I wonder what that means for the complete system

updated working video link:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6hZHQRcY38"]Reference Upgrade Starter Kit: BRZ / FRS - - YouTube[/ame]

I have an email into Daniel about the 400CF and mid speakers. He usually responds around 9 EST

Got my retuned amp and umbilical cable. Anyone know how to install the umbilical cable...?

Not sure how to do the install. Do you mind taking pics?

Sent from a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

I installed it. and OMG it's f*king amazing. Everyone who has the regular kit MUST upgrade because it's so boss.

Procedure (the way I did it at least, couldn't wait for them to release an install video). Sorry I already put everything back together so can't take any pictures. I REALLY recommend having someone help you as feeding wires through the center dash can be difficult. Or use a wire hangar type of thing.

1) take out your head unit, left/right tweeter covers, and the trunk pull button kick panel.
2) feed the umbilical cable through the cavity of your head unit, send the RIGHT cable (believe it is red and black) to the passenger (right side) tweeter/old 3.5" speaker slot. do NOT go under and glove compartment, go through behind the glove compartment so it is the most direct way because you will want as much of the cable on the left side as possible. plug in the (yellow black 2 pin female) cable to the old 3.5" male connector.
3) feed the rest of the cable to the left side of the car, send the LEFT (blue/yellow) part and connect it to the left old 3.5" male connector.
4) feed the main wire to the back of the car toward the factory amp going behind where the kickpanel was so it is hidden. tuck in the wire where your origianl OEM audio+ harness is so it is hidden from view. Take out the left rear seat so you can get the wire under (you do not need to take out the side panel).
5) Disconnect where the old OEM audio+ harness connects (10pin) and plug in the umbilical cable (10pin) to that, the old OEM audio+ harness bypass (10pin female) will not be plugged in to anything.
For this part, I had the 10pin->2pin portion of the umbilical cable going from the factory amp area (where it connects to the factor amp wire) to the area under side panel where it connects to the rest of the wire. I fed the wire under the panel by going under the seat (not how to word it but there is only one way to connect it so it's hard to mess up, sorry if it sounds confusing).
6) zip tie and clean everything up, put everything back in and reconnect your headunit.
7) Play your favorite song with bass and start crying from joy :)

recommendation: Follow Me - Muse

P.S.: I don't think it is necessary to put back in your old 3.5" speakers as they will not be connected to anything anyways (the connections are bypassed by the umbilical cord). Also saves a pound or so.

EDIT: I completely forgot about installing the 6.5" on the door lol. Just look in the Audio Directory in this subforum and go to Sealing and Deadening the Doors. This will teach you how to install the 6.5s in the door.

mid speakers are the ones on the dash ? 2 of them + the 2 door subs ?
is that what you mean ?

I think by mid speakers is the two front (by the tweeters) 3.5" speaker connections need to be connected to the umbilical cable, which is then connected back to the amplifier (amplifier harness connection should be where the factor amp is)

@l0aded Your cat looks a cool dude.

Thanks man

Side note, if you order the whole reference system (not just the upgrade) do you still need to send in your 3.5" speakers? I feel slightly jipped they cut off the connection bracket from my old 3.5" speakers to make the my umbilical cord rather than just manufactured the connectors themselves.

Whoa whoa whoa. I wasn't speaking of sound stage. I was speaking of the lower frequencies (which is mostly taken care of by the door speakers) sounding absent from the audio while driving. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with road noise cancelling it out. In my Altima it seemed like even while driving the lower frequencies were still present.

Reference setup? OEM Audio is a reference setup? Because I'm sure the source (deck) is time-aligning all the sound and all the dips and peaks in the frequency spectrum have been EQ'd out to obtain a smoother response curve. I'm sure they spent hours tuning the system and changing speaker placement countless of times to provide an optimum listening experience to us with this "reference system". Just because someone slapped the word "reference" on their product doesn't mean that's what it actually is.


Don't assume I don't "know the basics", ok?

If you know the basics, have you tried flipping the phase of one of the mid-bass drivers?

Just finished the install.
I started at the back end and connected the umbilical cable to the oem audio plus harness to the amplifier. Routed it through the left side of the car and zip tied it to the oap harness to keep things tidy. Routing the cable up to the left and right mid woofers was a pain, but with a few zipties, was able to pull it through. Sounds good, but it's been a while since I last heard it, my A/B comparison isn't too accurate. I felt the mids were overwhelming the treble and bass. With the mid located behind only, it blends better.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

It arrived!
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/c...ps30cbac11.jpg

What's the turnaround time for getting the programmed amp back? I sent mine out two weeks ago and sent them an email asking about it and haven't seen or heard anything yet

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

Yeah for real. Samesies

I got it back in one day o_o. I live local to them and sent it in pretty early though.

