Hey guys, First real post on the forum, I just picked up a 2016 Base ILX and already getting the bug to change some stuff. I also own an 13' F150 and Ford allows me to buy OEM upgrades from their store to basically "OEM Modify" my truck.

I was wondering if acura does anything similar? I hate the audio in the ILX, I've never owned a car without a subwoofer and I realize I made a huge mistake.

I like to try and make my cars seem as stock as possible, I was curious if there was a way to upgrade my system to the Premium audio, preferably something with a sub and decent response. Basically most genre's of music sound like garbage. I don't really want to go aftermarket because I feel like it makes the whole car start to rattle and lose resale value.

 

You prob could... But the replacement head unit is massively expensive. Your talking over $1000 since it has the touch screen and all the other connectivity going into it.

Best option is go aftermarket. Keep the same head unit, but have your speakers powered by an aftermarket amp. And swap out the speakers with better ones.

 

sell the car, get the premium version. profit.

 

I'm completely happy with the base head unit, I was more hoping that I could pick up the premiums sub / speakers and wire it into the base. I'm new to acura/honda cars, I was hoping all the wiring is the same as the premium and I could essentially plug and play. I'm fairly adept at car audio, I was just trying to figure out what kind of system I'm working with.

Appreciate the replies, Aeroin.

 

Well I know the base and premium head units are completely different. The premium has an extra output channel for the sub and its processed within the head unit.

An aftermarket 'sub amp' could be wired to pull audio from the rear speakers. And then you can mount a speaker in the middle of the back by the rear window in the OEM location.

It'll just do a pass filter on the audio and put the low frequencies into a 3rd party sub speaker.

 

 

I think you should just go aftermarket. It's really just personal taste man. Didn't like lack of base at first either, but the sub broke in after a while, and it hits a lot harder then when i first had it. Also depends a lot on the music media you are listening to. I listen to Pandora a lot in the car, probably 99% of the time...Some of the stations have the frequencies right where i want them. The base hits. On others, not so much. I actually have bass all the way up most of the time, but sometimes it hits pretty hard and on a really long drive it can get incessant, so I turn it down. Maybe just wait a little and see if it gets better. I'll also state the obvious of maxing out the bass both on your stereo and on the device settings.

You can also try getting sound dampening material like Dynamat added to your car. it might help enclose the base and sound more. This is in my future mod plans.

 

Believe it or not, when my Civic got totaled back in April last year. I put a lot of time into dynamiting and replacing the speakers and head unit in the car, and the guy that was doing the price evaluation on how much the car was worth was actually adding value to the car because of that. Mind that this was a 11 year old car at that time, and Kelly Blue Book was showing a value of $6500 for a vehicle that was in excellent condition with low miles. I had about 130K on it, and got $8000 + another $1000 for it at the end of the day. The other guys insurance was Mercury too, so I felt like i was gonna get a bad deal, but turned out to be pretty good. Still sucks I had to purchase a new car, but I am really happy with my 2016 Acura ILX Tech Plus Package. I ended up just disabling the Premium OEM sub, and adding my own 600W RMS 12 inch woofer and Amp in the trunk. Hits hard and no rattles. I haven't done any dynamating or other changes to the audio. Keep in mind, that even with a Premium Head Unit, you still need to add another device between the head unit and your sub if you want to add an aftermarket sub. You need to convert the High signals to Low. I think that's what it is, but basically you're cust converting the head unit signal to RCA that your amp can use to power the Sub.

 

Well you have the upgraded head unit, wiring already and holes for the deck speakers the base doesn't have deck speakers nor the deck sub. I was wondering if we could go to a junkyard and grab the audio system pices out of the premium version of our car. Then with the said audio parts install it into our car without programming the car to get it to work?