Spare tire subwoofer

RatLabGuy

Huh? What?
:
'03 p5 and '89 4Runner; M5 (wife's)
So I spent a good chunk of the afternoon fetching the subwoofer from my car, which was recently totalled. The hatch was crunched in pretty good, so the handle was useless and it wouldn't open. It was pushed in enough that I couldn't lift the sub up over the bolt sticking up through the spare. W/ enough profanity + crowbar/mallet time I got it out...

there was tiny safety glass bits all in teh crivices of it, and I could hear a little rattling inside, so I decided to take it apart, clean it really well.

Figured I'd post up the innards etc.

Top has a plastic cover over the speaker which also provides an external port. ~7 #3 allen head bolts holding it on.

IMG_5326.jpg


Look at that, 1 tiny speaker...


Flipped it over. 8 screws hold the back on around te hrim, plus in the center.

IMG_5327.jpg


Check out that "sound padding" stuffed in the backside. Wow.


You can see the control nboard etc. 4 wires to the "sub" LOL speaker, I assume this is for each channel.

IMG_5329.jpg


And here you can see - 1 wopping 4.5" speaker. Smaller than what's in the doors, hahaha.

Now it dosn't exactly pack a punch but now I'm impressed thsi thing puts out much at all.


When I pulled it, I also went ahead and yanked as much of the wiring harness asa I could,m all the way up to the dash. One thing I noticed was, the bundle had alot of other stuff in it - lines for door sensors, etc.

Which makes me wonder if all vehciles of this year had thsi same wiring, even if they don't have the subwoofer? That owuld have been cheaper/easier to manufacture, most mfrs do that.
Who has an extra plug in their trunk space?
 
i was looking at mine today, was wondering if any of those setting on it would do anything?

I never touched mine... at the moment I don't have a P5 so I can't play with them.
But IIRC (at work now) there's 2 switches. One is to set the phase, pos or negative - I assume this is to ensure you are in phase w/ teh otehr speakers in the car. Unless you're changed speakers or HU and know you have a phase shift, I wouldn't see a need to touch that.
The other is "gain", I'm assuming this is just the built-in amp for this sub. Mine was about 1/2-way up.

Which reminds me - I'm assuming that the line coming into this is un-amplified, e.g. "line-level"? I came across ssome old threads discussing this but didn't find a resolution.

And - if that's the case - does that mean the wire harness on teh back of the stock radio has a line that is specifically for the un amplified sub?
Or is it instead just fed off of a split from the rear speakers, so it's actually running of "full" signal and the circuit board in here is an attenuator?
 
Back