Peugeot 206 Sound Deadening

The sound quality in my car is just average. The front speakers are good, but lacking in bass, so there is a sub woofer in the trunk to take care of the bass. But I'm not quite happy with the bass coming from the back and the fact that the sub woofer, wiring and amplifier is taking up extra space and makes the car look untidy.

So I decided to sound proof the front doors, in an attempt to get better bass and improve sound quality from the front speakers. I bought a roll of sound deadening material from the local car accessories store. It was quite cheap at US$10 per metre. Dynamat would have cost ridiculously more than that.

I installed the sound deadener and now the bass and sound quality is much better from the front speakers. It is so good that I don't need the sub woofer any more and had it removed.

My favourite test CDs are Kill Bill Volume 1 and Denon Hi-Fi Check CD.





I bought 2 metres of it. One metre for front doors and another metre for the back doors in future.

This must be from China. Could be a Dynamat copy.

The deadener is about 3mm thick with a metallic film on one side.

A single piece of deadener was cut which followed the shape of the original foam cover on the door.

Sound deadener was also applied to the door card at certain locations only.

A ring of foam was added around the speakers to isolate the sound from the door card. The speaker is a Kicker ES60.

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Subwoofer Experiment

What do you do if your home theatre system burns? Put the subwoofer in the car of course! That's what happened to my Philips MCD139B Home Theatre System, which one day decided to burn its electronics. Repairing it would be expensive, so I chucked away the electronics and put the subwoofer into the car.

Philips MCD139B Home Theatre System. The subwoofer has a 6ohm 5.5inch speaker with power handling of 50W RMS. The burned electronics are inside the left speaker. Fortunately the speakers are still functioning. Unfortunately the CD player is unusable without the electronics.

The headunit has a pair of RCA preouts (for left and right channels) which are both connected to the right channel of the amplifier. This is so that the bass from both the headunit's left and right channels are amplified. The 100W max (50W+50W) amplifier is connected to the subwoofer. 12V power is taken from the cigarette lighter socket. This setup is temporary as I wanted to test the sound quality. Don't be fooled by the small wires! You don't really need thick wires to handle 100W, despite what the car audio installer tells you. Seriously!

Well, after listening to a bunch of tracks full of bass, I can say this subwoofer setup is going to be permanent in the car. The bass is punchy, deep and strong without any noticeable distortion. This sound quality is with the headunit bass/mid/treble equaliser settings set flat. Wonderful! Switching on the "Loud" button on the headunit produces an ear-deafening and chest-pounding thump! Well, the subwoofer was designed for home theater and is supposed to produce earth-shaking bass, and it definitely shook the car.

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Warning Notice:

Warning! Do not connect a high power amplifier into the cigar lighter. A high power amplifier can burn the cigar lighter wiring. For example, the Pioneer amplifier above has a 50 amp fuse on it, which means it should be connected directly to the battery.

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The cigar lighter plug is not practical as a permanent power supply for the amplifier, so it needs to be replaced.

An ordinary household 3-wire power cable was used to power the amplifier. This is more than sufficient as the cable can easily handle up to 1000W of power. Household power cable is also fireproof which is a good thing for automotive use. The power is tapped from the headunit's wiring loom. Green goes to ground, brown goes to 12V and blue goes to remote.

Cable ties help to keep the wires together and look pretty.

The amplifier sits inside the passenger seat secret compartment. Yes Peugeot 206s have a secret compartment which is not very secret at all, now that you know where it is.

The power cable and interconnects are long enough to sneak under the centre console and slide together with the passenger seat (there are people who get a kick out of sliding car seats).

I have tried putting the subwoofer in the boot, but the boot kills the bass. So it sits in the rear middle seat instead, secured by the centre seatbelt. I seldom drive passengers, so it is okay to have the subwoofer use up the centre seat. The subwoofer is positioned to fire bass sounds to the front. The sound level is adjusted at the amplifier. The wires go under the seat, floor carpets and into the not-so-secret passenger seat compartment.

The set up now sounds really good. Bass is so much stronger, that I get a headache after listening to it. Now my music is so much enjoyable.

Head Unit and Speaker Matching

I've been listening to the car audio for several months now. It is a Pioneer DEH-2950MP head unit driving a pair of Kicker ES60 two-way speakers on the front channel only. The rear speakers are not connected as I prefer a cleaner sound stage coming from the front.

