Well the time has come to sort out the sound system in my car, what we have is the original Becker 1460 head unit with receiver / amp in the trunk, which the PO has told me was working until he pulled the head unit a year back to replace the illumination in the front panel - he never got around to putting it back.
I did quickly plug it up and after entering the code it came on, the antenna did not raise so couldn't tune any stations but the PO was kind enough to leave an old ZZ-top Eliminator cassette in the centre console, the system including the centre fader all worked and it actually didn't sound too bad all things considered! It is heartwarming to note gents, that over 20 years later, every girl is still crazy about a sharp dressed man.
Anyway I forgot about it for a week whilst I pondered the antenna issue and when I went to turn it on again I kept getting an error 2 code - figured that the wiring in the trunk may have been disturbed by the paint shop guys, had my bench tech at the office strip the amp and head unit and clean it all up, all he found was one dry joint that would not have caused any noticeable issues anyway, so I still think it is the DIN plug at the trunk end causing the error 2 (the amp is getting power).
What I have read on this and other forums is that this set up is a right PIA to upgrade and basically all the wiring has to be replaced. I like that it is all original, and wish to keep the head unit as is, I planned on just replacing the drivers with Rainbows and be done with it.
However.... on the image attached the connector labeled #6 on the amp is supposedly a line out, which in theory means that if I were to tap into that, I could run a modern, more powerful amp, rainbows, and just run fresh speaker cables to the front and rears leaving all of the existing hardware and cabling in place - I would lose the ability to fade front to rear but could just do a set and forget with the input attenuation on the new amp at the level I am happy with.
On the same diagram, #9 is marked as the antenna control output, now there is an identical connector on both the head unit and the amp - my question is where does the antenna control normally patch on these things, because neither of them had anything plugged into it, so maybe there is another cable lurking deeper in the dash or trunk that I haven't noticed yet???
Any thoughts?
Mike
I did quickly plug it up and after entering the code it came on, the antenna did not raise so couldn't tune any stations but the PO was kind enough to leave an old ZZ-top Eliminator cassette in the centre console, the system including the centre fader all worked and it actually didn't sound too bad all things considered! It is heartwarming to note gents, that over 20 years later, every girl is still crazy about a sharp dressed man.
Anyway I forgot about it for a week whilst I pondered the antenna issue and when I went to turn it on again I kept getting an error 2 code - figured that the wiring in the trunk may have been disturbed by the paint shop guys, had my bench tech at the office strip the amp and head unit and clean it all up, all he found was one dry joint that would not have caused any noticeable issues anyway, so I still think it is the DIN plug at the trunk end causing the error 2 (the amp is getting power).
What I have read on this and other forums is that this set up is a right PIA to upgrade and basically all the wiring has to be replaced. I like that it is all original, and wish to keep the head unit as is, I planned on just replacing the drivers with Rainbows and be done with it.
However.... on the image attached the connector labeled #6 on the amp is supposedly a line out, which in theory means that if I were to tap into that, I could run a modern, more powerful amp, rainbows, and just run fresh speaker cables to the front and rears leaving all of the existing hardware and cabling in place - I would lose the ability to fade front to rear but could just do a set and forget with the input attenuation on the new amp at the level I am happy with.
On the same diagram, #9 is marked as the antenna control output, now there is an identical connector on both the head unit and the amp - my question is where does the antenna control normally patch on these things, because neither of them had anything plugged into it, so maybe there is another cable lurking deeper in the dash or trunk that I haven't noticed yet???
Any thoughts?
Mike
