S60 - HU-615, HU-650, HU-850 - keep the headunit, upgrade speakers/amp

[fazool]

Background:

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Over the years, I have repaired, replaced or upgraded the audio systems in countless cars, including several of my (so far) five Volvos. From this, I was able to gleen insight into Volvo's system approach and their different audio designs. This is based on my two different S60's (01 & 07). My apologies for the lack of photo's - several issues with that for me.


There are, already, general guides for removing head units, etcetera, so I won't repeat those but I will try to detail some arease that weren't well discussed elsewhere.

My general principles are to shop around very intensely and find good deals. I want good audio systems but, frankly, I want to do it on a budget. I also want to keep the vehicles as stock and original as possible. I want the system to be essentially invisble.


My audio Upgrades summary :

Kept the factory head units
Kept rear deck speakers (for now)
Custom-made stock-like cables
Used all factory wiring harnesses
Changed from speaker to pre-amp outputs
Added a 4-channel amp
Replaced front door speakers (top and bottom)
Replaced rear door speakers
Added "center" dash speaker



S60 Audio System Descriptions:
------------------------------

The basic system design is comprised of a "head unit" (stereo receiver/player), front door speakers, rear door speakers and rear deck (aka "parcel shelf") speakers. The speakers run directly from the head unit. In the basic systems, the dash speaker location is empty.

The older S60 head units were a model HU-615 radio/CD/cassette. The newer ones are model HU-650 which give up the cassette but support aux and satellite radio inputs. These head units have a small built-in power amplifier that connects directly to the four speaker channels. They also have a line-level pre-amp output jack that isn't used in the stock configuration.

The premium sound system uses a model HU-850 head unit that runs from the pre-amp outputs to a 200w or 300w amplifier located beneath the front passenger seat. From there, the amp runs output cables back to the original location and connects to the same standard wiring harness. The premium sound system also has three speakers in the front doors instead of two (they use a different door panel). The HU-850 also includes a small center channel amplifier running directly to the dash speaker for the surround sound's center channel.

These stock head units have CANbus inputs for speed-based volume adjustment, steering wheel controls, security lockout and optional CD changer controls. For these reasons, some owners want to retain the original factory head unit but still upgrade the sound. That's what I did. The big deciding factor for me was the steering wheel controls. Dietz and Scosche don't support Volvo controls (anymore) and the generic resistor ladder systems are unreliable.

Most automotive sound systems are built around 4-ohm speakers. Home stereos, by contrast, are built around 8-ohm speakers. Thats the industry standard and the norm. However in some instances, Volvo uses uncommon 8-ohm car speakers and wires two of them in parallel to create a 4-ohm impedance to the channel. This uncommon design makes direct replacement with non-Volvo speakers and using the factory wiring harness both tricky. If you are aware of this, it won't be a problem. An amplifier that is stable down to 2 ohm impedance can overcome this, so adding an amp improves your basic sound AND allows the use of aftermarket speakers (furthering the improvement).

All Volvo speakers are mounted in a plastic bracket which is then screwed or riveted to the car. To replace speakers, you can either modify the mounting bracket or remove the bracket and mount the speakers directly to the car (such as the door). Either way, you will need to drill a couple mounting holes. The front door panels come in three varieties. The basic variety has one lower speaker location. The middle variety has a door panel with two grills but only one speaker and a baffle to the other opening. The premium variety has speakers behind each of these grills



The standard front door speakers on a volvo are made up of a 1" 8-ohm tweeter mounted in the door pull-handle coupled to a 6.5" 8-ohm full-range speaker in the lower door panel. These run an integrated crossover and are connected in parallel like a traditional component speaker system, yielding a 4-ohm load on the channel.

The rear door speakers are the same 6.5" 8-ohm full-range as the front door ones. These are wired in parallel to the 8-ohm rear deck speakers to create the 4-ohm impedance to each rear channel.

