B&O Stereo partially upgraded with PAC Amp Pro and Optim8 System amp

[Aaron F]

So, I've been dragging my feet with upgrading the system in my 23 Ecoboost, knowing I ordered a 24 Hybrid that may take 18mo to come and that I may not end up taking delivery of anyhow. I've been researching options a ton, knowing I was going to have to go the PAC route if I wanted anything more than a powered sub. I ended up meeting an alpine rep at a local shop that introduced me to their new Optim8. It's a 6x50 + 150x2 amplifier with built in auto tuning and configurable DSP via iPhone mic or alpine mic setup. I was leaning towards a DSP, but it was also one of the things slowing me down on taking the plunge with the extra cost of the PAC, DSP, extra amp, and the Audison powered sub I pulled out of my last vehicle. Anyhow, they offered 20% off the regular price on their demo day, so I bought it. I had enough amazon points to order the PAC Amp Pro directly, so I ordered that as well. It took a bit of time to set up an install date, and I wasn't 100% on speaker selection yet. I was waiting on R2 Pro components to come in and be set up on a new soundboard. In the meantime, I ordered Morel Maximo 4" to replace the rear speakers. I didn't want to spend a ton, but I didn't want to leave the factory crap in there either. They weren't supposed to fit, per crutchfield, but the installer got them in.

On to the install.... apparently I'm one of the first to have this installed at the shop. Also, I wanted the 2x150watt "subwoofer" channels to run to the front door speakers. I was assured this was completely doable with assigning channels in the Optim8 software. Needless to say, the install and configuration has been a bit of a journey with a lot of time spent at the install shop. The first go round, the door speakers werent getting the power they were supposed to. It took a call in to tech support and some changing of the inputs/wiring to get it to do what we wanted in conjunction with the PAC module. Then there was the center channel. It just didn't sound good. Alpine (as well as crutchfield) recommended not utilizing it, as it would get a mono signal and screw with the front soundstage. After disabling it, I agree. So, I have 2 non-used channels on the processor. I am able to utilize the output on one of those channels and designate is as the actual subwoofer channel and run it to the Audison 10" powered sub. It just barely fits in the backseat footwell behind the passenger seat. I figured I would start with this since I already had it and see if there is any need to spend more money on custom boxes and a separate amp for that purpose.

We got a basic tune set for it, and it sounds pretty good for still running stock front door speakers and tweeters. I am still at a loss which way I want to go there. Doing the listening comparison on Crutchfield, I like the Alpine R2 Pros, Hertz Cento Pros, and some Focal Flax which show having too deep a magnet to fit. I was initially liking the Morel Maximo Ultra sound, but they are a bit harsher than the Hertz or R2 Pros. The Tempo Ultra were another consideration, but they sound a bit subdued in the listening comparison. I'm going to listen to it as is for about a week and make some tweaks before deciding on front components.

The one downside to having the lariat lux with the sliding window is the lack of room for an amp/rack. Everything is pretty crammed in, even after taking out the 6x9 "sub". I went with 0ga wiring to future-proof myself in case I end up adding a 1000w amp and sub down the road. In hindsight, I've also found that the Pac module has a $50 toslink adapter you can add to it, which would have gotten rid of all those red RCA cables and been able to run a single digital coax cable off a converter to the Alpine Optim8.

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[Aaron F]

It's been forever, but I'm back with an update, and the Optim8 will be removed from my car. When it was first installed, I wasn't getting the power to the front doors from the 150w channels that I thought I should be. This was evidenced in the fact that if I faded from front to rear, the 4" morel coaxes that are 4db less sensitive were actually louder than the front speakers. The original install shop spent over 2 hours going through settings, sure it was just something we missed in setup. They ended up calling Alpine and telling me I would need to come back to have some wiring changed. I assumed this was just going to be to swap some RCAs or trick the system somehow. This appointment took another 2.5 hours and complete retuning. It ended up sounding much better in the front stage, but shame on me for not looking closely at what they did and hooking up my laptop before I left.

