B&O 10" sub replacement guide

[murick]

The wiring colours and orientation are in post #1

Black and purple are negative, green and yellow are positive.

Remember this is a properly controlled sub and relatively low sensitivity, so is tight and musical NOT boomy so may sound 'quieter'

Greg, do not take it wrong. Your excelent original post (which I read several times) stirred an interrest and allowed many to improve their audio. I hope to be one of them soon. When reading the comments, I was just surprised by the observation of @Pero that the sub seems to be kicking in, instead of out (on a bass note) and the fact that apart from @Pero, no one seemed to be noticing that.

So either the rest was just doing the swap following the instructions, and were happy with results, or @Pero could have his cabling miswired, or it was actually an intended mode of operation from the Ford designers. Now it seems that even @Pero admits that having the sub "inversed" sounds best, so everything seems fine in the end.

I guess I will try to look into it more while doing my swap anyway, just to confirm my understanding and will report here once done.

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[Pero]

Are they really the colours of the wires feeding your oem sub?. Different to mine if they are.

Yes. These are original wires feeding my OEM sub.
Here are the pictures , taken before anything was changed:

 

[gpierce]

Yes. These are original wires feeding my OEM sub.
Here are the pictures , taken before anything was changed:

The wire in your pic you’re calling pink is actually purple

 

[Pero]

The wire in your pic you’re calling pink is actually purple

Ah - sorry. Lapsus Linguae.
I'm no that much in these "girlish" colors.
Pink, Purple, Violet... pretty same to me. Especially if you can see only one at the time without comparison possibility.

So yes - Purple it is this wire.

 

[Gregs24]

Ah - sorry. Lapsus Linguae.
I'm no that much in these "girlish" colors.
Pink, Purple, Violet... pretty same to me. Especially if you can see only one at the time without comparison possibility.

So yes - Purple it is this wire.

Color Blind Test (colorlitelens.com)

 

[murick]

Following the original post, the video from @RasJeremy and other helpful posts in this thread I went ahead and changed my sub as well.

As the process has been already very well documented, I would just add some seemingly random remarks to the topic, based on my experience, to maybe help to newcomers.

1. Before doing anything, remove the subwoofer housing from the trunk. While it seems like you might be able to do some work on it, while having it in the car, you will not.
   
   
2. Contrary to the popular advice, the hardest pins to unlatch from the bezel were the ones on each side, because of the wider guards. I had the two on top and the two at the bottom done in few minutes and then spent almost an hour on releasing the remaining two.
   
   The problem was that my tool had the prying point too thin and always got below the latch, effectively locking the pin in even when I pushed it. If I had something with wider/bulkier pressure point I imagine it could have been far easier. At the end I succeeded more by luck than a coordinated technical effort.
   
   
3. As already explained in this thread, removing the pins from the original connectors was easy. You need to unhook and open the back of the connector and then unlatch the individual pins from the front. It is easily done for example with a pin, by pinning the latch and lifting it while pulling the cable at the same time.
   
   I spent some time wondering why I was not able to pull the pins, until I realized I completely forgot to release the back of the connector as well.
   
   
4. There are two approaches in how to adapt the mount points for the sub. Either by drilling a new holes in the original housing and using the original holes in a new sub frame, or cutting new holes in the new sub frame, while keeping the original holes in the housing intact.
   
   I chose the latter and then worked hard to bend the frame edge out. It definitely looked easier on the video
   
   
5. Following another advice I decided to cut the bigger holes into the sub frame by using the plate cutters, but then realized I did not have any suitable at hand, so ended up at making the cuts with dremel. To avoid getting the metal shavings into the magnetic parts, I just taped both sides of the sub all around with plastic bags, which worked quite well in the end.
   
   
6. The foam tape which came with the Pioneer sub is pretty fragile, so do not try to pull it, once you stick it to the plastic. It will tear.

The recent discussion about the polarity of the signals and how it affects the sub operation led me to an scientific experiment - I mounted the original subwoofer back without the covering mesh and was trying to discern whether the sub kicked in or out (on a bass note).

Since the observation was not conclusive I shot a video of the sub in operation.

Then I did the same for the new sub and because with the new sub even the first video was not conclusive I shot two more videos using a phone camera in slow-motion settings.


There are two videos behind this link.

The last thing I would like to mention. Having the Pioneer sub without the mesh on a quite loud volume in an empty trunk with Bass set to +9 in Audio settings was making me physically uncomfortable. But when I set the EQ back to 0 and put the mesh back on, the sound got much better.

Another thing which seemed to help significantly improve the experience was properly setting the sound sweet spot to my head (as it was originally somewhere in the middle of the cabin).