The rear deck speakers are an oddball 7"-ish 8-ohm two-way component system. The holes in the deck are about standard 6.5" size. The speakers however are mounted into a large raised bracket that holds them about an inch above the deck surface, so only the magnets hang down through the holes. So, the deck speakers are larger than the deck holes. These rear deck speakers are wired in parallel with the rear door speakers. The wiring junction is under the center console and each speaker runs its own wire up to there. They could be replaced with simpler 6.5" speakers or with something altogether different. I intended to place 8" subwoofers here but just haven't gotten around to that stage of my project yet.


Keeping Your Factory Head Unit :
--------------------------------

Volvo's basic head units are notoriously muddy sounding. If you want to keep your factory head unit, then an external amplifier is a must for any audio upgrade. Running from the HU's pre-amp outputs to an external amplifier will clean the sound up considerably. Further improvements could be made with an external EQ, if you want to go that far.

To keep your factory head unit, you need to add an amplifier and use the pre-amp outputs instead of direct speaker outputs. The HU-650 and HU-615 has both. The basic sound system has a factory wiring harness connector that feeds the four speaker channels.


I added a Sony 600W 4-channel Xplod-series amp ($99 at Walmart). I mounted this in the trunk on the left side behind the trunk liner. I had to drill mounting holes and tilt it on an angle but it fits great and is very secure.



For power, I ran an 8-Ga wire with ring terminal right over the RCM power in screw - simply put ring terminal and new nut right over the existing one. This ran to a Lightening Audio 50-Amp inline fuse holder, then to my amp. Total distance about 16". For a ground line, I ran up the left side and to one of the two ground studs under the back seat. Total distance about 30". ($20)



I built a custom cable with 6-pin DIN connector to accept pre-amp outputs ($10). I bought a connector like this one:

http://www.cablestogo.com/learning/connector-guides/din

I found mine from this eBay store:

http://shop.ebay.com/nkc_store/m.html


Instead of linking another photo, here is a simple description of the wiring pin outs. This diagram shows what it looks like when looking into the female connector of the head unit. So, in other words, imagine yourself holding the male 6-pin connector (linked above) pointing it at this socket arrangement as you plug it in. The pins are labeled here looking as you plug it into the HU, not labeled as if you were looking at the end of the male connector.

OK the nice ASCII art pin out diagram posts terribly so its going to look screwed up so in words:

6 pins: one in the center is pin #6
5 more pins outside, roughly at 2,4,6,8,10 oclock positions (with a orientation tab indent at 12 oclock position)

going clockwise starting at the 2 oclock position, the pin numbers are : 1,2,3,4,5





/|_|\
5 1
/ --6-- \
\ /
4 2
\ 3 /


1 @ 2 oclock - Front Left +
2 @ 4 oclock - Front Right +
3 @ 6 oclock - Rear Right +
4 @ 8 oclock - GROUND
5 @ 10oclock - Rear Left +
6 @center - 12v remote on signal line


The only tricky part was connecting all four channels grounds to the one ground pin, so I soldered a single wire to pin 4 then connected all four grounds to it (like a mini bus-bar). I made four sets of speaker pairs and sheathed the 9-wires inside a cheap wire wrap. It works great but frankly, I would reccomend spending $24 and buying 9-conductor "speed-wire".

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_241 ... -25FT.html

Without the ribs, it's easier to pull too.

At the other end of these output lines, I connected male RCA jacks for each speaker signal. This wiring arrangement connected to the stock head unit and ran back to the trunk for connection to my new amplifier. The ninth wire from pin 6 was a simple +12v signal that told the amplifier to turn on. The negative (ground) for the remote on signal at the amp was simply grounded to the frame nearby (no need to run another conductor anywhere else for this).

