I have an 01 jetta with the monsoon/premium cd/tape player. When the volume is high, it will just turn down to low by itself, so I'm deciding to replace it with an aftermarket cd deck. ( which will give me 2 cd players) 1 will be used. Is there any wiring things i should be aware of or amps I should bypass? ( I ask this because I had to do this with my 1996 325 BMW, which was quite the job!!)
Thanks
I'm not sure of it, but I firmly believe that the factory VW deck has some sort of active EQ used with the Monsn package. I replaced my headunit several months before buying my new speakers and amp (I couldn't afford to do everything at once) and despite having a comprehensive, competition quality EQ built into my deck, the Monsoon speakers never sounded right again. Keep this in mind.
How do you figure? The VW CD changer is manufactured by Pansonic and will NOT mate up with most aftermarket decks.
You're going to need a wiring harness, that's pretty much it. If you buy your deck from Crutchfield, they'll throw in the harness and installation intructions for free. Otherwise, you're going to need to figure out which harness you need and either buy it online or from a local retailer/car audio shop. You may want to re-post on the Car Audio NG to get some added input. I could locate the harness online for you, but I'm lazy. Steve Grauman
I don't want to jeopardize the monsoon sound.....that sound is awsome. I guess i could find a Factory deck and stick in in with the same brakets, wiring, etc...It would of been nice to have an mp3 player too!
Thanks for your help
My Golf's "Premium IV" sound system does the same thing... If I have something cranked up it will start to lower the volume almost immediately... It's like the car is trying to protect my hearing (though for one song, or for a certain part in a song your ears can tolerate it very loud)... For CD's it can stay at a louder volume then with the FM radio... So I'm thinking there might be a correlation to sound quality... Maybe the radio is trying to protect its own amplifier from being damaged by having to amplify a dirty signal?... Do you find the radio adjusts itself to anything else that is going on? Change in speed - open/close windows - Change of input selection (I find going to CD's from FM radio I need to turn down the volume a lot or else I'll be blasted with loudness)... The other two might be imagination... could be because this Golf is quieter then my old one so maybe the radio just isn't drowned out by road/wind noise (1999.5 vs. 1991).
Been told that's how it's designed to protect the amp & speakers.
Just checking, but when you initially replaced the head unit, did you say you kept the Monsoon speakers AND the Monsoon amplifier?
I've read some comments to the effect that the Monsoon speakers have nonstandard impedances and frequency responses -- and that the Monsoon amps were specially designed to deal with the Monsoon speakers -- and that trying to use Monsoon speakers with a non-Monsoon amp (or vice versa) was, therefore, bad news.
But if I'm understanding correctly what you said you did, the above speaker impedance issue presumably wouldn't apply to your situation.
Rich Wales snipped-for-privacy@richw.org
Replace the deck with a factory unit and buy a PhatNoise system. Steve Grauman
Yea, I replaced the factory deck with an Eclipse unit that MSRP'd for almost $600, but I kept the factory amp and speakers (Monsoon system) till' I could afford to replace it all with the expensive speakers I wanted. The Eclipse has an amazing, competition grade EQ but I could never make the system sound right after the deck swap. Steve Grauman
Amps have built in protection, it usually kicks in when there's a short in the system, but it may also happen when an amp is driven to "clip" which can happen if it's overworked - for instance if it's been forced to drive music at a constant volume beyond it's capacity. Generally speaking, the protection is designed to turn the amp off completely, but I guess it's possible that the Monsoon amp may just be designed to turn itself down rather than off. Steve Grauman
Steve Grauman replied:
I had the factory (Monsoon) head unit in my '04 Golf replaced with a Kenwood deck shortly before Christmas. I still have the Monsoon amplifier and speakers.
The shop manager, IIRC, said it would be necessary for them to install a 1K-ohm resistor in series with each of the audio output lines from the head unit, in order to deal with the nonstandard impedance of the Monsoon sound system. The fact that he had this done may explain why my current, hybrid system sounds just fine.
I've found other online references supporting the concept that the Monsoon speakers have 2-ohm (or even 1-ohm) impedance.
Rich Wales snipped-for-privacy@richw.org
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