[Gimixman]

I hate to jump in the middle of the thread but I think that this is the best place for my subwoofer replacement post. Got my EV6 in Feb 22 and quickly realized that the passive subwoofer was a disappointment. I started following this thread somewhere around page 4 and, after a few weeks of posts (maybe to page 8-9?) I had enough to start out on my own. Before I go into detail about my sub, I want to thank everyone on the forum for sharing their experiences -- it really helped planning my solution.

I wanted:
1) to be able to revert back to 100% original with no visible splices -- especially with the fragility of the OEM amp and wanting to not give any indications of something that might void any warranty.
2) as close to "bolt-on" as I could make it, so an underseat powered sub was chosen.
3) By checking the reviews of several brands, all had some complaints of apparent heat failures with some having more heat/unexplained failures than others. Since the it gets hot in SC, brand selection and getting temp assist was a concern. (I have seen 117F on the dash after parking on the driveway -- without ANY driving),

I chose an Infinity BassLink SM2 powered subwoofer mounted on a 3/4in plywood base. I ordered an OEM connector so I would not need to splice into the high-level speaker leads. I added a low-speed fan (Noctua NF-P14s redux-900, Ultra Quiet Fan, 140mm, 900 RPM) that pulls air through channels between the sub and the the plywood. I have pics below.

Notes:
a) it is probably overkill, but the amp and fan are individually fused (0.5amp fan fuse)
b) the orange stuff is Schluter underlayment that is intended to be used under a heated tile floor. I had it leftover from a bathroom remodel so I cut a piece to place under the amp. Air is pulled between the raised circles in the plastic and flows under the sub
c) in the pics, you will see 1/4in shims I added under the plywood to raise the sub a little higher. I did this at the last minute to give the fan a little more clearance from the bottom of the well. Without the fan, raising the plywood would not be needed.
d) I did splice into the 12v power outlet in the left panel rather than using a plug into the outlet. If I need to go back to OEM config, the added power cable can be easily pulled/hidden under the plastic floor. I found that the KIA wiring harness conveniently has about 10-12 inches of extra wire going to the power outlet. The extra wire is folded over and bundled up directly behind the power outlet. I was able to reach up through the access panel under the power outlet and cut the tape holding the bundle. I then pulled the power/ground wire down through the access panel to make the splices and tucked them back in place when done It made getting power to the amp easier than I expected.

What I have learned:

• the amp runs a little cooler than I expected. The fan may have been overkill, but this is a project that I did not want to revisit.
• the amp has controls for GAIN, CROSSOVER FREQ, and BASS BOOST. The setting of the CROSSOVER FREQ does not make much difference. I think this is because the sub is being driven from the high-level output of the KIA amp and the KIA amp is already filtering the frequencies that make it to the OEM subwoofer.

The sub has only been in place for just a couple of days. So far, I have been very pleased.
Here are the pics...

K

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[Gimixman]

posted my Infinity BassLink SM2 installation about a week ago. Yesterday, I made two changes.
1) My installation had a 6" low speed fan under the sub. This seemed to work well at first, but the certain low frequencies caused the fan to buzz and this buzz got progressively worse -- I removed the fan. What I thought would be a great idea was a waste of time
2) I snaked a cable from the sub to the console so I could add a remote gain control (comes with the BassLink sub, but is optional). Pic is below. It is almost hidden, but I can drape my right hand over the console and easily adjust the gain.

As for the discussions on auto-on and low-vs-high level inputs, here is how mine is set up. I am using auto-on when audio is sensed. It has worked with on problems. The sub powers on 1-2 seconds after music is first heard. I am using the high-level inputs that would have gone to the OEM sub. I am not having any noise or other problems with the high-level inputs. However, I have noticed that the crossover frequency adjustment on this sub does not have as much effect as I would have expected. I think that is because the OEM amp and its tone settings have already decided which frequencies are getting the high-level sub outputs.

 

[Gimixman]

Clean! What is the box with the 2 fuses on it

Since the fan was going to be on all the time and it is out of sight, I figured that I would put a 1/2 amp fuse on the fan. That box is a fuse box that can hold 4 fuses. I had it lying around from another project. It holds a fuse for the amp and another for the fan. I know it was overkill for the amp because the KIA has a 15 amp fuse on the DC circuit, I put in another 15 am fuse in the box, and the amp has its own 15 am fuse on its chassis. If the fan ever fails, I am sure that the fan itself would just die without any significant current draw, so a fuse was probably not needed here either. However, it does make it easy to kill power to either the amp or fan because these add fuses are easy to pull.