I similarly built a custom speaker cable to run from the amplifier outputs back to the original Volvo speaker harness. This made wiring so much easier. I soldered 18-Ga speaker wire to a $10 harness adaptor connector. I stuffed all this into another cheap wire wrap, along with one extra speaker wire pair for a (future) center channel. Be careful buying this harness connector! Make sure you get the one that connects into the existing wiring harness, not the one that connects into the radio!

This wiring arrangement connected from the amplifier outputs right back up to the dash and plugged in to the stock wiring harness, which then routed the amplified signals to each of the four channels. I ran my wires from back to front as follows:


Along left quarter-panel inside trunk, behind trunk liner.
Into square hole in square post between the trunk and rear seat.
Out of trunk and down, behind the left cushion next to seat back.
Under the lower door trim, under the carpet. It will fit but is tight.
Forward along left edge, past B-pillar and under driver door molding.
Halfway to the split in the carpet.
Turn, under driver seat, behind frame bump and under the heat duct.
Here there is a step in the carpet and you can go up into the center console.
Once inside, turn forward along left edge of console.
Into congested space under dash.
Stay low on floor of console until fully under dash.
Where two heat ducts diverge under dash turn up to back of the head-unit.
Extra center speaker wire fishes straight up.


There is a wonderful S60 wiring diagram (100+ pages) in PDF form available at

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/downlo ... iagram.pdf



Door panel removal:

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Door Panels - There are a couple web-page write-ups on removing the door panels. One note: do not rotate the expansion plugs to remove them. Instead simply make sure the pin-insert is pushed in fully. Then the expansion plugs can be pulled straight out. Using a small straight tool (tiny philips screwdriver, blunted awl, very small punch) push the center of the expansion plug IN. It is camoflauged and you can't see it easily. Push right in the center. The pin will pop in. Push it as far in as you can. Then the expansion plug will pull out. Now, reach in with a pair of tweezers and collect the pin you pushed in in the previous step. Repeat for all plugs around the door. Thenm pull the door off gently and the inner black cone sleeve will come with the door. Pop these out by hand. Remember, the black sleeves go OVER the doorskin not under it. For this job, I had a hooked awl with a broken tip. It was a perfect tool for this job - it pushed the pin-inserts in nicely and had a little hook left on the end to grab and pull the plugs out with.

Use the smallest flat-blade screwdriver you can find to remove the screw covers. Push this tiny screwdriver in firmly. Do not be overly-gentle (that's counter-intuitive I know but if you do not push the screwdriver in fully it will mar the edge of the plastic screw cover).

Remove the door panels fully by gently levering the door-latch cable off - its rather easy and just takes a second to do.

Each electrical connector has a release tab. The green one is on the underside so its hard to feel for.

All panels must be connected for that door to work. So, if you remove the passenger door-panel, you cannot open/close the passenger window from the driver door. Do all work with the windows UP before starting.


Rear deck panel removal:
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This is a pain to figure out. Its very easy to remove once you figure it out (like a puzzle).

1) release the seat backs and lower seat backs down.
2) remove the trunk side liners (these have rectangular clips - reach behind and squeeze them to release)
3) now, next to the seat back is a vertical cushion - this needs to be moved. Its held in with two clips.
3a) To release the first clip (which is really just a J-shaped plastic hook), push the cusion in toward the trunk, then slightly to the outside wall - you will feel the J-hook release.
3b) Behind the cushion (in the trunk) you will see a square post, with a square hole in it and foam rubber inside the square. Reach in there. You can feel the clip that holds this. Squeeze this to release.
3c) now this cushion will come away. Pull it outside gently since it still guides the seatbelt. Repeat for other side.
4) lift the deck cover VERY HIGH - over the car-seat anchors. You will see two guide "posts". Lift it high enough to clear these, then slideout. You may have to reach in gently and lift over the speaker area too. If you begin to hear a tearing sound - its probably the guide posts not out of the guide hole (so lift higher).


Speakers :
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All speakers have an integral plastic mounting bracket. The speakers almost look like its one-piece but the speaker itself is separate from the bracket which mounts to the door or deck.

