Clarion XMD1 wiring assistance needed

[Socbum]

I have a factory installed Clarion XMD1 in my '02 SAN. I'm planning on installing a sub in the driver side kick panel and tower speakers along with two amps to drive them.

I'm not sure which set of wires I use out of the head unit. I found the user guide for the unit but I can't find an installation guide.

I pulled the head unit out and I have two sets of RCA's gray & black. The interior speakers are factory and are connected to the head unit through the factory connection.

Can I keep the interior speakers connected through the factory harness and hook up the sub and tower speakers to RCA wires? If so which one goes to the sub & which one goes to the tower?

Which wire out of the factory harness would I use for the remote power to the AMP?

I have a pic of the back of the radio.

Thanks for the help

[jhiestand]

RE: Clarion XMD1 wiring assistance needed

Hey Socbum! I can answer a few of your questions as I still happen to have the install guide for that radio. Not sure why!

The Gray RCA is your front channel and the Black is for the rear. The remote turn-on lead should be Blue/White in the wiring harness.

I'm no stereo expert as a few on this board can attest! Keeping that in mind, you could keep the stock speakers hooked up to the wiring harness which would mean the head unit is powering them. If you were looking to power just the sub and tower speaks off the amps, then you're on the right track. In that case you could attach one RCA to the tower amp and the other to the sub, or you could simply not use the rear channel RCA, use the front for the subs and daisy chain the sub amp off the tower amp. Someone with a little more experience may want to jump in here for a more optimal suggestion!

Unfortunately I don't have a scanner for the XMD1 install doc but if you have other questions regarding its wires I may be able to help!

[Mikeski]

RE: Clarion XMD1 wiring assistance needed

Planet Nautique to the rescue...

http://www.planetnautique.com/Correc...ls/Clarion.pdf

[Socbum]

RE: Clarion XMD1 wiring assistance needed

Joe -- thanks for the response. I would like to get a copy of what you have, maybe we can hook up sometime here in c-bus

Mike -- Thanks for the link. I looked through that doc and could not find anything about the back of the head unit. Great user guide, but not the install guide that I think Joe has. If I can get a copy of the install guide I will provide a scanned version to Jeff.

What do you think of Joe's idea of daisy chaining the two amps together to run the sub & tower speakers together?
Amps that I currently would use:
Kicker KX300.4
Clarion AP5250 5 channel

[TravisFling]

RE: Clarion XMD1 wiring assistance needed

SOCBUM - I'm here in London, Ohio and would be more than happy to help. PM me a phone number and I can walk you through most of it. Grey RCA's to the front channel and Black to the back. I would run Separate RCA's to each, instead of daisy chaining them. I will tell you that on 90% of heaunits the remote power is blue with white, or if there is not a blue AND blue with white both, then it would be the blue one. You would get more mileage by putting your interior speakers on the kicker and the towers on the clarion with the sub in the 5th channel rather than have the interiors on the headunit. You could also put the interiors on the clarion with the sub in the 5th channel and the towers on the kicker, which might work better, to have all your in-boats on a seperate amp than the towers. You should have a nice little setup there, once all is said and done, though!!

[Socbum]

RE: Clarion XMD1 wiring assistance needed

Travis -- thanks for the idea. PM sent

[TravisFling]

RE: Clarion XMD1 wiring assistance needed

I gave you a call and would be more than happy to help out anytime.

[Socbum]

My install is about 99% complete. Still trying to work out the sub location and I need to finish organizing the wiring.

I installed the two amps under the observer seat. I was not interested in mounting boards to the hull side of the boat so I looked for a different way to install the amps. The Clarion amp is mounted upside down hanging from the glove box and the kicker amp is mounted to the inside of the walk through board using exisitng bolts and mending straps.

Tower speaker wiring was easier than I thought it would be and want to thank MikeSki for his excellent tower wiring how-to post. The kite string and shop vac trick for fishing the wires through was brilliant!! The scarest part was drilling the holes in the tower YIKES! But with the appropriate equipment (1/2 inch drill and proper drill bit) the drilling was the easiest step I used the drill bit that Mikeski is holding in his how to post and it worked great.

The most complex part for me was determining the proper wiring for the components and I want to thank TravisFling and JHiesthand for their wiring help. Joe provided the wiring info frorm the head unit and Travis provided a wealth of information (+hours of his time) that helped me determine how to wire the head unit, amps, speakers and sub. Thanks Travis!!

Last weekend we water tested the setup during my daughters graduation party and the upgraded stereo was a huge success!

[TravisFling]

Great to hear! Glad I could help. Someone's gotta help us Ohio boys get some tunes going!

[MyWakeIsBigger]

Great to hear! Glad I could help. Someone's gotta help us Ohio boys get some tunes going!

I hear ya!

[Socbum]

Sub challenge resolved, I built an HD sub enclosure.

My original plan was to mount the sub on the driver side front kick panel. I was advised to not mount it that way for two reason, first, the sub will not get any back pressure to perform correctly (it needs an enclosure) and second, once I make that cut it is permanent (YIKES).

