Has anyone installed a Rockford Fosgate DSR1?

[BLKMGK350]

I did this just last week. I was having an incredibly frustrating time with the DSR1 and ended up returning it. I kept the A03 harness and picked up an Audison Bit Nove. Right from the get go I was happier with the result. I have the four inputs from the head unit set to low level using forscan and have them going into the Bit Nove. From there, I have the 9 RCA outputs feeding a couple of amplifiers for the front 6 speakers (2 tweeters, 2 mids and 2 lows in the doors), the two rears and the center. I have also tapped into the low level front signals and have those fed into a third amplifier to drive the subwoofer. It was a lot of work, but I'm very happy with the results.

Can you elaborate a little more on your setup. You seem to be one of the few that have done what I am wanting to also do. I want to keep my entire 9 speaker setup and I have already added a sub. I am currently pulling the sub signal from rear shelf speakers and it is working fine but once I change all the other speakers I am sure I will need to get away from the factory amp and DSP. I was looking at the DSR1 to do this but I am thinking I need a 10 channel DSP and those are not common. I will have the F-center(1ch); FrontRight-tweeter, mid, low drivers(3ch); FrontLeft-tweeter, mid, low drivers(3ch); RearRight(1ch); RearLeft(1ch); Add subwoofer(1ch) for the total of 10ch.

What model amps are you running and what are each of the channels driving? The Bit Nove looks pretty hard to find here. Seems to be Eu product. Wondering if there is something better more local that can run 9 channels of speakers and 1 sub. I have read a lot about people ditching the center channel and just running fronts combined and rears for 4ch + 1ch for sub (6ch DSP for this) and others running front low drivers R&L (2ch), front mid-drivers and tweeters R&L (2ch), and rears R&L(2ch) +1ch for sub (8ch DSP for this) I know that is an easier route just not the route I want to take so I am definitely interested in your setup.

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[Canoman]

Can you elaborate a little more on your setup. You seem to be one of the few that have done what I am wanting to also do. I want to keep my entire 9 speaker setup and I have already added a sub. I am currently pulling the sub signal from rear shelf speakers and it is working fine but once I change all the other speakers I am sure I will need to get away from the factory amp and DSP. I was looking at the DSR1 to do this but I am thinking I need a 10 channel DSP and those are not common. I will have the F-center(1ch); FrontRight-tweeter, mid, low drivers(3ch); FrontLeft-tweeter, mid, low drivers(3ch); RearRight(1ch); RearLeft(1ch); Add subwoofer(1ch) for the total of 10ch.

What model amps are you running and what are each of the channels driving? The Bit Nove looks pretty hard to find here. Seems to be Eu product. Wondering if there is something better more local that can run 9 channels of speakers and 1 sub. I have read a lot about people ditching the center channel and just running fronts combined and rears for 4ch + 1ch for sub (6ch DSP for this) and others running front low drivers R&L (2ch), front mid-drivers and tweeters R&L (2ch), and rears R&L(2ch) +1ch for sub (8ch DSP for this) I know that is an easier route just not the route I want to take so I am definitely interested in your setup.

Check out an AudioControl DM-810. It's 8-channel input, 10-channel output.

 

[Dalamar]

Can you elaborate a little more on your setup. You seem to be one of the few that have done what I am wanting to also do. I want to keep my entire 9 speaker setup and I have already added a sub. I am currently pulling the sub signal from rear shelf speakers and it is working fine but once I change all the other speakers I am sure I will need to get away from the factory amp and DSP. I was looking at the DSR1 to do this but I am thinking I need a 10 channel DSP and those are not common. I will have the F-center(1ch); FrontRight-tweeter, mid, low drivers(3ch); FrontLeft-tweeter, mid, low drivers(3ch); RearRight(1ch); RearLeft(1ch); Add subwoofer(1ch) for the total of 10ch.

What model amps are you running and what are each of the channels driving? The Bit Nove looks pretty hard to find here. Seems to be Eu product. Wondering if there is something better more local that can run 9 channels of speakers and 1 sub. I have read a lot about people ditching the center channel and just running fronts combined and rears for 4ch + 1ch for sub (6ch DSP for this) and others running front low drivers R&L (2ch), front mid-drivers and tweeters R&L (2ch), and rears R&L(2ch) +1ch for sub (8ch DSP for this) I know that is an easier route just not the route I want to take so I am definitely interested in your setup.

Ok... this will be a fairly long and potentially boring reply, but here goes...

A bit of history first. I initially tried to use an iDatalink Maestro AR with the Kenwood 6DSP only to find out after getting everything delivered that the Maestro AR + Kenwood 6DSP is not supported on the 2018 Mustang GT350. Blew my mind to say the least. So I returned the Kenwood 6DSP and ordered the Rockford DSR1 along with a JLAudio 600/6v2 and a Rockford R500X1D mono amplifier. In hindsight, I should have gone with the JLAudio 800/8V2, but it worked out in the end which you will see once I stop running my words out here.

From the start, the DSR1 gave me issues and weird behavior. I contacted Rockford and Crutchfield only to be told things were operating normally. However, about 2 weeks ago, Rockford released a firmware update that addressed at least one of the issues I was trying to get resolved with them. I'm still not certain how it all would have sounded once everything was said and done, but things happen for a reason I guess.