To remove the speaker from the plastic bracket:
looking down on the speaker place a flat blade screwdriver in the outer-most edge and turn the blade so it gently pries the outer plastic wall out a little. This will cause the glue underneath to crack. Just do a little each time and move about 1-2 inches around the circumference and repeat. The speaker is placed in the bracket, then rotated so three tabs hold it in place. These tabs have glue under them also, but its very weak glue. Pry gently with a screwdriver. Once you've gone all the way around, you can turn the speaker over and look at the back, then rotate the speaker to disengage the locking tabs. The speaker wires will snap off the solder posts. That's ok, we don't want them connected anyway. Mine snapped off cleanly. Once the bracket is empty, you can place a 6.5" speaker in there and with small #8-size screws and nuts fasten this to the bracket. Turn the speaker until there is a convenient place to drop a nut in from behind. In one case I drilled a hole in the plastic bracket for mounting the speaker.

Rear Door Speakers:
Standard 6.5" speakers fit here perfectly. Drill out the rivets, remove the old assembly and drill new mounting holes. Do this location first since its the easiest and you will get the hang of it a little bit. You could mount using the integrated platsic Volvo mounting bracket but you do not need to, so it's easier to screw the new speakers directly to the door. For the rear door mountings, I put a run of 3/8wide X 3/16 tall adhesive foam insulating tape around the door opening so the speaker had a nice cushion and sealed mount.


Front Door Speakers:
You will need to use the integrated platsic Volvo mounting bracket here to hold 6.5" speakers. Once you drill out the rivets and unplug the speaker, you can remove it from the door. There is adhesive foam gasket holding it in place so you may need to gently pry the bracket up from the door until the gaskets lets go.

One of the cornerstones of my system was finding a component speaker system with a correctly sized tweeter for the door. The Sony Xplod series were perfect for this. I wrapped these tweeters in 3/8 adhesive-backed foam insulating "tape" to make the outside a little wider and squeeze them into place. Then I added a light bracket to the back and screwed it into the door-panel backing plastic. This worked perfectly. Frankly, the fit of these tweeters was the hardest part to work out, and this became the foundation of my whole system (hence the Sony Xplod-series everywhere). The Sony wires reverse marking. Volvo puts a stripe on positive and solids for negative. Sony speakers use a stripe for negative. Just be aware.

Rear Deck Speakers:
The rear deck speakers are an oddball size. The deck opening is just over 6.5" so 6.5 will NOT fit unless you rig up some sort of adaptor bracketry. The opening is larger and the integral mounting bracket holds the speaker above the deck by about 1" The rear deck speakers and the rear door speakers are wired in parallel! This is not standard and took a while to sort out. The 8-ohm read deck and 4-ohm rear door speaker is wired in parallel so the head-unit sees 2.67-ohm impedance on the rear channels. The parallel branching happens up front in the forward passenger compartment, sending individual wire-pairs to the speakers.



Center speaker:
Removing this cover is tricky. There is a web write-up here [downloadable PDF]

...but it is a little mis-leading. The S60 speaker grill/cover is held in with pressure clips in the middle - not by the edge. Be careful not to pry or you may mar your dash (I caused a little wrinkle in my dash material doing this wrong). Put a tool in like the write-up says but it does not release a tab, rather, use it to pull straight up on the grill. Make sure the hooked tool is firmly under the plastic. The standard system has no center speaker. The speaker mount and wire is there. I couldn't find the input end of this wire anywhere so I simply ran an extra wire for future use. This appears to be about a 6.5" size bracket. The bracket has a spot for an integrated tweeter, very much like the rear speakers.


Your center speaker cover will come off as an assembly but its important to understand how it is held in place. As a cover assembly, think of it as one piece. My explanation of how its made is to explain the retainer parts. The S60 center speaker cover is in two pieces, folded together. There is a metal grill, wrapped around a plastic panel. These are stuck together and should not be separated. But, the important thing to note is that the plastic panel has four protruding posts. These four posts point down through the dash toward the floor of your car (as opposed to up at the windshield) so you cannot see them, obviously.

