Speaker zones not working

davidden

Anyone else have an issue where the speakers are all tied to Zone A? Zones B and C do nothing. Sound continues to play when I switch to Zones B or C, but only A can control the volume, and all speakers are active via zone A. It seems that all speakers are connected only to Zone A. 

JEB

davidden said:

Anyone else have an issue where the speakers are all tied to Zone A? Zones B and C do nothing. Sound continues to play when I switch to Zones B or C, but only A can control the volume, and all speakers are active via zone A. It seems that all speakers are connected only to Zone A. 

That is correct. Zones B and C are not used. Not really needed. No outside speakers, which are usually connected to Zone C, and the interior is too small to justify two different zones. 

davidden

I was in a 2019 Tab 400 and they worked. The ability to have speakers work on a low volume by the bed while someone is, say, reading at the other end with no volume is what I want. I think they’re supposed to work. 

rh5555

Initially my speakers were both connected to zone A, which has "front" and "rear" connections in addition to "left" and "right". I disconnected the "rear" speakers and wired them to zone B instead. Now zone A is at the dinette and zone B is at the bed.

The mod is pretty easy: Pull the stereo out of the cabinet (plastic end-pieces pop off to expose screws), the wires are long enough to do the rearrangement and wires are all well labeled.

davidden

Terrific! I’ll try that.

JEB

davidden said:

I was in a 2019 Tab 400 and they worked. The ability to have speakers work on a low volume by the bed while someone is, say, reading at the other end with no volume is what I want. I think they’re supposed to work. 

I don’t think any of the 400’s are wired for separate zones from the factory.  But as @rh5555 points out, separating the front and rear speakers and rewiring should be straightforward.

Amazonica

I just rewired mine in my 2020 400. All four speakers were on Zone "A", nothing on Zones "B" or "C". It is easy, as rh5555 says, all of the wires are labeled. I found I could scooch the label down when stripping the wire ends, to keep it visible on the colored wire.

Denny16

From what I have seen looking at several on a dealer lot, the TaB 400 has Zones A,B, and C wired up.  Out late 2018 TaB we just purchased also uses all three zones.  One zone is the Bed area speaker, than B is the galley speaker and A is the front two speakers.  But to get them to work, the Bakance and Front Back faders need to be set to 0, then adjusted to give the desired balance.  If set to one extreme or the other, some of the speakers are cut off.
Cheers

jameskuzman

We have a 2019 400, and all zones are wired. A is the dinette, B is the galley, and C is the bed. 

Denny16

I had a similar issue, no sound from the speakers.  You need to first turn up the volume for each zone, it defaults to 0 very time you power cycle the radio.  Next you need to adjust balance, start at 0 which is middle, and front/back setting, this should get the speakers working.  Start by turning up the volume first, the balance ad front/back are under the settings button, and these settings are not lost when power cycling.

SeaLaVie

Our 2018 400 has all zones wired. Zones B and C have one speaker each, one left channel and one right so you're only getting half the stereo sound unless you run both zones B&C together. This set up doesn't really make sense. I'm going to put both back speakers on zone B and eventually may put exterior speakers on zone C.

Denny16

I set zones B/C to mid point balance mix, so not stereo, but you are hearing both channels.
if you are in the back/bed area, you can set balance to L on zone B and R on Zone C. adjust level to hear both speakers from the bed area (Zone B would need to be louder than C).

I listen to the radio mostly from the front dinette area, so set B to mid mix to get better stereo separation from the front seats.  This works for me.  
Cheers

jameskuzman

SeaLaVie said:

Our 2018 400 has all zones wired. Zones B and C have one speaker each, one left channel and one right so you're only getting half the stereo sound unless you run both zones B&C together. This set up doesn't really make sense. I'm going to put both back speakers on zone B and eventually may put exterior speakers on zone C.

I haven't checked our 2019 400 to see if B and C (each with one speaker) are either left or right channel only but unless they've gone to the trouble of properly making a mono bridge coming out of the Jensen, it's almost assuredly one channel. This isn't ideal with stereo music of course, but it's serviceable for most people most of the time. I'll have to see if the Jensen has a "mono" switch on it; that would be a workaround. You'd lose stereo in the dinette, but - and I say this as an audio engineer and musician - I don't think it matters much in this environment.