Flexin5

i find the sub a little lacking in the TLX, i found that the oem sub in my 2010 TSX with the premium sound system better but the ELS sub was not as good. anyways, i just want to throw a small box and amp with 1 10" for some deeper bass.

i was thinking about using a line converter off of the stock sub for pre-outs and remote to the amp, and that way i can also control the amount of bass from the stock deck.

any insight would be great

mikeyk24

Yep, I actually have done this already.. Did the install myself MINUS drilling a hole through the firewall. There is no grommet on our cars, so you will have to drill through the firewall (which I had best buy do for 25 bucks, lol) in order to run the power wire.

From there, I used the LC2I line out converter:Amazon.com: AudioControl LC2I 2-Channel Line Out Converter and Subwoofer Control: Electronics

I tapped into the factory sub (its a little tricky because the wires are REALLY short.. I clipped the end off the wires and extended the existing wiring with some good 12 gauge wire). From there, I just wired the LC2I into those wires that came out of the factory sub.. I actually used a power capacitor as a distribution block of sorts, and ran the power for the LC2I from there.

The rest was easy.. Run the remote wire and RCA cables down through the backset and along the kick panels on the driver's side. It's bit of a project, but I got mine all done in about 3 hours of installation. The best thing is you can wire up the LC2I to your power cap with the subs OUTSIDE of the car.. Then you just need to place the box in the trunk and connect it to your factory sub's stock wiring.

TOTALLY worth it.. I have 2 pioneer 12" subs in the trunk and can actually enjoy music again, lol.

datadr

There's no need for a sub. The issue is ANC is interfering with the sub response (since it's used for ANC). See this post:

Link: https://acurazine.com/forums/audio-b...er-car-919478/

This describes how to turn off ANC - sounds like it makes a big difference.

Dizfoogeofrey

i have a jl audio jx1000/1 & 12" jl audio w3. i have 2 gauge power wires and ran thru the fender and removed a grommet. no issues and working perfectly. no drilling on my end.

99CL

Where's the grommet located on the fender? Is it behind the side panel next to the head pedal?

Flexin5

ah great advice thanks, i'll do this for my car too.


how did you get the signal for the pre-out from the factory amp? or sub?

mikeyk24

You tap into the wires going in to the factory sub.. You can use a cheap line-out converter, or get a REALLY good one which will only make the bass sound better. Here is the one I recommend:

Flexin5

oh i see, ya i wanted a quality line converter, i've tried crappy ones before and didn't like them. do you still have your OEM sub going with the new sub? or is the OEM one now disabled?

mikeyk24

No, the OEM sub is no longer being used in my current setup.. I simply don't need it and have PLENTY of bass from the 12's and due to the quality of the LOC they basically cover and handle the entire spectrum of bass frequencies now.

Overall the quality is LIGHT YEARS better than the factory stereo originally was. I can't say enough good things about the LOC.. It basically eliminates the frequency cutoff you get with the factory stereo.

mksliao

I'm actually trying to get all the speakers to connect to my JL amp, I have a lc6. All working except I'm getting this humming and the gain was only like a quarter. Sounds like engine humming except it's very loud. I get the humming even if the radio was turned off.

Gonna try to figure it out again tomorrow

VirtuousTLX

I'm thinking about doing something similar with a JL W6. Do you think you can post pictures of your setup?

mikeyk24

Sounds like your RCA cables are too close to the power wire.. That would be my guess anyways as that is usually the culprit for this type of behavior.

I would take a look at that and see if moving the RCA's out of the way of the power wire takes care of the humming feedback you are hearing.

DwDrummer

Can you take some pics of your set up and where you had the hole drilled for the power wire? A picture tutorial would be awesome! Thanks!

h_dawg

For those of you who added a aftermarket subwoofer to get some more bass with a line out converter, did you have to disable ANC on the headunit so that it does not interfere with bass? I am going to be adding a subwoofer soon and want to make sure of the correct process before I do it. Thanks in advance for the help and advice

mksliao

The power and rca are separated, one running to the back from driver, while the other from passenger side.

