So a few weeks back, I solicited input on how best to go about installing an aftermarket head unit in an X300 XJR.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-system-98776/

I ended up purchasing the following:

- A Kenwood XDC-X996 head unit (HU)
- An Autoleads Jaguar - to - ISO harness from eBay
- An ISO - to - Kenwood harness from eBay

I naively expected, since this daisy chained the whole thing together (Jag male => harness => harness => head unit) that this would be a plug and play affair. How wrong I was!

Connecting all the harnesses together allows the head unit to power on, for it to extend the power antenna and, if I'm to believe the bars jumping around on the face, receive a solid signal. BUT NO SOUND. I noticed on the eBay Kenwood harness I purchased that there was no blue-and-white wire, the equivalent of the remote power on wire.

So out come all the harnesses, back to my desk, and last night I snip off the ISO bits, and crimp the wires one by one together. This time, I use the Kenwood harness that came in the box with the head unit, and everything appears to be fine.

Plug it all back into the car, deck powers up, same reception...NO SOUND.

Upon very careful examination of the Jag end of the chain, I note that the white plug has room for 20 pins, but looking more carefully, I see that a great many are not being wired!

Also, there are two large plugs that connect right into the back of the factory radio. I connected the stock radio back, WITHOUT these plugs...no sound. However, connecting the grey one returns sound again. Ah ha!



Car Audio Wire Diagram Codes Jaguar - Factory Car Stereo Repair - Bose Stereo, Speaker / Amplifier Repair

The grey plug is clearly some sort of thing that no-one gave me a heads up about: a proprietary plug that connects to the speakers, it seems.

Has anyone else run into this problem? I have no goddamn idea what this grey plug is, and not even this wiring diagram above shows it to be in use. But I'm not clear if I snip the top of this plug off, if I'll find eight wires for the + and - speakers?

I note from this thread that these guys MAY be alluding to the problem, but unsure. Are either of them still here?

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...or-x300-37971/

If anyone has any suggestions (short of taking this to a professional, who may or may not be able to fix this!!), I'm all ears. Many thanks if anyone has any ideas.

ETA: By the way, I've already checked all the fuses, and they are all intact. For those looking, the fuse for the amplifier is F1 in the trunk, under the cover to the right of the spare.

 

With an XJR you should the premium sound amplifier and CD player. That changes the entire landscape as far as speaker wiring goes.

As far as I know one of those round plugs goes to the CD player and the other goes to the amp. All your existing speaker wiring comes *from* the amplier.

That's about all I can offer, sorry.

One of the radio pros will come along and know what to do.

Cheers
DD

 

You will ether have to run all new speaker wires to each door or run all new wires to the boot (trunk) of the car and tap in to the speaker wires at the factory amp.

 

Do yourself a favor and just run new wires to the speakers. It's both the easiest, and surest, choice. Take your loom of speaker wire and feed it into the rubber boot in the door jamb from the door end, then pull out the necessary length of wire to the center console. It really isn't difficult, and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches trying to figure out those premium sound connections.

Doing it this way also allows for leaving the factory wiring in place to easily reinstall the factory headunit should you decide to keep your new stereo upon selling the car.

 

The thing that confuses me is the fact that this isn't a premium sound install: I don't see the Harmon/Kardon amp at the top of the trunk frame. The daisy chain of wiring harnesses should have been enough, but this grey wire/underutilized Jaguar male plug is just befuddling.

For ***** and giggles, I'm going to strip a portion of the grey plug to see what lies underneath. If it's a bundle of eight speaker wires, I'm going to just lop the plug off and try and splice.

What a quintessentially Jaguar-ian hassle.

 

at the risk of sounding arrogant, consider paying an installer to do it.
I did, and he didn't charge much, and I pootled off to work to do what I am best at

 

how strange! I've cheapy stereo for 6 quid from eBay with cheapy cable Jag to ISO and ISO to cheapy Halfords-whatever-that-stereo-is and everything works fine, plug and play... And that is on the standard stereo system...

 

And thus my confusion and frustration.

The other XJRs I had looked at DID have the premium sound: Harmon Kardon amplifier, nestled in the trunk, mounted just below the rear window. This one did not, and thus I assumed a non-premium (i.e., easy!) set of wiring. How wrong I am.

This particular car was built late in the run of X300s: a '97. Is it possible it was available in the later years without premium sound, or is it possible the amplifier was mounted somewhere I'm not looking?

If I can't figure this out, I will, naturally, take it to someone to do as you all say, run speaker wire from the head unit, bypassing the amp entirely. However, if I can avoid that and score more DIY brownie points with the Great Mechanic In the Sky, I'd like to exhaust those options first. As a finance guy, this is considered "working with my hands". Leave me my small victories/anguished defeats.

 

I know you're a proponent of doing so. It's one of those things in hindsight:

- if I read correctly, you have an X300 with non-premium sound. You could have done this yourself with about an hour and a half of time invested with the right parts, a screw driver, and two socket wrenches.

- I apparently have an X300-R with premium sound. I shouldn't have even contemplated taking apart the console, and should have driven straight to an installer.

Alas and alack.

 

I'm confused as well.