I hear the bass to be quite weak, while the mid and treble is crisp and clear. I've been fiddling with the bass levels, unfortunately cranking up the bass and volume together creates bad distortion. Also I prefer to leave the bass/mid/treble levels flat and hear what the musician wanted me to hear, which is the natural recording level.

So I'm left with an audio system with poor bass response. My guess is that the head unit, which is 50W max, can't drive the 6-65W power range speakers properly. In reality, the head unit output is typically 20W continuous, and that is at high volume levels. So I'd expect around 10-15W at normal volume levels, which is not even within half the power range of the speakers.

So to cut the story short, I decided to put back the 20W factory speakers. And guess what, the bass is much better with more punch, even at low volume levels. The plus side to this is that it is originally paired to the tweeters mounted on the windows, so now I get a better sound stage. The Kickers were two-way speakers which made the music appear to come from under the dashboard.

I think I will be hunting for new better quality speakers again, this time it has to be component speakers with a lower power rating, so that it matches with the head unit. I'm not into adding sub-woofers or additional high power amps at the moment, as I don't believe that to be the solution. Being an audiophile, I know very well that low power amps with correctly matched speakers, can produce excellent sound quality at both very low and very high volume levels, without distortion.

Pioneer DEH-2950MP Headunit

Installed a new head unit today. The Pioneer DEH-2950MP produces a reasonably punchy and clear sound. Adding a sub in future would probably make it sound even better. The downside of this unit is that it cannot interface with the original Peugeot 206 steering wheel stalk control.

To avoid cutting the original Peugeot male ISO connectors, a female ISO connector is mated with it. The female wires are connected to the wires on the Pioneer connector. A custom made harness can also be bought online, but I chose to make my own connections.

Be careful with the yellow (permanent live)(A7) and red (ignition)(A6) wires, as mixing them up can fry the headunit and/or the car's electronics.

Practical information from the Peugeot 206 owner's manual.

Peugeot Radio & CD Player

My CD player has been skipping a lot these days and it has been getting on my nerves. So I decided to take it apart and try to fix it. I guessed the laser lens is probably dirty or the guide rail has lost its lubrication.

To remove the player from the fascia, just insert four small screwdrivers into the slots at the sides.


The player is a VDO RD3-00, the type that has the car's VIN coded into its memory so that it won't play on any other car. More info at http://www.dndservices.co.uk/peugeot_psarcd100-00.html


ISO Connectors. Black for power, VAN bus data communication, etc. White for the four speakers. Blue for CD changer.


After opening the top cover, the fist thing I found was a piece of long hair wound around the disc clamp. This will definitely make a disc skip because it hinders the clamp's rotation. I'm not going to elaborate whose hair it was and how it got in. Removing the four screws shown in the picture allows removal of the CD transport mechanism.


The CD transport mechanism is connected to the main PCB by a ribbon cable. Gently pulling out the red connector will unhook the ribbon.


The amplifier is a TDA7385, giving out an average of 4 X 15W.


The main PCB. I think this is a good picture for the electronics engineer.


The guide rails looked dry. Since I did not have the right Torx bit, I could not remove the metal plate to get access to the guide rails and lens. Instead, using cotton buds, I dabbed some petroleum jelly onto the rails through the openings. Looking from the side, I also lubricated the screw gear. The lens can wait for another day.


Put some more petroleum jelly on the sliding mechanisms. Why petroleum jelly? It is the only lubricant soft enough that I have on hand.

After putting all parts back together into the car, the disc skipping problem is gone. Awesome!

Kicker ES60

Bought a new pair of speakers for my Peugeot 206. The Kicker ES60 is 6 inches in diameter and takes 195 watts peak.

Not sure about the polarity of the original wires, because they are unmarked on the original speakers, but a multimeter test indicated the brown/green is +ve and pink/black is -ve. The brown and black goes to a tweeter mounted near the side mirror.

Speaker fits nicely onto the mounting without leaving any air gaps.

Removed the tweeter near the side mirror and relying on the Kicker's tweeter instead.

Cut out a hole in the original plastic grille, to allow more sound into the cabin.

The Kicker's aggressive looking plastic grille does not match the interior, so the hole is covered with an aftermarket metal grille.

The original mid bass component speaker, used together with a separate tweeter.

Made by Goodmans UK, apparently rated at 20W.

Sound test verdict: definitely clearer and better quality sound, however lost a bit of bass thump. Perhaps the original Clarion RD3 head unit does not have enough juice for the hungry Kickers. Hmm... a subwoofer would help.