A friend of mine took his 05 Rl to a local audio store to have an amp and subwoofer added to the factory stereo. The audio place called and said we have both bad and good news. The good news was that the system was installed and sounded great; the bad new being that once the installer would shut the doors the sound went to crap. We have tried calling Acura, JL Audio and Alpine all to no avail.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

Mark

 

Active Noise Cancellation?

 

yep that's it. Is there any way around this?

 

Dunno. The installer should know. If not, call ACS and ask them how to disable it.

 

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. My guess is that the installer has yet to work on an 05 RL.

 

I just checked the owner's manual and found no specific reference to "Active Noise Cancellation" Albeit, I only looked for 5 minutes.
From what I did see, I think you might want to go into the audio setup and turn off "Audio Pilot".

 

This sounds like a really interesting technical problem for an audio engineer. Adding more amplification to a system that is designed with ANS sounds like a non-trivial problem-the system is probably designed to produce a specific output level out of phase with the noise detected to accomplish the cancellation. The specifics of this is probably beyond the scope of this forum, but it would seem to me that if the magnitude of the cancellation signal is not calibrated with the noise source (like with a control loop that adjusts the level based on active feedback of the noise detected), then a diminished level of cancellation could occur. Now that everyone is totally confused...I will retreat into my cave.

 

Great observation acurafox,

Since the ANS needs to be independant of the volume and tone control settings, we can assume that the system is producing a more-or-less constant volume for the "anti-noise" output....else the amount of cancellation would be dependent on the system volume and bass controls, which would not make sense.

I was under the impression that the majority of the noise cancellation output was from the woofers in the doors, and not the sub-woofer. However the replacement of the sub-woofer amp and addition of new sub-woofer speaker reported by rlownersfriend would seem to indicate that the noise cancellation is output also from the sub-woofer.

I agree with acurafox that this will make modifications to the audio system quite complex, since increased dB in the anti-noise output (either from additional amps or increased sub-woofer size) will decrease the noise cancellation. The only way I can see this working is with the use of a bandpass filter that removes the noise-cancelling frequencies from additional amplification.

For those of us who are not audio savvy, this means that a simple addition of amplifiers, or even a replacement of the stock speakers with after-market speakers is not recommended, since it could cause problems with the noise suppression.

Like acurafox, it's time for me to put the straight-jacket back on and crawl back into my engineering cave...

Pete

 

spacklebucket, the Active Noise Cancellation cannot be turned off from the audio setup. If can be defeated (sort of) by placing something in the small mic inputs in the car (such as the one centered above the dash). But the system will still be operational, albeit with a vastly reduced input.

 

cut the wires to the anc mike and be done with it

 

a bit extreme, but definitely a solution I hadn't thought of.

 

Thanks for all the replies.

A quick update; a trip to the audio place this morning revealed exactly what everyone suggested, turning off the Audio Pilot had zero effect.

If and when there is a solution found to this problem I'll be sure to post it here.

 

Audio Pilot is NOT Active Noise Cancelling.

Like other's mentioned, ANC is always on . . .

http://www.acura.com/models/model_co....asp?module=rl

 

Take a look at an earlier post of mine https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...t=active+noise post #19.

It appears that the ANC and audio system is a closed loop system where the audio signal has to be fed into the ANC to keep the ANC from canceling out certain audio frequencies. Your friend should not disable the ANC or the results will be less than desirable.

 

Done deal.

With a little bit of custom work namely a switch that turns the ANC on/off that enables the stereo to eploy the added amp/sub combo. I'm not quite technical enough to describe what was done but the switch is hidden right above where the drivers right knee would be. When my friend wants to listen to the new system he flips the switch and BOOM, it sounds beautiful. When he wants to lsiten to the normal audio system or whatever all the functions are there nothing is missing.

I'll try to get a more detailed explanation from the installer and post later.

 

That's an interesting issue/solution, thanks.

I guess my first thought is that's a lot of work and extra expense for a system that to me seems to be pretty good already. I just don't like the thought of an installer digging around, having to cut into some of my car's core systems.

Definitely not an audiophile though, so probably wouldn't pick up on the extra benefit that adding a new subwoofer/amp would provide. Interested in what this new system adds..does it just make it louder or improve the clarity or fidelity? Wondering what the average user would note when comparing the stock stereo to this upgraded system.

 

Hope your friend has not voided some part of the factory warranty due to the customization.

On another note, how was the input for the added amplifier obtained?

 

A lot of people here are assuming that adding an amp and sub-woofer will improve the sound.
The design is a "system", changing certain components within a system that was designed by an audio engineer typically degrades the quality. No person will admit it though because if you pay a lot of money for something it is normal to like and endorse it. Numerous people think that a booming sub-woofer is "good" audio but most of those people don't own RL's.

 

I'm not sure I get this "fix"...

The reason for switching off the ANC is to listen to a high-end system that "sounds beautiful", but doesn't the lack of ANC make it really noisy in the cabin, which would really disturb listening to such a high-end system?

Pressing your finger over the ANC microphone hole shows how significantly the noise increases without ANC. In my RL, I get a very distinct low frequency rumble, not sure where it's from but it sounds like an exhaust sound and it definately very annoying.

As an audiophile, I can live with the system in the RL as it is, but I'm not sure I could live with the additional rumble with the ANC off...unless the ANC is only turned off for high levels of music that would drown out the additional rumble.

Pete