I am considering maybe removing my head unit and replacing it with a Panasonic or Sony and adding some decent sized subwoofers to the trunk.. Has anybody on here done this to an X300? Does it involve a lot of work or should it not be much harder than any other car?
Thanks for the help guys.

 

I will have that done within the next week. Was hoping it would be done by now, but I am waiting on parts.
I do know that if you are going to replace the head unit you may as well replace everything.

Either way I will report back on my experience, cost etc...

 

One thing to keep in mind when designing that sub box. The Jaguar X300 will have a 25 gallon fuel tank and a solid steel panel between the trunk and the inside of the car. Just pull the forward grey trim panel back a little and you will see the fuel tank right in the way of your tunes. I suppose if you leave the tank at 1/4 or less you could use the hollow shell as a resonator of sorts. Probably scare the crap out of pedestrians but not get much kick inside the car.

I recommend dual 18s and at least 2000 watts and a box big enough to fill the trunk.

If you really must have an aftermarket sub I would recommend the Infinity Basslink. You can keep the factory radio. Remove the existing factory sub if you have premium sound. Mount the Basslink so that the speaker aims through the existing hole where the factory sub used to be. The Basslink will accept the original speaker level inputs from the original sub and the whole deal will take less than an hour start to finish. No, you wont be able to shatter the glass at the local 7/11 but it will sound damn good inside the car where it needs to.

 

I must respectfully disagree with Real_Tech. If you put a sub in the trunk you will get plenty of kick regardless of the gas tank placement.

The bass will easily find it's way into the front of the car. If you remove the old sub there is a pretty good sized port for the sound to resonate through, and you can see over the tank to that port.
Bass is monaural and doesn't need to be crisp, make sure you have nice mids and tweets and the bass will fill in nicely.

Again I do not mean to be contrary, but my experiences lead me to a different conclusion.

 

Thank you Real_Tech and Fenja for the input. Real_Tech, I looked up teh Infinity bass system you were talking about. It is around $189 which isn't too bad considering. I do have a couple questions regarding it though. WIll the bass hit hard enough where it will at least rumble the ground a little bit? Also, since I don't have premium sound, will there still be an opening there?


Fenja, Let me know how your experience goes, that would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

The opening is in all cars. Your problem would be finding speaker connections to attach to the amp. If you had premium the already equalized sub connection would be right there. Without premium all the speakers are inside the car with none in the trunk to get signal from.

I put the Infinity in my wifes '97 and it worked really well. In fact she liked it enough that I also put one in her '03. Both those cars did have premium sound though. I also replaced all the other speakers with component Polk Dbs. The Polks played much louder and cleaner than the factory speakers and there was nothing wrong with those at all when i took them out. The polks come with crossover boxes and there is easy access to all the speaker wiring and plenty of room for the crossovers under the rear seat.

Do keep in mind that neither my wife or myself are big rap fans. Rock, top 40, dance sounds very nice and the Infinity has a remote to adjust bass on the fly.

My last post was just a little bit of a joke. I wasn't completely serious about the resonating fuel tank but i've seen enough big boxes scare plenty of pedestrians when the music first starts ;>)

 

I had an infinity basslink also in a couple cars...in the Acura, it worked great...in the Jeep Gr Cherokee, just not big enough.

I did try one in my XK8, with that tank between the trunk and the interior, I couldn't get ANY bass up into the cabin, though my rear fenders were pounding. There has to be a passage for air to move, otherwise you're asking vibrations to move a long distance from sheet metal, to frame, back to sheet metal to your seat and butt. It just may take a couple 15s to do that, depending on how well sealed it is.

The Basslink is definitely worth a shot in that car, with the stock sub removed (as recommended). Its easy to install, and you'll know pretty quick if you'll be satisfied or not. Remote bass gain knob is a real bonus, runs right up to where you are so you can 'adjust' for different music types...you know what I mean Real_Tech, right?

 

Would I be better off buying some 15's then since it seems I'd have a lot of trouble finding the connection for that speaker? Although I would liek to keep my factory head unit....

 

I'd much rather replace the factory head unit, it is bound to fail on you at some point, and I much prefer the more controllable interface of after market head units.

 

You'll spend alot more money however. If you're not the earthshaking kind of audiophile, and you would like bump and a little rumble, the basslink is really good. All you need to find is one pair of speaker leads, and a dedicated power/ground...run that gain up to the front, and you're done.

If you go bigger subs, you need them, a box, an amp to drive them, new power and ground, AND you'll still need to find the speaker leads to get the signal from the deck.

Choice is yours.

 

Ya' know you're right. Definately going with basslink now. Only problem is I am a COMPLETE NUB when it comes to audio systems. Where would one find some speaker leads and how would you know which ones to buy? Also what would be a good location for my ground?

 

I personally prefer an aftermarket deck, and just run an RCA cable to an amp in the trunk powering your subs of choice.
it's a pain to route the RCA cable without it being noticeable, but I enjoy a good clean wiring job.



I know, laugh at the miserly sony xplodes, but I got a smokin deal, and they have a good sound to them.

I also wouldn't want to be bothered of hunting down speaker leads that aren't there.

I went terribly cheap with my audio equipment, but it still sounds decent for three years later.

Pioneer head unit, Razor 5 1/4's in the doors, the two 12 sony's, and a 460 dual channel amp with the subs wired in series raises a good bit of hell going down the road.

"Also what would be a good location for my ground?"

Jaguar made it easy for us in this regard, I just used the bolts & mount holes for the stock CD changer, couldn't be more convenient.


I had a nice two amp set-up going on to power the door speakers, but that amp blew up, so I just tucked all the excess wiring for the time being until I can source another amp.

 

Pancho, no need to apologize for your bass gear. Overly high tech bass equipment can be a waste of money. Mids and tweets should be good quality and driven with clean power. Subs operate at a frequency that doesn't require a super clean power signal nor competition quality drivers.
Are you getting plenty of punch into the front cabin?
Did you remove the original sub?

 

quite right you are;
for me there was no original sub, just the whole and rubber plug I suppose it is that resides where the harmon kardon unit would usually sit, but I did get rid of the premium sub's 'placeholder' to allow for a tad bit more sound transfer.

and actually, yes, I do get a very decent punch in the cockpit, I was surprised after I finished the entire install that it sounded so good :]

I was constantly thinking to myself, "that fuel tank isn't as thick as everyone says it is"

 

Two 8" MMats Subs, pulled the Harmon Kardon 6x9 woofer out, left the hole as a port and with around 50 watts per channel I am getting PLENTY of bass into the cabin. :-)

 

Ok guys, sorry to bring this back but I will be ordering the Basslink this week and really need to find or add in some speakers wires and need a decent amount of help with this. If anyone has added a basslink system to their car without previously having premium sound a write-up would be very helpful. If not, I am sure there are some audiophiles out there that would be a great deal of assistance to me .

The main question is how to add speaker wires since I snopped around in there and couldn't find any free ones myself...

 

I have the premium system in my car. I will try to post some pics of the wiring for you in a few days

 

think a couple of 12's would do the job?
________
******* tubes

 

I have a pair of 8's and they sound awesome.

 

Please do....That would be greatly appreciated as I am a complete NUB when it comes to this kind of stuff!

@Fenja the only reasons I'm getting an all in one enclosure is because if I were to get dual 12's for example I would need a new headunit external amp etc. etc. correct?