# Aftermarket Headunit unable to turn on Stock Amp (Lear Corp.)



## Games Goblin (Oct 20, 2014)

Hi everyone

I have a 2006 Skoda Octavia 2 with the factory fitted 'premium' sound package which consists of the Audience head unit, the Lear Corp. amplifier under the passenger seat and 12 speakers (2 speakers + 1 tweeter for each door). A few days ago, I swapped out the stock HU for a Chinese android unit, but I am not getting any sound from my speakers. After a lot of searching on the internet, got to know that only the stock head units (and some compatible aftermarket headunits) are able to communicate with the stock amplifier. This was disappointing as I quite like the sound of the stock amp+speakers and was hoping to use it with my new HU. Any way to make the amplifier work with the new HU? Here is a picture of my amplifier for reference: (I am guessing this is the same Dynaudio amp that comes on VW models?)










If I am unable to use the stock amp, what kind of amp should I be looking at getting (power, how many channels etc?). Sorry if the question seems vague, but I haven't got a clue about car audio stuff :screwy:

All suggestions are appreciated!


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## JaxACR (Dec 6, 2007)

To be honest, those no-name Chinese head units are usually more trouble than they're worth. The included manuals are not complete and often so poorly translated that they're useless, there is little support from the sellers/manufacturers, and many of them have problems right out of the box.

That said, if you want to go the route of replacing the amp, both Alpine and Kenwood offer "power pack" amps that push about 180w and are small enough to fit where the factory amp goes. You will need to run a remote wire for turn on though, your stock amp gets the turn on signal from CAN bus.

Here's the problem though: it's very possible that your factory amp has more than four outputs if it is driving each speaker separately (vs running all three speakers in one door in series/parallel from one output.) Additionally, it's possible that the factory amp is doing some amount of signal processing. You may end up with a system that sounds worse than stock.

I would suggest getting the proper harness for your vehicle which will retain the factory amp and wire the head unit to that.


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## Games Goblin (Oct 20, 2014)

JaxACR said:


> To be honest, those no-name Chinese head units are usually more trouble than they're worth. The included manuals are not complete and often so poorly translated that they're useless, there is little support from the sellers/manufacturers, and many of them have problems right out of the box.


I would have loved to go for a Columbus (RNS510) or Bolero, but since I am in India, there is no navigation available for the original Skoda head units. The next best alternative is the DNS810 from audiosources - but it's problem is that it runs WindowsCE and it's very difficult to get navigation software for Windows CE in India (the company that makes India navigation does not sell software to 3rd party devices :banghead So android is the only feasible option for us here if we want navigation in the head unit.

And you're right, getting generic stuff out of China is like a lottery - sometimes it works great, sometimes it doesn't. This unit seems nice enough - it's got a built in can-bus decoder and everything seems to be working out of the box - steering controls, parking info, door opening info, reverse cam and so on



JaxACR said:


> That said, if you want to go the route of replacing the amp, both Alpine and Kenwood offer "power pack" amps that push about 180w and are small enough to fit where the factory amp goes. You will need to run a remote wire for turn on though, your stock amp gets the turn on signal from CAN bus.


Thank you for suggesting those amps - will have a look if they are available here. I am in the process of sourcing a spare connector so that I can try connecting the speakers directly to the head unit without touching the factory wires/harnesses - the hunt for one has proved fruitless so far. It's a stop-gap solution for now - I can at least listen to music till I've got the amp issue sorted. This is what the connector looks like on my factory amp:












JaxACR said:


> Here's the problem though: it's very possible that your factory amp has more than four outputs if it is driving each speaker separately (vs running all three speakers in one door in series/parallel from one output.) Additionally, it's possible that the factory amp is doing some amount of signal processing. You may end up with a system that sounds worse than stock.


Unfortunately, I can only determine the sound quality after I buy a new amp (or connect the speakers directly to the new HU), so if the sound quality does turn out to be lower than the stock setup, this whole exercise will add up to the fact that I spent a lot of money to make the sound quality _worse!_ 



JaxACR said:


> I would suggest getting the proper harness for your vehicle which will retain the factory amp and wire the head unit to that.


sorry, but this bit is unclear to me, could you explain this a bit please? Do you mean to by-pass the stock amp and wire the speakers directly to the new HU?

Best Regards


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## Ahmad222 (Apr 11, 2021)

Hi I have same problem and I trying too much 
Now I connect another amplifier with 2 6/9 speakers 🔊 and one subwoofer.but i didn't like the sound 
I hope 🙏 if you have solved the problem send to me 
[email protected]

Best regards


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## kgw (May 1, 2008)

There is a setting that requires VAGCOM, or the like, that can resolve this. Search here, as I've read several posts on this issue.


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## Ahmad222 (Apr 11, 2021)

JaxACR said:


> To be honest, those no-name Chinese head units are usually more trouble than they're worth. The included manuals are not complete and often so poorly translated that they're useless, there is little support from the sellers/manufacturers, and many of them have problems right out of the box.
> 
> That said, if you want to go the route of replacing the amp, both Alpine and Kenwood offer "power pack" amps that push about 180w and are small enough to fit where the factory amp goes. You will need to run a remote wire for turn on though, your stock amp gets the turn on signal from CAN bus.
> 
> ...





JaxACR said:


> To be honest, those no-name Chinese head units are usually more trouble than they're worth. The included manuals are not complete and often so poorly translated that they're useless, there is little support from the sellers/manufacturers, and many of them have problems right out of the box.
> 
> That said, if you want to go the route of replacing the amp, both Alpine and Kenwood offer "power pack" amps that push about 180w and are small enough to fit where the factory amp goes. You will need to run a remote wire for turn on though, your stock amp gets the turn on signal from CAN bus.
> 
> ...


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