Here's where the drama starts. When I did go to look at the tune on my laptop and make some sub adjustments weeks down the road, I saw something odd. There was no longer speaker outputs listed on channels 7-8, and my front door speakers were showing as outputs 5-6. I thought this was odd, so I looked at the amp more closely (which was a wiring mess in itself), and there were no speaker wires connected to channels 7-8. Now I knew why the shop avoided giving me a straight answer when I asked them what alpine advised to do to fix the issue. So, I called Alpine tech service and had a tech walk me through the setup that I wanted, who also said that I could definitely use channels 7-8 to run the 6.5 door components. I later went to a different shop to have the Hertz Cento Pros installed and the wiring corrected and re-tuned with the components installed and the mids getting 150 watts. When I arrived to the shop and connected the computer to go through the tune after the speakers were installed and the wiring was fixed, we had the same issue with low output from the front door speakers. Now, this shop is also an authorized alpine dealer and had called their rep to make sure this was possible with the Optim8 as well. After going through all the settings again and them making a few calls, they hooked a multimeter up and found that I was only getting around 9 watts out of those channels. They called someone higher up at Alpine in engineering to get to the bottom of it. They admitted that they were having installers only run subs on channels 7-8 and not advising to run other speakers because "the power wouldn't scale the same." I have no idea what that means or how it would change with the same impedence speakers, but it is evident in the lack of power.

At this point, I called the first shop and told them that I wanted to return the unit for not working as described, and for lying about it when they disconnected channels 7-8 in my 2nd visit to "fix" the issue. I never would have purchased it had they not sold me on it being able to run my mids on the 150 watt channels and get the rated power (or at least close) out of them. They refused and we ended up in a credit card dispute, which they lost. I will be replacing the unit with an Audison F8.9 as soon as I can get an appointment to do so.

As far as technology goes, the Optim8 is very impressive for the price. As far as sound and clean high volume goes, I was obviously expecting a huge improvement with the Hertz components and Morel coaxs hooked up to this processor, boasting 500 watts of power between them. I was let down. The factory B&O would allow me to play up to volume 26-27 cleanly. The Alpine amp lets me play up to the same 26-27 with their master volume set at 30 (out of 35). The soundstage is better if you get your time delays right, but it isn't the dramatic leap in sound quality that I though spending $2000+ would achieve. I would honestly be curious to hear the B&O amp hooked back up to the same speakers with their factory processing. I'm already down the rabbit hole, but for anyone considering upgrading, I would upgrade your speakers and sound deadening first, and just add a real powered sub before spending thousands of dollars.

 

[colinl]

I never saw your thread before, but I'm really surprised no one else commented either.

the sub channels are probably not made to be amplified full range. did anyone at Alpine mention that? that's very normal for a class D subwoofer amp and it specifically calls channels 7 and 8 sub connections. but the manual does say all channels 20hz to 40khz, hmm.

the amp you're going to will offer 85w to the 6.5 mid instead of the 50w the Alpine. this could matter for some components, but generally they are rated for the 2-3 piece set, so honestly I would think that many would sound fine with 'only' 50wrms to the midrange.

probably the biggest surprise is that they didn't use toslink. that's a huge mistake and it's probably why your center and rear were acting strangely. make sure to use it for the next amp!

 

[Lane]

Sorry to hear of all this trouble. Wow, that sounds like it was an ordeal.

I'm sure there was a reason you're running the PAC, and that your audio shop advised on different options for installing everything... but I guess I'm not seeing it from reading your posts above. Was it to get an RCA-level signal for your powered sub since the center had been running off the Alpine (until it wasn't)? Or was it required because of something crazy with the B&O system I'm just not aware of?

I can't recall if it was from watching the Alpine video on YouTube or from some other source, but I'd also thought the amp would allow ch 7/8 to be used for non-sub speakers.

