Ex850R;c-141736 wroteThere is a post I found that gives the optimum equaliser settings for our stereo setups, I will chase it up.
I think I've seen the post over on the swedespeed forums, I followed their recommendations and it sounds OK.
Ex850R;c-141736 wroteI am going to replace the Chinese speakers with quality ones and investigate the amp connections, see how I can fool the computer setup to run my own quality amp/s. Volvo really dropped the ball on the real hifi sound of the earlier cars with alpine head units and amps with Dynaudio speakers made for volvo, real Swedish sound! My old v70r sounded better for sure.
I looked at a similar thing, pulled the wiring diagrams and long story short it's a tough change.
The Volvo's run a MOST setup, specifically MOST25 in my gen car. It means all the comms between the units (ICM, IAM, AUD) is digital, there no oldschool analog audio (well except the final bit to the actual speakers).Pic below
The std setup the speakers hang off the IAM unit (Integrated Audio Module aka radio/head unit) in the Premium Audio the IAM feeds an Audyssey Labs amp via the MOST bus. To add an amp (or replace) you'd need to get one that talks MOST25 (specifically Volvo's interpretation of the standard), or drive an amp of the high outputs from the head unit. It is possible you could fit the amp from a premium sound car into a std setup, but I haven't seen anything about anyone trying it, but in theory should work as they came out of the factory that way.
The other option is rip out the IAM and replace it with an old school amp, it cant be hooked into the steering wheel though because then all the steering wheel controls don't work for the dash and ICM (The screen in the center with the GPS, etc.). That's also assuming there's a module for the new head unit that will interface into the Volvo SWM.
In theory the IAM should only be providing audio but it's possible it does more, or that dropping it upsets the rest of the MOST bus, in which case you'd have to leave it in place and there's nowhere to put a new head unit.
Easiest route I'd suggest, if you can get one cheap is get the Audessy Amp from a Premium setup and see if it will just drop in. They're 650W (5x130W) so reasonable option from standard.
I'm keeping an eye out for a wrecked late model I can get the IAM and related bits out of that has Android Auto/Apple Carplay to see if I can get it to work in the older model.
I looked at some sort of RasPi or Arduino interfaced onto the MOST bus, but the only interfaces I've seen are US$150+ and no guarantee of interfacing. Plus then all the work reverse engineering the protocol and trying to make something work. You may also have to get the dealer to agree to disable MOST security maybe, not sure if it's on in AU. Apparently can't be done in US but I think that's a policy rather than a technical thing.
Someone was looking at building an opensource MOST test rig, you can buy the chips (
https://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/en/OS81050) but in order to get any documentation on them you have to join the SMSC standards club at the bargain price of $10-15k per year.
Given more and more cars are moving to digital buses I'm sure more stuff will pop up on the market. Fingers crossed.
Cheers