On these posts are four stamped metal retainers. These are expanded metal spring-like clips. They are fixed firmly to the protruding posts.

So your cover looks like a metal grill from above, but underneath there are four posts with metal spring clips pointing down.
Underneath your cover is a big hole in your dashboard. Its basically square. Around the perimeter of that hole is a wide "ledge". There is a platic speaker bracket that lies on this ledge. Its basically the shape of the hole, with a big round opening (for the speaker) in the middle.
This speaker bracket has four counterbored holes in it. In these holes are T25 (Torx/star) screws which secure the bracket firmly to the dash.
The bracket also has four rectangular holes in it. The protruding posts (with spring clips) are "snapped" into these four holes in the speaker bracket.
So, removing the center speaker cover is just a matter of pulling it straight up, so the spring clips snap out of the bracket holes.



To remove the cover you simply have to gently pry one side up and lift straight up each side, snapping the posts out. The hook tool in the above-mentioned PDF might be useful to get under the plastic panel and pull up.

Since the foam dash material around it is soft, be careful not to put a screwdriver in and lever against the dash - you will dent your dash !

Instead, try a 2" wide plastic putty knife. Put it straight down on the right side of the speaker cover (so it looks like you stabbed your dashboard). Now place ruler on the dashboard, along the opening of the dash and against your putty knife. Lever the putty knife handle down, prying the cover up. The trick here is to distribute the force from the putty knife onto the ruler, bridged onto the flat part of the dash, so use a long ruler. If the putty knife pushes on the ruler which pushes on the edge of the dash it will lightly crush your dash foam under the ruler. Fancier tools can be made and used, but this will work.

OK, so, pop the cover up and off. Then remove the four T25 screws. Now, the speaker bracket is free.

The speaker bracket is designed to hold the two-piece Volvo center speaker (mid-woofer and tweeter), route the wires, connect to the harness (stereo-to-speaker plug) and hold the cover in place.

Because of so many functions, its not just a simple flat piece of plastic. It has many shapes and features in it.

This may be hard to visualize until you have the bracket in your hand.
The bracket has a big round hole in the middle. There is a three-leg bridge spanning this hole and connecting to a circular "island" that holds the tweeter above the mid-woofer.

A simple hacksaw blade is best for this step. Wrap a loose hacksaw blade in a rag as a makeshift handle (just so you dont scratch yourself). Then following the curve of the inner circle, simply cut the three arms that connect the tweeter holder (the three "bridges").

Now you have a big open speaker hole.

Next, turn the bracket over and look at the underside. There are tab slots where the OEM speaker is inserted with a twist-lock connection. Using your sophisticated rag-saw, cut these off flat, so the bottom circle of the bracket is flat.

You have to pick a speaker that fits well against your modified bracket. I tried a Kicker shallow mount 6.5" sub-woofer and was aggravated. It did not fit well (and sounded worse). I ended up picking a Kicker oversize 6.5 mid-woofer from a component system. I tucked the crossover in the dash with two-sided adhesive foam tape. I didn't like the sound of the Kicker tweeter so just used the mid-woofer for center "fill". I got an open box (missing one speaker) on clearance for $35.

Place your modified bracket face down on a table. Lay your chosen speaker face down onto the bracket. Now lift and turn the speaker until its in a good orientation. Mark the locations of the speaker mounting holes on the bracket (I found two already available holes lined up). Drill holes in the bracket for mounting, as needed.

I threaded five black cable ties through the plastic bracket and the speaker mounting holes. I tightened them down and this gave a very secure, all black, all plastic mounting.