I wanted to use the space inside the kick panel area and not give up any storage space but most of the sub enclosures would not fit in there. Audioformz would fit but I really did not want to spend $150 for something that would not be seen. TravisFling gave me the idea pictured below and it ended up working out perfect!

The enclosure is waterproof; it easily fits behind the kick panel, and best of all, it cost me less than $15 bucks!

I modified Travis's idea so my 10" sub would fit in the bucket by using the lid. A 12" sub fits the bucket with out the lid. I threw in some fiberfill velcro'd the bucket in front of the kick panel. My HD (Home Depot) sub enclosure sounds great -- thanks again Travis!!

[core-rider]

I've gotta admit that is the most ghetto sub encloseure I've ever seen, but it definately wins the "McGyver Award" for using your head to come up with something that works for not much cash. I guess it dosen't really matter what it looks like since it will be hidden anyway. Good job man!

[TravisFling]

I AM AWESOME!!! hahahaha... We always used to put 12" subs in the bucket back in the 90's when we were filling trash cans full of water in the back of the old Nautique Excel. Ohio isn't always the flashiest like CA, but we get 'er done! I always loved the bucket idea because it's waterproof, simple and easy, and they actually sound really, really good. In this application it seemed like paying that much for the Audioformz when you'd never ever see it seemed crazy to me. Especially since it's going behind the kick panel. I'm so glad that worked out for you! I can't wait to hear everything and check it out!!! It is super ghetto, but it's the perfect "in-boat" sub enclosure. Much like Grant's fiberglassed rings of mdf to make a tube, but a little cheaper and easier.

Great Job Socbum.

[TravisFling]

Advice that was sent via email. Might help someone out.

Todd,



Sounds like you had a great weekend of work. I was given the choice of golfing with my dad or coming down to you, and I choose the golf. I hope you can live with my horrible decision making!! J



IF Kicker amp is powering ONLY the tower speakers, and there’s nothing else running on that amp then here’s what you do.



I would run Speaker pod 1 positive to channel 1 positive, speaker pod 1 negative to channel 1 negative. Speaker pod 2 pos to channel 2 pos, speaker pod 2 neg to channel 2 neg. This will give you a 4 ohm stable (I’m assuming your speaker pods are 4 ohms and, if so, this is a very easy load for the amp) configuration. If you’re not getting enough umph out of the speakers and want more power you can go speaker pod 1 (sp1) pos to channel 1 pos, sp1 neg to channel 2 neg, sp2 pos to channel 3 pos and sp2 neg to channel 4 neg. This configuration, called a bridge (bridging one speaker pod to two channels) will net you 2 ohms and double your power to the speakers (again, assuming your speakers are 4 ohms) and give you more tush.



The advantage to putting the speaker on channels 1 and 2, or channels 3 and 4, is that you’ll be able to control the volume with the little knob that I’ll give you. YOU have to check your manual and see whether the “bass volume control knob – optional remote” controls channels 1 and 2 OR channels 3 and 4.



Setup – You want to set your crossover for the speakers at about 100 hz. I would start at 100 and if it sounds “muddy” or unclear then I’d head up north of that, but you should be fine there. I would start with your gain at the midway point, and I turn my bass boost all the way down. Bass is for the sub to handle and it does a great job of it. Also, and this is important, bass is omnidirectional and will emanate from the sub box in every direction. It also will NOT long throw (carry back out of the boat) out of the tower speakers, no matter what, so don’t try to make the tower speakers do something at which they’re not efficient. You want the filter set to HP or high pass. HP allows high frequencies to pass through, LP allows only low frequencies to pass through. The filter tells the amp to allow ONLY low signals, or high signals and the crossover tells you what the threshold is. SO with crossover at 100hz LP allows only frequencies BELOW 100, HP allows only frequencies above 100. Technically the crossover point isn’t an exact dropoff or cliff, but rather the point at which 3db of sound is cut thereafter exponentially decreasing volume down the slope of the frequency curve.



SO –



Sp1 pos to chn 1 pos

Sp1 neg to chn 1 neg

Sp2 pos to chn 2 pos

Sp2 neg to chn 2 neg



Or more volume

Sp1 pos to chn 1 pos

Sp1 neg to chn 2 neg

Sp2 pos to chn 3 pos

Sp2 neg to chn 4 neg



Crossover to 100

Filter to HP

Gain at 50%



Put headunit at 75% volume, and increase gain until to you start to hear some distortion and then back it off a little. If YOU are under the glovebox make sure you have a second person there to check for the distortion, because the higher frequencies can distort and you won’t hear it down there and you don’t want to run distorted like that for long. If it should sound muddy and unclear, increase the crossover point until it clears up. Bass boost at zero.



I can’t wait to get these bad boys out on the water and check ‘em out!!! We should have a Friday night 80’s music on Grigg’s or something… maybe all tune to the same radio station and party!!!



Travis

[Socbum]

LOL, agree, it is definitely a Mygyver build/ ghetto looking but nobody is going to see behind the kick panel