I followed all of your advice, thanks for the directions.
The subwoofer doesn't work no matter what I try.
I have horrible sound if I wire it up the way yours are done with the reference wire from the former dash speakers hooked up to factory ten pin near the original amplifier.
If I hook it up as if it wasn't the reference system with the dash speaker wire disconnect and the regular 400 system 10 pin to the factory 10 pin I get decent sound in the front.
Either way the sub doesn't work.
I disconnected everything and reconnected everything with the fuses pulled, no luck.

No matter what I touch on this car, it never works right the first time.

The directions that came with it are incomplete, doesn't tell where to plug in anything. The DSP is mounted upside down so the white wire connector is on the bottom and the gray is on top, directions are the opposite .

PM me if you have questions. I received the reference package last week and installed it on Friday. Everything works on mine. You are right, the instructions aren't complete at this point. I called them to ask and make sure what I was doing was right. I'll write up a review and add to my build thread later.

You can PM me questions as well. I installed my Reference system over the weekend with zero issues.

Bad DSP/Amplifier, will need new components, then the signal will activate from the umbilical cable and the subwoofer amplifier will activate. Preliminary diagnosis from OEM Plus Audio will determine this to be a real possibility / primary problem.
It is also possible that the flash update for the dsp never really worked necessitating a new flashed dsp. The key issue is the failure of the dsp to activate when connected to the umbilical

So ummmm yeah, my updated DSP and umbilical cable came back with zero instructions...

Im sure I can figure it out...but seriously?

I'm sending you the instructions

Email sent. Thanks.

And you have the instructions :thumbup:

For those with a BRZ doing the upgrade, I was tweaking the EQ as the upgrade to the DSP still had a little too much in the mid range that brought back some fatigue to listening certain music.

I went through an old thread and amazingly the EQ setup for the stock BRZ setup back then does amazing things to the sound balance after my OEM Audio Reference upgrade.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...response+curve

I tweaked a little less punchy bass but the mid range imbalance has been smoothed out alot at high volume and low across multiple genres of music I tested from House to Disco to jazz and pop/rock.

I figured it out. Thanks!

Its been such a long time, I dont really remember what it sounded like before, but it sounds pretty good.

While I opened up the door to put the new speakers in, I took out the door control assemblies and wrapped the housing in foam before putting them back in. No more rattle from the door controls! I suggest anyone who needs to take the door card off do this while youre in there. Now to fix the rattle from the TBL...

Can anyone confirm the model/part number of the tweeters swapped in? I'm looking to buy these to add to my custom setup.. Thx!

I finally got my amp back and I'm instruction-less as well. Can someone send me some instructions as well? Thanks in advance.

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I didn't do anything to mine and the rattles are GONE. Funny how removing low bass from the doors quiets everything down :word:

You can remove the resonance that causes some rattling by adding damping material to the door. I added second skin speaker tweakers in the door panel behind the woofers and can dial the bass up a little before it starts booming.

http://store.secondskinaudio.com/speaker-tweaker-kit/

Haven't found a need to add any more damping material.

You know, I noticed that there's a frequency range thats not quite as present anymore - Im guessing thats why it sounds a lot cleaner, or at least in large part.

Can someone out there give a real quick explanation of the upgrade in layman's terms? What they did to the DSP? What the new cable is for? All i know is that it sounds different, theres a range that I dont quite hear anymore, and two speakers arent being used anymore.

It works!
New DSP Amp cured everything!

So thankful the car is well insulated.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...4&postcount=53

The sound is excellent, I sat with my daughter and listened to Imogen Heap,"Hide & Seek", shocked at the detail and the sound stage.

The 400+ system feeds Front Left channel to the dash speakers (mid+tweet) and the same channel feeds the door. So 2 speakers (seperated by distance) are producing twice the mids.

The 400CF first replaces the door speakers, not a bad speaker but the replacements are better.

The cable uses the old mids speaker connections to feed the doors. The power for Front Left passes through the tweeter into the new cable and plugs into the disconnected factory amp (lines to the doors).

DSP - I started with a 400CF, so I have no comparison, but have experience with a few SQ builds. The sound stage is centered on the driver, I can fine tune the EQ to my liking, and I can tell the rear speakers are working. Now that the DSP is routing all the bass to the sub, my doors don't rattle, my license plate does :)

Thank you for the explanation, very helpful.

Might be a silly question but do you mean the sound stage is centered on the front? Or is it literally on the driver where the passenger seat hears the sound slightly worse?

On the driver, from the passenger it's a littlie right side heavy but still clean

So how are people liking their reference upgrade? Is it a big upgrade compared to the regular version?

Installed a couple of weeks ago. I like it alot.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...40&postcount=6