[Heli ATP]

Installed the BossCE200M amp with my new Kenwood HU. I can't believe how much better the stock sub sounds... comparable to the difference with replacing the stock tweeters for after market ones. Price runs around $30. I installed a Bazooka Bass Tube behind the seat in my first RL and the Boss 200 setup sound way better.

The Boss CE200M has 5 wires. Black, Red, Orange, White and White/Black. This is how I made the connections.
The instructions suggest running the Black and Red to the battery. I just tied them in with the Black and Red wires on my HU harness. The Orange Remote Turn On Input got hooked up to the Yellow wire of the HU harness.
The White goes to the Subwoofer + which is a Yellow/Black wire.
The White/Black goes to the Subwoofer - which is a Light Green/Red wire. I used Quick Splice Wire Connectors.
A RCA Male to Male Stereo Audio Patch Cord was connected from the Low Input on the front of the amp to the back of the HU.

Edit 2018: There is a low pop on startup of vehicle that may annoy some. It hasn't bothered me and has caused no problems with a couple of years of use.

Crossover was set to LPF and dials set to mid on the LPF and Level knobs.


Boss CE200M 200W Monoblock Chaos Epic Series Class AB Amplifier

Amp Front

Amp Rear

Sub wires on harness behind HU. Yel/Blk +, Lt Grn/Red -

Quick Splice Wire Connectors

 

[OhSix]

Installed the BossCE200M amp with my new Kenwood HU. I can't believe how much better the stock sub sounds... comparable to the difference with replacing the stock tweeters for after market ones. Price runs around $30. I installed a Bazooka Bass Tube behind the seat in my first RL and the Boss 200 setup sound way better.

The Boss CE200M has 5 wires. Black, Red, Orange, White and White/Black. This is how I made the connections.
The instructions suggest running the Black and Red to the battery. I just tied them in with the Black and Red wires on my HU harness. The Orange Remote Turn On Input got hooked up to the Yellow wire of the HU harness.
The White goes to the Subwoofer + which is a Yellow/Black wire.
The White/Black goes to the Subwoofer - which is a Light Green/Red wire. I used Quick Splice Wire Connectors.
A RCA Male to Male Stereo Audio Patch Cord was connected from the Low Input on the front of the amp to the back of the HU.
View attachment 245169
Crossover was set to LPF and dials set to mid on the LPF and Level knobs.


Boss CE200M 200W Monoblock Chaos Epic Series Class AB Amplifier

Amp Front
View attachment 245129

Amp Rear
View attachment 245137

Sub wires on harness behind HU. Yel/Blk +, Lt Grn/Red -
View attachment 245145

Quick Splice Wire Connectors
View attachment 245153

Glad the factory sub is working out for you. If your long term experience is like mine, it should work well for quite some time.

If or when the OEM driver poops the bed, forum member TWater seems to be enjoying the output of an MBQ driver he managed to fit in the OEM enclosure. Last comments on his experience here: http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/...ics/132586-stock-subwoofer-2.html#post2045809

Your BOSS amp should drive something similar nicely. Enjoy

 

[Heli ATP]

Thanks OhSix. Opinion on my wiring setup? Should I have gone direct to the battery. Would you have tied the Orange to Yellow in the HU harness. I'm second guessing myself with that as the amp is always on?

 

[OhSix]

Thanks OhSix. Opinion on my wiring setup? Should I have gone direct to the battery. Would you have tied the Orange to Yellow in the HU harness. I'm second guessing myself with that as the amp is always on?

Opinion? Me? Millions of them.

The Boss looks to be an amazingly efficient amp. A casual glance indicates 5A fast blow fuse at input. Since amplifiers are low to medium duty devices, feeding the BOSS with the 20A "Radio" power line (YEL/RED wire I believe) should be plenty good - even with powering the new head. I doubt the system will ever demand enough current to exceed circuit capacity.

The amp trigger line (orange) is fine connected to accessory - the worst that will happen is the amp will idle when the head off. Which is not a "problem" unless you have a specific use case to change that behavior.

One note - and I have no idea if this applies to your head - some or all of Pioneer heads have "amp turn on" trigger outputs, but what makes them odd (IME) is what they actually do is pass ignition/accessory power straight thru rather than control power.

I discovered this quirk accidently because: the OEM sub impedance curve can dip below 2Ω, which triggers protection in my rig. When listening @ aggressive levels with material containing hefty low frequency, the sub amp closes down it's output - making the sub disappear. "Recovery" from protection is a power cycle of the amp - but since the Pioneer trigger is really just passing ACC/IGN power, I hafta shut down the engine to reset the amp. PITA to say the least.

I mention it in case you experience something similar. The BOSS make protect itself if it doesn't like termination impedance below 2 Ω.

The "quirk" is by design - confirmed by actually reading the Pioneer user guide <cough>.