I know that on the early cars (like mine) both the amp and the CD changer are hung under the rear window. I know that later cars had the *CD player* relocated to the side panel of the trunk but I *thought* the amp location remained the same.

It appears that......

-The amp location was changed as you suggest (but where? Behind one of the carpeted side panels perhaps?) OR

-I'm wrong about USA-market XJRs having premium sound as standard equipment OR

-There's an additional build/wiring configuration, besides simply "with/without amplifier", that we're now discovering

Wish I could be more helpful

Cheers
DD

 

The CD player has been relocated to the left side of the trunk.

Possible fly in the ointment: this is a Canadian car. However, everything comports with a premium sound wiring setup, so...WTF?

Going to poke around the trunk a little more when I have time. I simply can't believe scenario #3 is a possibility, unless they had a surplus of 5-pin DIN connectors at the Jag plant that day!

 

Pull the side panel on the left side out that houses the CD changer. I have a 1997 VDP with out premium sound and when I had the CD changer out to fix it, it looked like there was a place to mount the amp below the CD changer on the same bracket.

 

SON.

OF.

A.

BITCH.

 

Good deal. I was wrong it mounts on the top. It looked like it would mount on the bottom of the CD changer.

 

Just to add another opinion...

You have the premium stereo, so why not make the most of the situation? If your headunit has RCA outputs, run a set of RCAs into the boot, upgrade the amplifier with a nice 4 or 5 channel job, and use the factory speaker wiring from the boot?

This adds about 8 levels of complexity, but you will be rewarded with much better sound quality.
At that point, you would also want new speakers as well, and you'll have to mess around with the sub in the parcel tray, but i'm sure it would be worth it.


Also, for future reference, the best indication of an upgraded stereo is the parcel shelf speaker and a-pillar speakers

 

Lookit this guy with the lemonade made from my lemons!

The A-pillar/parcel shelf speakers are the dead giveaway for the uninitiated. The RCA + new amp is probably the sensible way to go. If I was to go that route, I'm taking this baby to an installer, because it's important to know what you don't know.

If anyone knows of a reputable, reasonable installer in the Baltimore/DC area, please reach out and let me know.

 

Running RCAs through the car is quite easy, as long as you're comfortable about pulling the centre console and rear seats out

If you wanted to go all out, I could offer a few suggestions on amps and speakers, but if you're not familiar with this stuff it can get very confusing very quickly, and you'll just be put off.
However, if you kept it very simple, with a small amp (~50-75wrms per channel, and some decent speakers, it shouldn't take too much effort. Plus Jaguar were kind enough to put the battery in the boot, so powering an amp is a piece of cake!

FYI, when it comes to speakers, you're better off getting a low to mid-range product from a great brand, than top of the line from an average one.
Look into Infinity, DLS, Focal, Rainbow...
You might even be able to get away with using the factory tweeters and just replacing the lower door speakers. Not a perfect solution, but with a high quality, lowish power amp, you'll be fine. The factory tweeters are ok, especially once you start to feed them a decent signal from your new headunit

 

Things I'm not comfortable doing:
- Pulling out the center console
- Removing the back seats

Question: the only parcel shelf speakers are the tweeters on the outsides of the headrests, right?

If I'm not interested in installing a subwoofer, I could go with a simpler, less expensive 4-channel amp, right? I took a quick peek at amps powered roughly in the neighborhood per channel as you described, and that 5th channel really adds to the cost.

ETA: My main objective is to JUST GET THIS WORKING. Any incremental improvement in sound quality is gravy, but if I can get away with leaving the speakers intact, I would much rather decrease my dollars spent on equipment I'm never seeing the value of again. I see 4 channel amps from dodgy sounding brands (Boss! Sound Storm!) for nearly unbelievable sums ($35 - $45). The RMS ratings are ~50 - 75 watts. What's wrong with these things?

 

The rear seat is secured by 4 phillips screws, that's it. Takes less time to remove than filling the gas tank. But the center console requires a bit more undoing, but it's still straight forward enough that a 5th grader could easily remove it. I promise that both of these tasks are well within the ability for any normal adult to accomplish. So don't let that be your barrier. The wiring resortment you've already done is gobs more difficult than the seat or console removal.


In a nutshell? Sound distortion at higher volume. But if you don't consider yourself an audiophile, and simply want basic sound, then they're sufficient.

 

I have a 19 month old son who tears apart seemingly stoutly constructed items with his bare hands. I assume by a 5th grader, you mean something other than "pull on center console, and shake until it pops off"?

I literally will be using the head unit's capabilities to:
- play podcasts. I'm sure Ira Glass and Intelligence Squared sound even more impressive at higher volumes (what doesn't?!), but I'm generally willing to accept volumes somewhere south of jet engine noise.
- Speak on the phone
- Play music, rarely

Gratifying to hear that an el cheapo amp will serve my purposes. Boss Chaos Epic Erupt (literally the name of one of these ridiculous models), here I come!

Does anyone have step by step instructions (video would be preferable!) for how to remove the center console? Also, where are these four Phillips head screws for the seats?

(How can I predict this is going to result in me showing up at a stereo installer's shop with the center console and rear seat in the trunk? Hahahaha.)