2005 LX470 New Stereo - reuse speaker wire?

[seanz0rz]

I am currently working on installing a new head unit and speakers in my LX470 with Mark Levinson system. I am working my way through all of the problems, but I have encountered one I haven't been able to solve.

I would like to reuse the speaker wires going to the doors. On the rear doors, this looks to be straight forward as the filtering capacitor is located on the tweeter. If I use that connection and take away the factory tweeter, I will have unadulterated signal coming to my 3-way speakers. On the front doors, I can see the capacitor on the tweeter, but do not see anything on the mid speaker attached to the door panel. My concern is I will have issues getting a full signal if I use the factory wiring, since I cannot tell where the cap is.

Does anyone have experience reusing the old wiring?

Pics will be added later. Thanks for any help you can offer!

 

[seanz0rz]

Pics for attention.
I ended up moving the screen down about 3/4" to better show the HVAC screen.

 

[SeasportNZ]

I'm about to do this as well. Although, in my case, my 2005 Lexus had the factory Premium audio system with a Pioneer Amp not the ML audio system. I'm using a Teyes CC3 2K head unit. The hardware is really nice and it fits well with the factory dash, but the documentation is almost absent. But I'm getting there. I'm replacing the amp and speakers as well. Figured it was easier to replace the amp rather than trying to use the factory amp which is tuned to match the crappy factory speakers. I'm also adding an external subwoofer.

The wiring diagrams don't show the ML configuration, other than the tweeter and woofer are wired in parallel. Have you checked to see if there is a bandpass filter somewhere inside the door? One thing you should be aware of is that the navigation ECU is wired into the front door LH speaker cables. So the nav unit voice overrides the music. Has your new head unit got nav or just audio?

Are you planning to reuse the factory speaker pods? I haven't got to this yet, but it seems that the pods don't enough volume to make a decent sound with new speakers. I'm planning to remove our modify the pods to use the door as an "infinite speaker baffle" plus I'll add sound deadener in the door. Have you checked the speaker impedance requirements for the ML system? I think they are 8 ohms and so you won't be able to drop in 4 ohm speakers.

 

[seanz0rz]

So mine is in and working, but the truck is still disassembled. I went to paint a bathroom (quick, 2 day job max) and while patching holes I had paint peel off in big sheets. I'm on day like 4 of prepping and I'm finally making positive progress again.

I did reuse the wiring after finding the middle speakers of my Mark Levinson system have a separate feed. I had to jump some connections for the drivers door from the nav computer. I'll post up more pics later. The speaker "pods" on mine were just plastic mounting flanges, I butchered them and the door panels to fit the speakers.

The entire thing has been a disaster but in 3 minutes of listening to FM and Android Auto, it was 100% worth it.