This is one serious amp. Don't know I can swing that much, but it looks compelling!

 

I can help you with that, I have both the male and female connectors and terminals to match the factory wiring, and speakers. https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/p...150-xk-192057/

I also have the male connector which goes into the amp, and a matching female of that connector too.

 

Yes you need this BT receiver, its one of the reliable ones. P.s. it has many uses in other home electronics. I would buy the BT receiver separate as I have seen mixed reviews on the amps with 5.0 built in.
The amp you should try is the Texas Instruments TPA3255 chip. Very good clean sounding.
TPA3255 315W Stereo / 600W Mono Ultra-HD, Analog-In Class-D Amplifier | TI.com

Here is an assembled one in a configuration that will work with your sub in the car.
https://www.yuan-jing.com/tpa3255-cl...ning-bluetooth
Check out the dac specs on that $100 amp!
You could use its Bluetooth, but its only 4.2 which as you know is not very good. (but hey, all the super expensive big brads are still using 4.2)
You will also need a 48v power source and sound quality will depend on it.
some more info here: TPA3255 - 325W 2 x stereo 600W Mono class-D amplifier - #360customs

 

Q&C - Thanks for the links and providing some "thinking outside of the box" ideas for great sounding sources and amps. I really love quasi-DIY solutions! Do we know what phones or media players operate using Bluetooth 5.0? I've got an Iphone, and I didn't notice explicit support for Apple's quirky AAC Bluetooth transmission in the otherwise excellent Bluetooth receiver you linked to. The great thing about this is that you could run one high quality input and leave the rest of the OEM system intact which would be great when it came time for resale. All you need is an Aux input with the right amp and you're set!

You mentioned using a switch to separate the two systems. How would that work?

 

Get your arms around this.
My old LG V30 has BT5.0, Quad 32 bit ESS Sabre DAC and MQA and DSP.
So it streams Hi-rez from Tidal!
Autopause playback, including pausing XM Satellite radio when a call comes in. When you think about it from a actual lifestyle perspective you cant have a better "headunit"

Switch.
Get several pigtails from Cambo and make a ganged toggle switch.

 

Good to know!

First I need to get my car back from the mechanic

 

Since we were talking better audio and phones... I used my Iphone for the first several weeks in my XE. It was ok, but seemed overly bright. The last week or two I put in an old Ipod Classic, and to me it sounds much more neutral and pleasing. There shouldn't be a difference as these are the same files from my computer and I'm using the USB in. Maybe the Iphone is applying additional DSP to the signal before sending it out? Not sure. If Q&C keeps up, he's going to eventually talk me into getting an LG V30!

 

The car is applying DSP and doing D-A conversion.
Which is why you need to go analog in. USB no bueno, esp. on Apple.
BTW the overly bright one might be the honest one.

Even on the analog in, headunit will still apply DSP, however most music players have dsp that will help you negate that.
Another note on USB, especially the lowend kind on the car, the sampling rate is limited to 44.

 

Aren't we losing by having double Digital to Analog conversions by going into the 3.5mm plug? You have the Digital conversion to Analog coming out of the player or phone, then the 3.5 plug takes the Analog and reconverts it to Digital in the headunit, then the internal substandard dac turns it analog again and applies a heaping dose of DSP at the end.

That's what is cool about some of the solutions you've offered to bypass the internal dac entirely. I am still experimenting. I actually like the sound I'm getting with the old Ipod Classic, but I am going to also do more experiments with one of my external portable dacs that have the Sabre 9018 chip in them and see if that can overcome the hit the signal takes in.

 

No. Just the opposite. In fact you are completely turned around. Thus a rudimentary example.

Imagine your car has an 8track and bad amplifier. And you feed it the highest quality content from a portable reel to reel playing master tapes.

You see the problem is not that the old car has a crappy amplifier, its the combination of many crappy things.

So 2 things are happening, you are eliminating the most egregious offenders and massively overcompensating for the losses that will occur later.

There is more; when you use a powerful computer like the octacore in LGV30, you get serious DSP. And in the DSP you can further compensate (or inoculate) for losses down the road.
For instance if the bass is too low and the highs are tinny, you can shape that in the phone, and you will discover using the way superior dac in the phone, you dont have the tinny problem anymore.

Yes DSD file through a good DAC is as close to master tapes as I have heard.
The bottomend is naturally way better (just like tapes) and the highs are inherently more natural.

