Upgraded SR Partial Audio to Full Premium

[AdamMacDon]

anybody tried to locate the A2B tos-link signal on the premium ICE computer that drives the oem rear amp so we can check if that is also present in the SR+ ICE computer while software may be different.

Not yet, still looking at the wiring diagrams. If we can find that on an SR+, we'd be in a good spot.

 

[jmatero]

Going to order the smaller Alpine amplifier. Anyone who's done this project, where did you mount your amplifier? Any inconspicuous places to hide it?

 

[AdamMacDon]

Going to order the smaller Alpine amplifier. Anyone who's done this project, where did you mount your amplifier? Any inconspicuous places to hide it?

This is what I want to know. If it's small enough you may be able to fit it in the cubby where the sub lives. That's my plan if I can find an amp that fits.

 

[awww]

I plan on using 3M mounting tape to stick the Alpine KTP445 under the side bolster of the rear seat.

Before I can get to that... wondering if anyone can help me out. I'm having a lot of hissing/static on the passenger side speakers. I disconnected the input signal on the left side and even when connected to the amp power there is hissing/static. I tried like 4 different ground points and the same result. Wondering if I'm doing anything wrong or is it the amp?

 

[jeffersonm]

Thank you @Wampa , I read your guide and all the other guides mentioned, and stuck with your setup. I got the Soundstream PN5.640D, and the OEM subwoofer ordered through the service center.

• With this amp, 12V switched wire IS NOT NECESSARY. A couple seconds after the sound starts it powers on, and it powers off a couple minutes after the car is off.

I also wired up the mirror tweeters, which was easy enough:

• Driver side: keep the connector with the purple- and black+ wires plugged in, but snip the wires that go from the car to the connector to splice your speaker wire to make the circuit to the connector. Leave the original purple/black car-to-connector wires not connected to anything. Apparently tapping doesn't work because there's some issue or feedback with the car-to-connector signal.
• Passenger side: the red- and white+ car-to-connector wires don't exist, so you have to tap the connector-to-speaker wire. This is easiest to access by popping off the black S tube between the car body and door. It pops off and snaps back in with some effort, and it makes accessing the red/white wires very easy.

PROBLEM: the speakers powered by the amp (mirror tweeters, rear deck mids, and sub) are all at very high volume even when I turn down the radio to a minimum volume. I can disconnect each amp speaker input connector and observe that channel 1/2, 3/4, and 5 are individually over-loud. My gains are low (anywhere near middle is too loud), my remote boost controller is minimum or not connected. My equalizer is flat.

Did I get unlucky with a faulty amp? Can anyone recommend a test I should do?

 

[AdamMacDon]

Thank you @Wampa , I read your guide and all the other guides mentioned, and stuck with your setup. I got the Soundstream PN5.640D, and the OEM subwoofer ordered through the service center.

• With this amp, 12V switched wire IS NOT NECESSARY. A couple seconds after the sound starts it powers on, and it powers off a couple minutes after the car is off.

I also wired up the mirror tweeters, which was easy enough:

• Driver side: keep the connector with the purple- and black+ wires plugged in, but snip the wires that go from the car to the connector to splice your speaker wire to make the circuit to the connector. Leave the original purple/black car-to-connector wires not connected to anything. Apparently tapping doesn't work because there's some issue or feedback with the car-to-connector signal.
• Passenger side: the red- and white+ car-to-connector wires don't exist, so you have to tap the connector-to-speaker wire. This is easiest to access by popping off the black S tube between the car body and door. It pops off and snaps back in with some effort, and it makes accessing the red/white wires very easy.

PROBLEM: the speakers powered by the amp (mirror tweeters, rear deck mids, and sub) are all at very high volume even when I turn down the radio to a minimum volume. I can disconnect each amp speaker input connector and observe that channel 1/2, 3/4, and 5 are individually over-loud. My gains are low (anywhere near middle is too loud), my remote boost controller is minimum or not connected. My equalizer is flat.

Did I get unlucky with a faulty amp? Can anyone recommend a test I should do?

Sorry for the off topic question, but where did you mount the amp?