Obediently following the rules of testosterone regarding manuals and maps, my man card was cut in half.

 

[Heli ATP]

I had a PM asking about the location of the stock sub. Here is a pic of when my carpet was replaced under warranty for a leak in the front dash area. To the left of the sub some wires are visible. They go to the stock Sirius XM tuner. To add the Boss CE200M amp to power the stock sub, you don't have to access the stock sub. All the wiring can be done next to your new HU in the dash. I cant believe how good the stock sub sounds now. When I adjust the setting through my Kenwood HU the windows rattle

A pic of the front while I'm at it. Incidentally the green connector plugged in to the left has a green wire that gets 12v when the RL is put in reverse for the back up cam.

 

[RidgeDawg88]

The Boss CE200M has 5 wires. Black, Red, Orange, White and White/Black. This is how I made the connections.
The instructions suggest running the Black and Red to the battery. I just tied them in with the Black and Red wires on my HU harness. The Orange Remote Turn On Input got hooked up to the Yellow wire of the HU harness.
The White goes to the Subwoofer + which is a Yellow/Black wire.
The White/Black goes to the Subwoofer - which is a Light Green/Red wire. I used Quick Splice Wire Connectors.
A RCA Male to Male Stereo Audio Patch Cord was connected from the Low Input on the front of the amp to the back of the HU.

When you say you connected the Orange remote turn on wire to the yellow wire of the HU harness, do you mean the factory harness or the harness that came with your aftermarket HU? Or do they both have that yellow wire?

I don't suppose you have pics of that part of the wiring process do you?

Forgive the newbie questions but I'm a total novice when it comes to vehicle electronics. I usually stay stock but the RAM rental I had spoiled me with Bluetooth and now I can't (don't want) to live without it. Thus the HU update. :grin:

 

[Heli ATP]

When you unplug the Stock HU you are left with a connector. Metra produces a matching connector that has all the wires needed to connect to the new aftermarket HU.

When joining the wires between the new HU and the Metra adapter I wired in the Boss amp. The two Sub Woofer wires were tied in before another stock connector with quick splices. See pic above.
Pretty easy and instant gratification. This pic shows me soldering the wires before I introduced the amp. The black connector in the top of this pic is the new HU connector.

Honda Ridgeline 2009-2014 Double DIN Stereo Harness Radio Dash Kit - Taupe - SC2-RadioKit686

 

[RidgeDawg88]

Okay, I think I'm following you. Now about that dash kit. It say's it's "taupe" which, in my experience, can either be grey looking or tan looking. How well does it match the factory grey? Most of the kits I've seen are black but I don't want a black one. I want it to match the factory grey if possible.

 

[Heli ATP]

Go to Crutchfield.com and type in you vehicle type and you can see what Dash Kit you need for your vehicle, based on your year and options such as Nav, No Nav, Bluetooth, HFL etc. Kits come is Taupe, Grey and Black. Metra 95-7870 Dash Kit Grey is the one I got and it is a close perfect match. I'm not finished with my Kenwood HU install yet ( the beauty of having an airbag loaner, I can take my time with install), so I can't fully comment on the Metra Dash Kit fit. I have read where some have had to file a little here and there for HU's with motorised screens, where the screen flips down to allow access to DVD player and SD card slots etc. Scosche also provides a kit. I had luck with them in the past.

Car Stereo: Stereos, Radios & Receivers

https://www.amazon.com/Scosche-2006-Up-Ridgeline-Double-Istallation/dp/B0014KQBD0

 

[92se-r]

Totally hijacking your thread. Just installed my alpine mrv250 amp. Sub hits hard. My gain is like only turned up 1/3 before i feel like its distorting a bit. Bass sounds muffled though. Any thoughts?

 

[Heli ATP]

Totally hijacking your thread. Just installed my alpine mrv250 amp. Sub hits hard. My gain is like only turned up 1/3 before i feel like its distorting a bit. Bass sounds muffled though. Any thoughts?

I'm just a follow instructions kind of guy, connect this wire to that wire etc. Maybe one of the audiophiles on here may have suggestions?

 

[OhSix]

Totally hijacking your thread. Just installed my alpine mrv250 amp. Sub hits hard. My gain is like only turned up 1/3 before i feel like its distorting a bit. Bass sounds muffled though. Any thoughts?

Whats the total system? Stock sub, Alpine Amp & stock head? Low pass filter setting?