I installed an Optim8 on a XL (non-B&O) on components, rear, and a sub and I didn't have any surprises. It has such flexibility, I'm a bit surprised that the audio shop & Alpine together couldn't get everything working the way you wanted it. But regardless, it all doesn't matter now as you go another route and probably want to forget about all this trouble. Hopefully there will be less surprises and better luck when your effort resumes.

 

[Aaron F]

I never saw your thread before, but I'm really surprised no one else commented either.

the sub channels are probably not made to be amplified full range. did anyone at Alpine mention that? that's very normal for a class D subwoofer amp and it specifically calls channels 7 and 8 sub connections. but the manual does say all channels 20hz to 40khz, hmm.

the amp you're going to will offer 85w to the 6.5 mid instead of the 50w the Alpine. this could matter for some components, but generally they are rated for the 2-3 piece set, so honestly I would think that many would sound fine with 'only' 50wrms to the midrange.

probably the biggest surprise is that they didn't use toslink. that's a huge mistake and it's probably why your center and rear were acting strangely. make sure to use it for the next amp!

Yeah, I was told by the rep and assured several times that I could assign any of the channels to any speakers, including the 150 watt "sub" channels. In fact, they told me one of their demo trucks was set up this way. The PAC has toslink, but the Optim8 does not. It had the coax connection instead. The Audison will have the toslink.

Also, with the Alpine, you can power speakers on any pair of channels, and also use the RCA pre outs for those channels to go to a separate amplifier (like my sub amp), but that pre-out will have the same crossover and EQ settings applied as the speakers you are running on that channel. So, I was only running speakers on 6 of the 8 available channels on the Optim8. With the Audison, I plan on bridging 4 of the channels and running them to the 2 mids in the doors. Then, it has it's own pre-out dedicated for a subwoofer. So I'll have:
Tweeters - 85w each
Mids - 260w each
Rear Coax - 85w each

 

[Aaron F]

Sorry to hear of all this trouble. Wow, that sounds like it was an ordeal.

I'm sure there was a reason you're running the PAC, and that your audio shop advised on different options for installing everything... but I guess I'm not seeing it from reading your posts above. Was it to get an RCA-level signal for your powered sub since the center had been running off the Alpine (until it wasn't)? Or was it required because of something crazy with the B&O system I'm just not aware of?

I can't recall if it was from watching the Alpine video on YouTube or from some other source, but I'd also thought the amp would allow ch 7/8 to be used for non-sub speakers.

I installed an Optim8 on a XL (non-B&O) on components, rear, and a sub and I didn't have any surprises. It has such flexibility, I'm a bit surprised that the audio shop & Alpine together couldn't get everything working the way you wanted it. But regardless, it all doesn't matter now as you go another route and probably want to forget about all this trouble. Hopefully there will be less surprises and better luck when your effort resumes.

Thanks Lane. It has definitely been an ordeal, and an expensive one. With the B&O system, the PAC module lets you tap into the existing wiring harnesses that were plugged into the B&O amp with no cutting of factory wires. It gives RCA pre-outs instead of hi-level, and gives the ability to control the volume of the door chimes as well (some systems without it will increase the door chime to your amp level and get super loud). It also completely flattens the EQ and gives you full signal without any of the cutoffs people have to override with Forscan. My anti-eq in the Optim8 software was completely flat coming out of the PAC and required no adjustment.

Unfortunately, between the original install and the "fix," the shop also disconnected my rear channel speakers from the factory harness. As I plugged the B&O amp back in, and have no rear speakers.

 

[colinl]

As I plugged the B&O amp back in, and have no rear speakers.

The rear and center are on the sync3 unit, not the b&o amp. That's what I meant before. In theory if you take A2B digital out of the sync3 unit you should get 8 channels.

 

[Aaron F]

The rear and center are on the sync3 unit, not the b&o amp. That's what I meant before. In theory if you take A2B digital out of the sync3 unit you should get 8 channels.

Good point. I didn't even think about rears not being on B&O power. Hmm. I wonder where they disconnected them from....

 

[colinl]

Good point. I didn't even think about rears not being on B&O power. Hmm. I wonder where they disconnected them from....