 

[jeffersonm]

Sorry for the off topic question, but where did you mount the amp?

At the moment it's behind the back seat but that's not going to be it's permanent home. I go skiing and fold down the right seat to slide my skiis in. It fits in the subwoofer cubby in front of the subwoofer, and another option is the mounting on the metal trunk ceiling just behind the seats in the center. I will consult with a handy friend that can help me mount before I do either of those. I'm keeping everything lose til I solve my sound problems.

 

[AdamMacDon]

At the moment it's behind the back seat but that's not going to be it's permanent home. I go skiing and fold down the right seat to slide my skiis in. It fits in the subwoofer cubby in front of the subwoofer, and another option is the mounting on the metal trunk ceiling just behind the seats in the center. I will consult with a handy friend that can help me mount before I do either of those. I'm keeping everything lose til I solve my sound problems.

Okay thanks for the info. With your volume problem, have you tried turning the gain all the way down on the amp to see what happens?

 

[jeffersonm]

Thank you @Wampa , I read your guide and all the other guides mentioned, and stuck with your setup. I got the Soundstream PN5.640D, and the OEM subwoofer ordered through the service center.

• With this amp, 12V switched wire IS NOT NECESSARY. A couple seconds after the sound starts it powers on, and it powers off a couple minutes after the car is off.

I also wired up the mirror tweeters, which was easy enough:

• Driver side: keep the connector with the purple- and black+ wires plugged in, but snip the wires that go from the car to the connector to splice your speaker wire to make the circuit to the connector. Leave the original purple/black car-to-connector wires not connected to anything. Apparently tapping doesn't work because there's some issue or feedback with the car-to-connector signal.
• Passenger side: the red- and white+ car-to-connector wires don't exist, so you have to tap the connector-to-speaker wire. This is easiest to access by popping off the black S tube between the car body and door. It pops off and snaps back in with some effort, and it makes accessing the red/white wires very easy.

PROBLEM: the speakers powered by the amp (mirror tweeters, rear deck mids, and sub) are all at very high volume even when I turn down the radio to a minimum volume. I can disconnect each amp speaker input connector and observe that channel 1/2, 3/4, and 5 are individually over-loud. My gains are low (anywhere near middle is too loud), my remote boost controller is minimum or not connected. My equalizer is flat.

Did I get unlucky with a faulty amp? Can anyone recommend a test I should do?

SOLVED. Switching over to the amp's RCA inputs solved the problem. This required adding to parts list

• 2x male to male RCA cables, 2x RCA splitters (to feed the rear door signals to both the rear deck channels and the tweeter channels),
• and four channels worth of line out converter (I tested with a $10 passive 2-channel, but going to try a PAC LP7-4).

When using RCA inputs on the PN5.640D, auto-sense doesn't work, so you need your 12v switched connected.

 

[jmatero]

I ordered the Alpine and just want to power the rear deck speakers for now. Can anyone share how to configure the settings on the Amp for this setup? And which ports to use? Many thanks!

 

[jmatero]

So... anyone with a recent-build 2020 find no rear deck speakers? LOL. Just read on TOO some are reporting none. Any way to check that without tearing the rear deck apart? UGH.

 

[21miDay]

If you have the speakers you can see them through the grill if you are in the sun or shine a flashlight toward them.

 

[badiban]

So... anyone with a recent-build 2020 find no rear deck speakers? LOL. Just read on TOO some are reporting none. Any way to check that without tearing the rear deck apart? UGH.

I shined a light to mine and was able to see the rear deck speakers. 2020 Model 3 SR+ built 11/19.

 

[Red89GT]

Feb 2020 build, I have the rear speakers

 

[jmatero]

March 2020 build and have a feeling there are no speakers back there. My plug has no rear deck speaker wires coming into it. Saw the process for removing the rear deck and NOPE. Guess I'll return everything to Amazon and be happy with what I have. Next time, I'll go full premium interior just for the audio.