For a center speaker, your best choice is to patch a very small (50W-ish) two-channel amplifier in to your stereo's front channels. Make sure its a bridgeable amp and bridge the left and right channels together. Connect this amplified combined channel to your new center speaker. If the amp power is too high, you may have to insert a volume control L-Pad from radio shack, to adjust it. I temporarily patched my center speaker in parallel to my front right channel. Since its about the same distance to the driver as the left front speaker and since it only captures mids (leaving highs to the right door tweeter), it actually works well as an interim center channel speaker.


My Summary :
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I shopped and researched a lot. I wanted a system that was very reasonably priced, but which was the least invasive to the vehicle and which could be further upgraded in the future.


I kept the HU-650. I like the integrated data features and the stock look. With all the other improvements it sounds great, anyway.

I retained the rear deck speakers, for now.
I replaced the rear door speakers with Sony 50W 6.5" 4-way Xplod-series speakers ($50).
I replaced the front door speakers with Sony 6.5" Xplod-series component speakers ($60). These included a 1.5" tweeter.


Future upgrades:
Replace rear deck ("parcel shelf") speakers with something 4-ohm that will fit nicely ($75). Still shopping for those.
Add a speaker-level 2-channel amp that will bridge for the center channel ($125).
So, my project so far cost me $200 (amp+2speaker+2speaker+wiring)
My, next upgrade will cost me $200 (2speaker+center channel).

When all done, this will be a $400 system with 9 speakers and two amps, including center channel and component tweeters for staging.

[vjaneczko]

Links are dead - any chance of getting them fixed?

[juryman]

My 07 has the rear backup sensors. If I replace the radio (its dead) with an aftermarket, will the sensors still work? Arent the sensors sound and display tied to the radio?

[larrico]

They will not work, you will need a separate unit to keep them working.

http://incartec.co.uk/Pages/Product.aspx?P=3400

[sid550_0]

I have a hu 803 to replace a hu 613. Can I use one of the rear door or back shelf speakers as the dash speaker? I have a alpine 300 amp to push the other six/eight speakers.

[Ricarondo]

Hi,

Thank you very much for the notes, they were very helpful. Do you know a place where to find a missing plastic cap used to cover the left or right endings of the long speaker grill on the passenger's side.

[Danchapin]

I installed a Grom Bluetooth device on my hu-650 stereo. The device uses the cd changer to provide Bluetooth access to an iPhone. My stereo is not allowing me to toggle or the cd changer mode. I read in another thread that someone had this same stereo hard reset by a dealer. How do I hard reset this stereo on my own to activate the cd changer mode? Once this happens the Grom device should work.

[mrbrian200]

'06 S60 (HU-650) OE equipped 10 speaker/basic.
Managed 6x9s on the rear deck by cutting spacers out of plywood, 1" thick, then stuck to the rear deck with permanent adhesive, screw speakers to plywood. Raised 1" the speaker baskets clear (barely) without needing to cut metal. Had a pair of higher end MB quart 6x9s pulled from my last car - hell or high water I was determined to reuse them. Installed 1st order crossover (bass block) on the rear door speakers to restrain current draw on the HU-650s internal amp and alleviate HF breakup with bass output until I am ready install various external amps that were also pulled from the last car, at which point the deck and door speakers crossover will be handled by active circuitry on the amps.

Those front door tweeters are the most shrill, unnatural sounding things I have ever heard. I know those low spec semi-dome mylar tweeters. A lot of low to mid-price home/car audio brands use them. They're "ringy" and any transient detail has a "gutar pick" sound to it. The filter cap (OE crossover) I wouldn't consider audio grade. That's what was responsible for the "shrill" aspect. Improved with 2nd order crossovers I had on hand that use poly film caps, for now. (chopped out/bypassed OE caps, installed a better crossover in the harness leading up from the woofer).
It's a work in progress. I can't get much "warmth" out of this HU's internal amp. We'll see what I think once external amps are fed via the line outs. Options are add a GROM or go full aftermarket.