 

[92se-r]

Stock speakers. Infinity tweeters. Stock sub. Alpine amp for sub. Stock rts head unit. Maybe stock speakers are making it sound muffled

Also lpf at around 150-180hz

 

[OhSix]

Stock speakers. Infinity tweeters. Stock sub. Alpine amp for sub. Stock rts head unit. Maybe stock speakers are making it sound muffled

Also lpf at around 150-180hz

When I hear the term "muffled" I think of very little high frequency - meaning, the Infinity tweeters are playing at very low levels or not at all making the system sound dull and lifeless. Are the tweets in the stock dash location? Have you confirmed they are at least making some sound? Wherever they are, its easy enough to confirm if they are making sound or not. If there in the dash, stick a credit card between dash recess and grill, pop it up and see you can hear sound change by moving it around/pointing it towards you.

On the sub side:
the Alpine is a mono amp powering the sub. Is the input to the amp fed by the factory head sub output? If so, how? Speaker level or thru a line adaptor? Are R & L inputs wired together?

Spill the beans man. The more info provided, the better the diagnosis. If you don't know, that's cool too.

 

[92se-r]

My infinitys are in stock location and they made a night and day difference. Maybe what im hearing is just lack of mids? The bass just sounds like a dull thud. Do you have any info on when you characterized stock sub, what i should set lpf to?

On the amp i am using speaker level inputs from stock amp. I did tie L/R inputs together from this single output.

Got any recommendations on music to tune the setup?

 

[OhSix]

My infinitys are in stock location and they made a night and day difference. Maybe what im hearing is just lack of mids? The bass just sounds like a dull thud. Do you have any info on when you characterized stock sub, what i should set lpf to?

On the amp i am using speaker level inputs from stock amp. I did tie L/R inputs together from this single output.

Got any recommendations on music to tune the setup?

If nothing has changed with the Infinity tweets, I'd suggest you are acclimating to the overall system sound, and the initial WOW factor has worn off.

The OEM door speakers are all about mid. They do *best* in the 150(ish) to 3kHz range. I doubt they alone are the cause of muddy muffling your ears now hear. Try the stuff mentioned below before considering swapping them. As long as they don't complain about their age, you should be fine for a while.

The factory sub does yeomans work in the 100Hz and under range, but its output is quickly turns to jello above 120Hz or so. With the Alpine's LP filter set to ~180, I'm guessing its output is combining with the doors in a really bad spot. The muddy, muffled, tubbiness you are hearing is likely a combo of wave form coincidence and the OEM sub generally sounding oafish above 100Hz.

Recommend dropping the Alpine's LP filter to 100Hz and give it a good listen with material your are intimate with. If you have the remote level control accessible from the listening position, let your ears judge level. If no remote level control, you'll hafta play around quite a bit to find the sweet spot. If you still aren't happy, drop the filter to 80Hz and repeat with the same material you just listened to.

FYI 1: listening position bass level control compensates for the significant variability in source material. If you don't have the remote, finding one would be very helpful. Adjusting the low end is a blend of level and frequency and fine level adjust makes a huge difference in listening enjoyment.

FYI2: my OEM sub seems to like 80Hz @ 12db slope. My head has SW level adjust and I'm always futzing with it. Especially on older music.

Report back how things work out, and best of luck!

 

[92se-r]

I just put on a youtube video that tests freq range, and man, this sub goes down to 30Hz. The stock headunit has adjustments for treble, bass, subwoofer. Any recommendations for those settings?

 

[OhSix]

I just put on a youtube video that tests freq range, and man, this sub goes down to 30Hz. The stock headunit has adjustments for treble, bass, subwoofer. Any recommendations for those settings?

Like spices on food, only you know what tastes good to you. Use available adjustments like a dash of salt or paprika to flavor the sound just the way you like it.

 

[92se-r]

So the sub hits nice on lows. I think the speakers mid bass just sucks and now that my tweeters and lows are good, it makes my mids sound like ass. Did you guys have this experience? Do door speakers make that much of a difference?

 

[laserguy]

To:

92-ser


The factory door speakers, are full range, no known frequencies or filters are used, when you turn them up, they will not be able to keep up playing high or low frequencies without a selected good crossover point.

The only option to make them sound good without abuse or sounding bad at high levels would be these 2, and still a power amplifier will be needed for better sound.


1. Get an external sound processor so that can low pass and high pass, and bi amplify the tweeters and the door speakers ( this means losing the rear channels) and many hours of tuning to find the sweet spot and blend the door drivers with the sub.

2. Simply get a component set with passive crossovers, this will help but having just the factory HU without a high pass filter, it may still lack in performance without an amp.


A cheaper option, with no speaker replacement is get an amplifier that offers high an low pass combined for each channel, and hope the limited choices in frequency points it offers, will allow both tweeters and midbass to play clean and loud without distortion. This option still takes the rear channels since tweeters and midbass will have their own channel. Still an effective active filtering system, no need for new speakers but and amp is needed to cross them properly.

And then you may want better sound after that, and that is when, better speakers, sound deadening more power and a better sub will help.

The bottom line, this last option, adding a qualified amp is the chepeast and you will have to be willing to lose the rear speakers.

Good luck