 

[AdamMacDon]

March 2020 build and have a feeling there are no speakers back there. My plug has no rear deck speaker wires coming into it. Saw the process for removing the rear deck and NOPE. Guess I'll return everything to Amazon and be happy with what I have. Next time, I'll go full premium interior just for the audio.

View attachment 540388

You could also keep it simple and just add in a factory rear sub and amp to run it. That's what I'd probably do in your case. Sucks how the speakers aren't there.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Next time, I'll go full premium interior just for the audio.

But to do that, you have to get the Long Range AWD. That's another $9K. Tesla needs to make Full Premium interior available on the SR+.

For $9K, I can make do with the shorter range (and slower acceleration) of the SR+, get a MUCH better sound system, and still have several thousand in my pocket.

 

[AdamMacDon]

But to do that, you have to get the Long Range AWD. That's another $9K. Tesla needs to make Full Premium interior available on the SR+.

For $9K, I can make do with the shorter range (and slower acceleration) of the SR+, get a MUCH better sound system, and still have several thousand in my pocket.

And this problem is even worse when you live in an area with $10k in incentives for EV's but they only cover the SR+

 

[jmatero]

I’m not too concerned with the bass but, rather, all the sound coming from the front.

 

[AdamMacDon]

You need a lot more information to make an accurate determination. Mainly you need to know what the impedance load you are putting on your amp and what the amp can handle. and you need to make sure there are no other drivers already on that channel (if you don't know what else is wired in).

When you run in series, you can simply add up the impedance of all the drivers: two 4 ohm drivers in series puts an 8 ohm load on the amp - generally not a problem. But you don't get as much output.

In parallel, those same two 4 ohm speakers now put a 2 ohm load on the amp. On most amps, you are getting into a danger zone, especially if you drive the system hard. Calculating the resistance in parallel is a little trickier: it is the reciprocal of the sum of the reciprocals. For example, two four ohm drivers calculation would be

• Reciprocal of 4 is 1/4. 1/4 + 1/4 = 2/4, reduce to 1/2, then take the reciprocal, which is 2 (ohms)
• When they are the same and it is just two, it is easy enough just to halve the impedance of each (4 / 2 = 2)
• It gets trickier when more than 2: three 8 ohm drivers in parallel would be about a 2.67 ohm load: 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 = 3/8, reciprocal is 8/3, which converts to 2.6666.... (also trickier when it is two speakers with different resistance)
• Once as an experiment, we took four drivers, created two series paths with each pair, then ran those series routed pairs in parallel. The net load was equal to the load of an individual speaker. Kind of a silly approach, but was fun to do as a teenager (and completely irrelevant to you right now - sorry I digressed)

One other detail to keep in mind is that when you wire two drivers together, they (theoretically) have the same output, so the A Pillar will seem to overpower the door (since it is closer to ear). You may need to introduce a way to balance the levels.


I hadn't caught this before, but you may run into issues running one type of driver (in this case, a tweeter) from an output designed for another one (mid-range). Depending on where the crossover is, you could be attempting to feed a mid-range signal into a driver designed for a different frequency range. Sure, you will get sound out of it, but it will sound terrible.

I haven't looked into how Tesla sets things up, but I would venture to guess that they are running active crossovers (before the amplifiers) as that is the more energy efficient way to handle. If that is the case, I would say that unless you wire drivers to matching drivers (mid-range with mid-range, tweeter with tweeter), you would probably be better off not doing anything.

Just my $0.02
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ETA: You probably know this, but make sure you are phase correct when wiring up multiple speakers:

• Parallel: negatives together and positives together
• Series: negative from speaker 1 to positive to the next one in line.

If they are out of phase, you will experience less output with two speakers than you did with one (the waves are cancelling each other out).

You seem pretty knowledgeable about car audio, I want to use this 5 channel amp to power my rear deck speakers, 4 front tweeters, and factory sub. Do you think in-line passive bass blockers would work to trim the input from the front woofer down to produce good quality sound for the front tweeters? This is the product I'm looking at: PAC Bass Blockers

The amp only lets you filter up to 250Hz, so I don't think that is nearly enough. The number most people recommend is around 5000Hz, which is the frequency these inline blockers filter.