 

I gotta hand it to you guys for your work here in looking for the audio nirvana. My only complaint with the audio system is it's lack of reception . I assume it's the antenna system as my other vehicles have greater range. Then again I mostly listen to AM station and occasionally the CD's. With the top down and the quad's open the radio is just some more background. With the top up it sounds great to me but then again my earlier years playing in a few garage bands had taken it's toll. So keep up the good posts here so others may enjoy. Oh my sound level is at about 3 or 4 and I need to turn the bass off otherwise it hurts my hearing.

 

Well, found out Apple blacklisted my device that allows me to use my dac with the iphone to get hi res audio. Rather than sink even more money into it, I picked up an LG V30 off of ebay to use as a DAP. Should be much easier to work with and I can use the wifi hotspot from iphone which unfortunately, I cannot dump right now.

 

hahahahahahaaaaaa....... cRapple strikes again!

I mean; Aw, sad. That sucks.

 

What is the device, and how do you know it was 'blacklisted'?

 

The device is a USB to Camera adaptor that has been used extensively to allow DACS and other USB devices to connect with iphone. How do I know it was blacklisted? Apple has blacklisted in the past devices that are not either made by Apple or carry the MFI stamp. The item worked with my dac before the last update. I spent 6 hours going over each piece of the puzzle and all the individual pieces of the puzzle work on their own. I followed several tutorials for getting the iphone to work with the adapter all to no avail.

 

This Jag may finally push me to go Android.

 

Any idea where this x-over point is for the sub? 100hz or so? Also, does the factory DSP have a subsonic filter? I'm hoping the sub channel put out a decent range, 20-200hz or so.

 

Came across major information about the NLI Head Units that use InControl Touch (not Pro). I finally had time to tap the wires and the head unit is sending an analogue signal to the factory amp! I was discussing audio with Cambo and he pointed out that the wiring diagram shows wires addressed for the speakers going out and hooking up in the amp. I finally got to test today. I was hoping it would be a line level out. It's not. It is however, a speaker level out without any DSP added. Unfortunately, the amp controls the volume, fading, tone etc. However, if you wanted to get beyond the factory DSP and get a signal closer to your inputs it's there.

I'm trying to route my new amp to the Head Unit Outs rather than coming off of the amp. I'm not sure how to keep Nav and Hands Free functionality. I'll probably just have to run that into my amp as well. I'm open to ideas and suggestions.

 

Damn.
Can't believe I'm saying this, but... this tops "which oil should I use" as the most intense Deep-Dive thread on this forum.

As Denzel said in Philadelphia... talk to me like I'm a five-year-old. Like you, I'm not wild about our sound system. I'd like it to be better, but I can't go deep on this.

So: is there a somewhat straightforward thing I can do? (And please no "clearly you didn't read POST 91"... because, yep, I didn't. Or maybe I did. I lost track after about an hour.) Q&C's "tape over the tweeters, then adjust accordingly", while a little McGyver, was the most straightforward. Might try it.

Are there any other equally straightforward options, along the lines of "buy X product and install it this way?" That's all l I'm looking for.

Having said that, clearly a lot of thought has gone into this, and I know it's not a simple issue. (My father was always fond of saying that our great failing is that we seek simple solutions to complex problems. I think of that a lot.)


Thanks as always...

 

Good question, pk 4414. I wish I had an easy answer. I spent 12 hours in a crazed "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!" yesterday following the wiring chart one step at a time and now the car's not finished so we can't take the Jag to go on vacation. I know exactly what I have left to do, I just (vastly) underestimated the time I would need to do it by myself.

Part of the reason it's so complex is the active crossovers in the system. There are so many speakers which means so many wires and it adds to that complexity. My car is a 2017 XE, so my experience is different from what's available for the XKR. Q&C and Cambo have the most solid advice on this. I won't know till I'm done how successful I've been.

Ultimately, the non-removability of the headunit and factory amp is the biggest obstacle, IMO. So much can improve if you are able to drop in an aftermarket stereo and amp. You can add an aftermarket DSP which cleans up the factory sound and then sends it out to either an amp or the speakers if it is a powered unit, but the common solution of coming in after the factory amp leaves you with double amplification which is why I was trying to source a signal before the factory amp and the DSP that's added in it.

Q&C's idea of starting with a good incoming source makes sense and is non-invasive. I picked up an LG V30 cellphone with the extremely high quality DAC inside. Try a feed from that. You want to avoid GI/GO (garbage in/garbage out). If only I lived in Australia I could pay Cambo any amount of money he wanted and he could work his magic!