at 1 ohm to get full power from the NVX amp.

To tune the system you should get a multimeter. Search on YouTube as there are several good ways to tune. You should first make sure the line amp is tuned to just below distortion then make sure the amp is at the correct volts.

Those subs look nice, they have a 9.25” cutout requirement vs the NVX at 9.15”. Were they a direct plug and play?

 

[C-Bus Y]

I have a question. I'm going to do a ported 12 inch JL sub with vxi Amp, so I can have all the digital processing to really blend it with the rest of the system. My questions are these...1. Are the NVX instructions pulling PRE-amp signal for the bass, or post-amp? I want pre-amp, of course. 2. Is the factory amplifier in the back ONLY for the subwoofer, or does it also power the rear mids? I'm going to remove the plastic factory sub 'enclosure" completely, and would remove the Amp, as well, if it's not running other speakers...thanks

NVX pulls signal post amp. Not sure I have seen directions pre amp.

 

[bo3bdar]

I have a question. I'm going to do a ported 12 inch JL sub with vxi Amp, so I can have all the digital processing to really blend it with the rest of the system. My questions are these...1. Are the NVX instructions pulling PRE-amp signal for the bass, or post-amp? I want pre-amp, of course. 2. Is the factory amplifier in the back ONLY for the subwoofer, or does it also power the rear mids? I'm going to remove the plastic factory sub 'enclosure" completely, and would remove the Amp, as well, if it's not running other speakers...thanks

No way to get preamp signals, they are digital A2B signals sent by the head unit. The rear amplifier powers another 6 channels in the car, so you can't really remove it. It powers the rear door mids, the rear deck mids, and the woofers in front doors. See this awesome upgrade blog from Travis:

Tesla Model 3 Stereo - Part 9: Summary and Lessons Learned

Blog about various hobby and engineering projects including mechanical, electrical, and software

www.travisllado.com

 

[Mixman]

Those subs look nice, they have a 9.25” cutout requirement vs the NVX at 9.15”. Were they a direct plug and play?

One was a direct drop in, the other I had to modify slightly with my router. I guess different tolerances in the making of the enclosures? They sound to my ears considerably better than the NVX subs.

As you mentioned I wish the amp had a slight bit more headroom for the two subs. Maybe in the spring I will experiment with a more powerful amp.

 

[Vicj]

So, if there's no way to get a preamp signal, the entire effort is pretty pointless. Using a post Amp signal means your using the factory crossover point, the factory delay, and the factory EQ setting, to match up an 8 inch "woofer" (term used very loosely) in a plastic enclosure to the system. There must be a way to tap into the digital signal coming from the front of the car.

 

[bo3bdar]

So, if there's no way to get a preamp signal, the entire effort is pretty pointless. Using a post Amp signal means your using the factory crossover point, the factory delay, and the factory EQ setting, to match up an 8 inch "woofer" (term used very loosely) in a plastic enclosure to the system. There must be a way to tap into the digital signal coming from the front of the car.

If you read the link I posted above for Travis' awesome upgrade, he actually looked into that a bit, and decided it was not possible. The A2B bus is a proprietary bus from AMD and there are no publicly available tools. You have to be a customer of AMD to be able to get chips and information. If you can figure something out, that would be awesome, but it seems very hard.

If people only add a subwoofer like the Boost, I don't think it would be pointless, because simply tuning the sound by ear with only adding in subwoofer should be possible without really changing the characteristics of the stereo. Just to be clear- both the SR and premium LR stereos are highly tuned from Tesla. They really care about the audio quality and have done a good job of setting up their DSP for optimal sound. Travis did tests, and I did tests using REW and a calibrated microphone, and the stereos are nicely tuned Harmann curves with a flat EQ. BTW, the Boost box has a 10" subwoofer that can handle 500W, so wiring the dual voice coils in parallel can get you a lot more power out of the VADM1 if you need it.


One thing Travis did, and what I'm currently building out, is to route all the audio through my own DSP and tune it to match a new configuration. Especially in the SR, I only need to reroute front-dash, front-doors, back-doors to the DSP and I can then route the newly tuned signals back to the speakers. Lots of wiring, but in principle this is not hard. I'm using the TeslaOffer style speaker wiring cables to get convenient connectors to plug into the wiring harness without having to tap.

This will allow me to add in the tweeters in my car which are there, but currently disconnected. And also add in a subwoofer and more powerful amp for the front door woofers which can take 80W. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can really improve the sound. Hoping it will be worth this ton of work.

 

[C-Bus Y]

So, if there's no way to get a preamp signal, the entire effort is pretty pointless. Using a post Amp signal means your using the factory crossover point, the factory delay, and the factory EQ setting, to match up an 8 inch "woofer" (term used very loosely) in a plastic enclosure to the system. There must be a way to tap into the digital signal coming from the front of the car.

If you read the link I posted above for Travis' awesome upgrade, he actually looked into that a bit, and decided it was not possible. The A2B bus is a proprietary bus from AMD and there are no publicly available tools. You have to be a customer of AMD to be able to get chips and information. If you can figure something out, that would be awesome, but it seems very hard.

If people only add a subwoofer like the Boost, I don't think it would be pointless, because simply tuning the sound by ear with only adding in subwoofer should be possible without really changing the characteristics of the stereo. Just to be clear- both the SR and premium LR stereos are highly tuned from Tesla. They really care about the audio quality and have done a good job of setting up their DSP for optimal sound. Travis did tests, and I did tests using REW and a calibrated microphone, and the stereos are nicely tuned Harmann curves with a flat EQ. BTW, the Boost box has a 10" subwoofer that can handle 500W, so wiring the dual voice coils in parallel can get you a lot more power out of the VADM1 if you need it.


One thing Travis did, and what I'm currently building out, is to route all the audio through my own DSP and tune it to match a new configuration. Especially in the SR, I only need to reroute front-dash, front-doors, back-doors to the DSP and I can then route the newly tuned signals back to the speakers. Lots of wiring, but in principle this is not hard. I'm using the TeslaOffer style speaker wiring cables to get convenient connectors to plug into the wiring harness without having to tap.

This will allow me to add in the tweeters in my car which are there, but currently disconnected. And also add in a subwoofer and more powerful amp for the front door woofers which can take 80W. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can really improve the sound. Hoping it will be worth this ton of work.

Keep us posted on the progress and how much RMS power you ultimately run. I wonder what the upper limits of the penthouse are before you either hurt the tiny 12V battery or damage the DC/DC converter. I have already lost one 12V battery by running a 1,000W amp, or it could have been a pure coincidence. No issues with the 500W amp.

 

[MYFred]

Keep us posted on the progress and how much RMS power you ultimately run. I wonder what the upper limits of the penthouse are before you either hurt the tiny 12V battery or damage the DC/DC converter. I have already lost one 12V battery by running a 1,000W amp, or it could have been a pure coincidence. No issues with the 500W amp.

Still going strong with the 500w amp? Installing one tomorrow and looking for long term input!

 

[C-Bus Y]

Still going strong with the 500w amp? Installing one tomorrow and looking for long term input!

500w amp has had no issues at all. Wish it was stronger but it works perfectly. Spending more time chasing down small rattles at high volume haha.