yamato72

My 2000 A4 was sitting in my garage for a couple of weeks while I put in a new timing belt and worked on a host of other things that the car needed. Since I had taken the DS door trim off to replace the window regulator, I decided to look at replacing the speakers. The car was still 100% factory sound system and I haven't done any car stereo work in about 20 years so this got to be a pretty fun job as the scope of the work grew but the price didn't creep up too much (about $250). I have the Bentley manual and took my time disassembling stuff so I'm sure I spent at least 30 hours on it altogether.

It started out as just replacing the front door speakers, then I decided to do the rears too since I figured the speakers should be similar. I knew about the factory amp (my car is non-Bose) in the back and once I read up on it a bit, decided to get a small 2-channel amp to run the rear speakers and leave the fronts on the HU. I also figured out the pin-out of the amp wiring harness at the back (thanks to several posts including at least on here on AW) and planned to power the amp through the harness - going so far as to remove the connector off the factory amp and turn it into a harness for the new aftermarket amp. Of course that progressed into, well you're doing all this work, might as well get a 4-channel amp and run all 4 speakers off it. I found several more very helpful write-ups for routing the power wire through the firewall, plus learned about the availability of the iPod connectors and also the speaker adapters you can get that let you put 5.25" speakers up front instead of 4".

I got almost everything for this job off ebay, including the wire. I bought everything new and can give a cost run-down if anyone is interested. I did get the iPod connector and 30-pin Bluetooth adapter from Amazon. I'll post pics of the install and make comments where necessary. I'm sure there are not a lot of guys putting money into the stereos on these cars and still keeping the factory HU, but I was going for good sound, with a factory look for now, and an easy swap to an aftermarket HU later. If anyone has questions about where I sourced stuff let me know and I'll track down the links.

First things first, power. I wanted an automotive-style fuse and I ran an 8ga wire through the pre-DBW grommet in the firewall (you guys with pre-1999.5 cars with mechanical throttle can't use that grommet but there are write-ups on AW for going through the computer box). From there it went down and around past the fuse box and along the rocker panel to the trunk. I ran the amp turn-on circuit (blue wire) along with it:

















Speaker wire for the PS door and RCAs for all four channels was run the same way on the other side. For speakers I used Alpine SPS-510 (5.25") in the front and SPS-610 (6.5") in the rear. For the front speakers I bought the Autoleads 5.25" adapters and waited for them to get here from the UK (here's the link, but I got mine from ebay). The adapters needed some nubs ground down to mate correctly with the speakers but otherwise worked great. More importantly, the windows don't hit the speakers when rolled down. For the rears, I used the trim rings that came with them. I used foam rubber weather stripping to seal up the holes that all that the speakers go in. I also had no clearance issues with the factory speaker grilles, there's about 2mm or more between the grille and the Alpine tweeters. I ignored the factory tweeters in the front door and left them disconnected from the HU.

Fronts (with the Autoleads adapters in place):







Rears:









I mounted the amp underneath the package shelf. The sheetmetal is uneven so I used plastic spacers on the rearmost screws. The amp is just a 4-channel SSL Evo from ebay. RCAs were Stinger brand, 17ft 4-channel. I ran the ground to the DS rear seat belt bolt.





Just for yucks here is the factory amp which attaches to the DS rear speaker, and the connector which I was getting ready to use as a wiring harness. I did end up using it for testing while I was waiting for the iPod adapter to come in (that adapter comes with a harness you need to use an aftermarket amp):







Now for the HU, first off you have to use a special set of tools to remove it ( ):





The black connector in the center is why you need a couple of adapters. Firstly, if you refer to the pin-out on the radio, that black connector is for 3 different functions:CD Changer, "Option" (which I believe is the dash display) and Line Out. The iPod connector uses the CD changer section, and I needed to connect RCAs to the Line Out section, leaving the Option portion connected back to the car. If you are not using the iPod adapter, you should still get the adapter separately so that you don't have to cut into the factory harness for your RCAs (which would only be the front channels anyway. Get the adapter. ).

Also, FYI leave that brown connector off when you are finished with the HU hook-ups, otherwise your factory door tweeters will still be active. I don't miss them at all with the coax 5.25's.

Pin-out (thanks AW user Bobby Kinstle):



The iPod connector I bought from Amazon ( ) includes a harness adaptor that breaks out the 3 functions into 3 separate plugs. It looks like this:



I cut into the yellow connector for my RCAs for my 4 line-out connections. Those RCAs I had lying around. Here's what all the connections look like. From left to right: Line Out (and amp turn on), Option (back to factory harness), iPod. The big red connector plugs right back into the factory harness:



Here's the RCAs on their own. The purple wire is the amp turn-on (note: the adaptor wires follow no color convention since they are just a pass-through):



That's it for the HU, although in my case, I had a ground loop hum which I traced to a bad ground on the HU itself. I ran a new 14ga ground wire from the HU chassis to a bolt up behind the glove box. Here's where I mounted the box for the iPod connector:





I then routed to cables (30-pin and mini plug) under the center console to the vicinity of the cigarette lighter. I was then able to Dremel out an opening for the connector, and tidied it up using the little carpet trim piece that goes on the bottom:













For Bluetooth I got a cheap 30-pin BT adapter from Amazon ( ). Works like a charm.

Well that's it, I think I covered the important stuff and I hope this helps anyone else looking to work on the radio in your B5.