I really had to turn down the line converter output to the engine noise coming through the speakers. I am trying to power the speakers and add a sub to the system

mksliao

With my setup I did disable the ANC but it still interferes maybe because I tried connecting the speakers also.

Flexin5

thought i would update this

over the weekend i threw my amp and sub into the car. i've installed many systems for friends and family so this wasn't my first time doing it. having said that this was my first time installing a sub with a factory head unit, and also i can say that the TLX is made very well because this install took me two days (granted i was taking the extra step to make things clean)

i won't post every step on how to install it, but more so the most important parts.

1) routing the power wire:
unlike older hondas, there are no visible plugs on the firewall, and to find them behind the mounds of sound deadening the TLX will drive you to drink. so what I did was i saw the hood cable going through to the fender, above the fuze box. (i'll grab a better pic of this later)



i pulled out the grommet that the hood cable goes through in order to slip power wire through too. then i took another wire grommet and cut it to fit around the metal. as an extra precaution i also wrapped the wire and the hood cable in electrical tape and put a sleeve of heat shrink over that. with the added grommet there shouldn't be any movement to chafe the wire bare, if so then you have a different problem on your hands.

then move to the engine bay (i'll update with a pic of mine later) and remove the 3 or 4 clips of the right fender. shine a flash light down there and you'll see your power wire. shove a good length through and grab a coat hanger and pull it up. then run it down the fender which is easy because there's a few holes, to the left, and if you want it 100% hidden like mine run it under the intake box, behind the battery and up to the positive terminal.



2) Remote wire:
to turn the amp on, i used a fuse tap, tapped into an accessory port, then run the remote wire along your power wire down the side of the car. you'll see what i mean when i said that the TLX is made pretty good when you run this wire under the door sills and carpet.



tip: buy a pack of mini fuses before you install this, as the factory fuses are a bit different and can't be used in the fuse tap.

3) Tapping your factory system for the pre-out signal to the amp.
so obviously when hooking up an amp to the factory system there are no RCA outputs to plug into. so for this I used a line-out converter. there's lots of them, I used this one because it did not need to be powered and was of decent quality:



so where to tap into? i tapped into the two wires going into the OEM subwoofer. my origional plan to de-pin the harness wasn't working out so i just took two wire taps to it. cut back the oem wire loom to give yourself some more access to wire to splice into, also that way if the car needs to go back to stock it's as simple as taking the taps off, taping up the exposed wire, and taping back the factory wire loom...no one's the wiser ;P . i spliced in the two grey wires for one channel on the line-out converter, then spliced in the two yellow ones into the grey wires for the next channel. zip tie up the line out converter and button back up the upper trunk liner.

sub harness unplugged from sub:



tapped:



now for some reason, the gain on my amp got turned all the way to max, and during the first few hours, i managed to blow the tiny 10" pioneer sub. i wasn't really happy with the way it sounded as i wanted the deeper bass; for short money i picked up a brand new sub with box, i went a little overboard (see pissed) and bought a sub that there was no way my amp could blow. i opted for a single 12" kenwood sub rated to peak power of 2000watts @ 4 oms and max 400w RMS.

let me say now that the entire ELS system with the single 12" sub sound PERFECT. with the sub at -2 it's not rattle everything crazy, not loud, but clean and crisp and matches the ELS mids and highs perfectly. it's exactly what this system was missing and if anyone was thinking that they would like a bit deeper bass note(s) to complete the system should really consider adding a sub. this is probably the best sounding system i've ever owned. you can also crank the sub if you wanted bass you can feel in your chest yet even then the car doesn't sound like a rattle can, with all the sound deadening the car has it still keeps a nice clean sound.

you can choose to mount your amp to the back of the box or wherever you would like, i mounted mine to the cover of the air compressor and tow hook area. (this part is also $150 from acura if you needed to replace it if your car is going back). the amp is also hidden and you have a nice flat trunk floor.





and with the 12" (i may get a smaller box later on)




My buddy who owns the audio shop told me to disable the ANC mics so i was thinking about un-plugging the ANC unit but the sub and everything sounds great so i'll just leave it.