Probably ran new speaker wire from the amp to them.

 

[colinl]

I never saw your thread before, but I'm really surprised no one else commented either.

the sub channels are probably not made to be amplified full range. did anyone at Alpine mention that? that's very normal for a class D subwoofer amp and it specifically calls channels 7 and 8 sub connections. but the manual does say all channels 20hz to 40khz, hmm.

the amp you're going to will offer 85w to the 6.5 mid instead of the 50w the Alpine. this could matter for some components, but generally they are rated for the 2-3 piece set, so honestly I would think that many would sound fine with 'only' 50wrms to the midrange.

probably the biggest surprise is that they didn't use toslink. that's a huge mistake and it's probably why your center and rear were acting strangely. make sure to use it for the next amp!

now I do realize why your shop used rca and I'm not sure if it was a good or bad choice.

toslink is 2 channel pcm only. it means you'll be throwing out everything the sync3 unit does and you'll be completely dependent on the DSP to construct the channels. whereas if you take rca out you are getting some kind of amalgamation of the sync3 processing and the DSP downstream working with multiple inputs instead of just one pair (toslink pcm).

I'm sure some people with more experience than me have tried both and know the pros and cons, but at this point I would just retract my assumption that toslink will definitely be better.

I probably wouldn't use the center, either. it's about impossible to voice match to the rest of the front stage and you shouldn't need it.

 

[Blinky]

now I do realize why your shop used rca and I'm not sure if it was a good or bad choice.

toslink is 2 channel pcm only. it means you'll be throwing out everything the sync3 unit does and you'll be completely dependent on the DSP to construct the channels. whereas if you take rca out you are getting some kind of amalgamation of the sync3 processing and the DSP downstream working with multiple inputs instead of just one pair (toslink pcm).

I'm sure some people with more experience than me have tried both and know the pros and cons, but at this point I would just retract my assumption that toslink will definitely be better.

I probably wouldn't use the center, either. it's about impossible to voice match to the rest of the front stage and you shouldn't need it.

Late to the party on this one but since Aaron is going DSP anyways I feel that there's little reason, besides more complex tuning, to not use toslink.
A cleaner signal from 1 easy to route cable and no coiled python of RCAs would be worth it, especially on a Lariat with all that stuff back there.

 

[colinl]

Late to the party on this one but since Aaron is going DSP anyways I feel that there's little reason, besides more complex tuning, to not use toslink.
A cleaner signal from 1 easy to route cable and no coiled python of RCAs would be worth it, especially on a Lariat with all that stuff back there.

I agree. I don't think @Aaron F ever commented on his system after the Audison amp was installed. I hope it's an improvement for him.

 

[Aaron F]

It sounds much better with the Audison f8.9 installed and tuned properly. I finally have good power to the 6.5 mids without a huge eq boost (as with the Optim8). The Audison installer opted not to use toslink with it because they said there were less options to adjust levels than with RCA outputs in the Audison setup and software.

 

[Blinky]

It sounds much better with the Audison f8.9 installed and tuned properly. I finally have good power to the 6.5 mids without a huge eq boost (as with the Optim8). The Audison installer opted not to use toslink with it because they said there were less options to adjust levels than with RCA outputs in the Audison setup and software.

I'm glad to hear you got it sorted and working. I'm muddling my way through my install in the insane heat we're having here and I finally got to hear it mostly complete last weekend, 50 watts to each tweeter and 150 to each mid. It gets down!

 

[Aaron F]

I'm glad to hear you got it sorted and working. I'm muddling my way through my install in the insane heat we're having here and I finally got to hear it mostly complete last weekend, 50 watts to each tweeter and 150 to each mid. It gets down!

That's what I was hoping for from the Optim8, but the mids on ch 7-8 were getting no power for me. I don't know if I truly had a faulty unit or what, but my 4in Morel coax in back on 50w were louder than the Hertz cento pro mids on "150 Watts" even though the centos are also 3db more efficient and crossed lower.

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