Thanks Geo! Crutchfield carries it for $70

 

Cool post how it works for you....I am next

 

Out of curiousity, I've opened my HU up and looked. It's really not that bad of a unit, and appears to be quite good in some respects, but there are some places Ford skimped on the design obviously to save cost.

The HU is based around a Philips SAA7706H DSP. Only a subset of its features are used. Ford could have easily hooked up several more external analog as well as digital SPDIF(!!) inputs to it. I wouldn't be surprised if an aftermarket HU uses the same DSP. Ford just crippled the heck out of all the features and did injustice on the output stage--that's why it's perceived to be so crappy!

THe onboard amp badly needs to be 'stiffened' as there is no bulk bypass in the entire radio except for a single 1000uF input filter on the 12V line. There's plenty of room inside the HU to add additional filtering.

There are 2 big components which are probably Ford-special parts:

ST Micro 09375459 <--multiwatt25 package, main amp
ST Micro 09362913 <--multiwatt15 package, not sure what this does yet

These appear to be non-standard part numbers since they do not follow ST's numbering scheme.

Unless I'm wrong, the main amp IC appears to be similar to or is a variant of a ST TDA7561 which means it might be programmable to drive either line output levels *or* 4x20Wrms @14.4V@1% THD (4x30W @2ohms) speaker level outputs. Do you believe 20W? Since this appears to be a Ford-custom part, it could be less. I didn't try measuring yet to confirm.

Unfortunately the programming is done via serial bus by either the DSP or the CPU running the show, so I can't simply make it drive preamp outs instead of speaker level outs. It also has a clip-detection signal, so I'm sure the HU is programmed to limit output power to avoid clipping.

I haven't seen an audiophile opened up, so unless I'm mistaken, both use the same pcb fab but only differing in components stuffed. Mine's missing a bunch of parts that drive an unstuffed sub out connector . The audiophile HU must also add of some kind of board that processes/drives the sub signals.

The sub amp enable line circuit on the main board appears to be intact, a quick poke with a voltmeter shows nothing is driven. It could have been disabled by the HU's CPU firmware.

The CPU appears to be programmable via a JTAG port. ..just need to figure out how to reverse disassemble the thing assuming it's not read-protected.

Any takers?

 

If anyone is interested in what the HU looks like inside, I added a couple of pix to my gallery...

https://www.f150online.com/galleries....cfm?gnum=6379

 

Do you think there is a way to add the audiophile components in a easy fashion? Have your heard the audiophile version? Is it that much better?

 

Unfortunately not :-( If you look at the pic, there's a silkscreened rectangular area with a bunch of holes. There must be a separate board that does something in an audiophile unit. The holes towards the top are all signal pins. The middle pins supply power, and the lower pins drive the sub out connector at the bottom.

I haven't listened to an audiophile system; purportedly it's not bad.

I'm trying to find a spot for a decent 4-channel amp that can't be seen at all--preferably the area under the existing HU or maybe under the shifter in my FX4. But all amps these days are HUGE! :-(