In the end, I feel rather happy about the swap. The bass indeed feels tight and precise now. Thanks to everyone who participated in this quest!

 

[WD Pro]

It’s possible (but tricky) to get that speaker trim ring off with zero damage or marks to any of the plastics.

Leave it in the sun (or warm it up) and use two trim removal tools. Slide one underneath the ring following the circumference and the other like a traditional pry bar at right angle to the circumference. Use even pressure on both tools. There is a cone clip for every screw and the position between the clips and the screws are fixed. Look under the edge of the ring to locate the first clip and then note it’s position to find the others. The hardest clips are the ones under the trim ‘wings', leave them to the end so you have most movement and best visibility.

WD

Contrary to the popular advice, the hardest pins to unlatch from the bezel were the ones on each side, because of the wider guards. I had the two on top and the two at the bottom done in few minutes and then spent almost an hour on releasing the remaining two.

I think we agree ?

WD

 

[gpierce]

.
The recent discussion about the polarity of the signals and how it affects the sub operation led me to an scientific experiment - I mounted the original subwoofer back without the covering mesh and was trying to discern whether the sub kicked in or out (on a bass note).

Since the observation was not conclusive I shot a video of the sub

Good practical comments overall. There is however a much, much easier way to work out polarity on a woofer. Get a 9 volt battery and connect to the speakers terminals. When you see it kick out (vs in) you now know which side is + and -

 

[murick]

Good practical comments overall. There is however a much, much easier way to work out polarity on a woofer. Get a 9 volt battery and connect to the speakers terminals. When you see it kick out (vs in) you now know which side is + and -

The Pioneer sub has the ports marked red and black, which I assumed were to mean red=positive, black=negative. The question was however, which signal (wire) goes to which port. There was an agreement in the thread that

The black and purple wires are negative, the green and yellow wires are positive.

Which I interpreted as to connect negative wires to black ports and positive to red ports. Then someone noticed that the new sub might be kicking in instead of out and the speculation was whether this was an intended behavior and that led me to the experiment where I tried to figure out, how the original sub was kicking and if both were in sync.

I still have the old sub, so I could check its polarity with battery and from there draw the final conclusion.

 

[gpierce]

iThen someone noticed that the new sub might be kicking in instead of out and the speculation was whether this was an intended behavior and that led me to the experiment where I tried to figure out, how the original sub was kicking and if both were in sync.

I still have the old sub, so I could check its polarity with battery and from there draw the final conclusion.

I guess all I’m saying is that if you have no wiring diagram and you have the original sub you can tell which wires are pos/neg using the battery method. It doesn’t matter whether Ford intended for it to kick in or out, it only matters what you want from your new sub. Also I wouldn’t guarantee that red black thing on Pioneer subs Pioneer does funny things with their products, I’d test it with the battery to be sure if they didn’t provide a diagram. They often don’t and make you guess.

 

[murick]

I guess all I’m saying is that if you have no wiring diagram and you have the original sub you can tell which wires are pos/neg using the battery method. It doesn’t matter whether Ford intended for it to kick in or out, it only matters what you want from your new sub. Also I wouldn’t guarantee that red black thing on Pioneer subs Pioneer does funny things with their products, I’d test it with the battery to be sure if they didn’t provide a diagram. They often don’t and make you guess.

I believe I understood that . Just one last clarification (I am comfortable about doing my own electronics, but never worked with an audio equipment), when I connect the battery "correctly", should the sub kick in, or out, or in other words, what is the "correct" sub response when it is "correctly" wired. By "correctly" wired I mean having the positive voltage on the positive port of the sub.

 

[gpierce]

I believe I understood that . Just one last clarification (I am comfortable about doing my own electronics, but never worked with an audio equipment), when I connect the battery "correctly", should the sub kick in, or out, or in other words, what is the "correct" sub response when it is "correctly" wired. By "correctly" wired I mean having the positive voltage on the positive port of the sub.

When you connect the battery and it pushes the cone out, that means you have positive from batt to positive on speaker. If it pulls it in, then it’s backwards.

 

[Nardly]

When you are talking about one sub, polarity really doesn't matter. It can't be out of phase if there is only one speaker. Now if you had two subs it would matter.

 

[gpierce]

When you are talking about one sub, polarity really doesn't matter. It can't be out of phase if there is only one speaker. Now if you had two subs it would matter.

It certainly does matter on a single sub with dual voice coils.

 

[OF5.0]

It certainly does matter on a single sub with dual voice coils.

I would also argue that phase alignment at the crossover point is very important. If the output is out of phase, you will have a huge dip near the crossover point.

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