So, I returned the DSR1. This left me with the iDatalink AF03 harness and the JLAudio 6v2 amplifier and the Rockford subwoofer amplifier. The next step was to figure out how to get things going so the search began for a DSP. There are a few out there that will do the trick. AudioControl makes a few that will work from what I could tell, but I had my mind set on the Audison BitNove based on everything I read and watched on their site, youtube, etc... I liked the interface you use with the computer to configure things, they have support for removing the factory processing, etc... I found one on eBay that shipped from Germany for a really good price, new in box, warranty, all that good stuff that I'll never use

It took a week to get here, and once it showed up, it was game time. Even though I didn't HAVE to do it, I used forscan to give me low level output and remove the factory processing. This left me with four clean outputs (front left/right, rear left/right) that fed into the BitNove inputs. Configuring this was very simple, and what I choose to do for the outputs was: center speaker, front left/right tweeter, front left/right mids, front left/right woofers, rear left/right speakers. The speakers I used to replace the stock were Infinity Reference simply because I've had good experiences with them in the past. At some point in the future I may upgrade those to a more premium setup, but for now I'm happy.

If you do the math, you'll see that I've used all 9 channels of output from the BitNove and the JL/Audio 600/6v2 only has 6 pre-inputs. Good catch. I realized this while waiting for the BitNove to show up so I ordered another 600/6v2. One of the 600/6v2 amplifiers powers the front left/right speakers (minus the center). The other 600/6v2 powers the two rear speakers, the center speaker, plus the subwoofer by bridging channels 5 and 6. Very simple overall, just more money then I was anticipating when I first started travelling down this path.

Now, you do not have to go as far as that obviously. If you were happy with a passive crossover system for the front left/right, you can feed that from two channels instead of eating all 6 on the 600/6v2. There are things like that you have as options, and it really boils down to what you want. Me, I wanted as much control over the channels as possible and this is what worked for me.

At this point, you might be wondering "Well, what about your sub?". Good question again. Using the AF03 harness, I tapped into the front left/right channels and ran those back into the 600/6v2 and output that in bridged mode. I can take a picture of this later on if it is of interest to anyone, but it really is as simple as it sounds and very obvious if you look at the AR03 harness. I have the wiring diagrams for those connectors as well (three of them, brown, black and grey) that lets you see what is what and what goes where.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. It was fun and the car sounds unbelievable now.

 

[Cathul]

The Audison bitNove is actually supported by the Maestro AR.

 

[Dalamar]

The Audison bitNove is actually supported by the Maestro AR.

It is, but after all the hassle I went through with the Maestro AR and the DSR1, I wanted nothing to do with those parts. Everyone's mileage may vary, but I was done with adding more parts to what I wanted at the end.

 

[Lightning Struck]

How are you handling the center channel processing? Most DSP's can't output an actual center.

 

[Dalamar]

How are you handling the center channel processing? Most DSP's can't output an actual center.

Both the BitNove and the DSR1 create a center channel from the left and right front inputs. In the BitNove software for instance, the attached screens show how it is configured and set up. The DSR1 has a similar app but only for phones and tablets I believe.

 

[Cathul]

With both you shouldn‘t use a center channel as they don‘t have an upmixer of any kind.
Just get your crossovers, time alignment and levels done correctly and your stage will be perfect even without a center channel. If at all i would actively cross and feed the rears instead of using a center speaker.
And the Mosconi DSP 4to6 SPDIF will give you a Master/slave configuration with which you can just add a 2nd 4to6 SPDIF for 12 channels for less money than a typical 12 channel dsp.

 

[Cathul]

It is, but after all the hassle I went through with the Maestro AR and the DSR1, I wanted nothing to do with those parts. Everyone's mileage may vary, but I was done with adding more parts to what I wanted at the end.

I think i've seen your post on the Maestro support forum. Well... what can i say? I had the same problems a few days later, but they fixed it with their latest firmware update for the Maestro part in the DSR1. It did work after that update as i tested myself. I already had ripped out the DSR1, but after the update i reconnected everything up to the DSR1 and verfied that the update was indeed working as expected.

Btw... reprogramming an ACM in a Mustang that has a stock amp for variable line-level is not necessary, as it's already feeding the stock amp with variable line-level (this is only necessary in the base models which are feeding the speakers from the ACM). Only thing you have to do is remove the equalization.
With a Mustang it's not like with the Ford Sony systems in other modells, that have a fixed line-level output.

 

[Cobra Jet]

Just to clarify,

The RF DSR1 does include the “Maestro” component, correct? Everything I have read on Crutchfield’s side indicates that is part of the DSR1 package.

I’m just asking because it seems that some of the responses are discussing (2) different pieces (DSR1) and (Maestro) and trying to avoid any confusion.

For those who have used the DSR1 after the firmware update, what is your opinion with regards to sound and ability to further upgrade the system compared to “stock”?

 

[Cathul]

Yes. The DSR1 is a combination of a Maestro AR and a RF 360.3 DSP, but for a much cheaper price and some minor restrictions in configurability. You have full 8 channel output with crossover, time alignment, level control and Equalizer on each channel.

 

[Niz55]

Do you have to add a aftermarket amp or you remove your factory amp plug this in and that's it?

 

[Canoman]

So post-firmware update, are folks generally happy with the DSR1, or are there still issues that would direct you away from it for running active 3-way up front, no rears, no center, plus a sub?

 

[Lightning Struck]

So post-firmware update, are folks generally happy with the DSR1, or are there still issues that would direct you away from it for running active 3-way up front, no rears, no center, plus a sub?

I'd like to know as well. Part of me wants to pick up a Helix dsp.2 since they've plummeted in price with the .3's coming out, but the ease of install and simplicity of the dsr1 is also appealing.

 

[UserName]

I'd like to know as well. Part of me wants to pick up a Helix dsp.2 since they've plummeted in price with the .3's coming out, but the ease of install and simplicity of the dsr1 is also appealing.

I am still using an original Helix DSP. Easy to use and awesome quality. One thing that is telling is looking at reviews of Helix stuff vs RF. Night and day difference.

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