Re: question: how to upgrade from HU-650 to HU-850 ? (CindyLouWho)
Cindy, <p>the only way to really check whether you have premium sound installed is to remove a front door panel to look at the speaker drivers. Premium sound has a big (8") bass driver linked with an angled midrange driver, as well as a tweeter next to the inside door opener handle. Rear doors should contain a 6.5" driver, and the hat-shelf area should contain 2 x 8" drivers with tweeters on the side. To view the hat-shelf speakers you will need to remove the back board, which is a little bit of effort. Simply looking at the premium sound speakers you get the feeling that they are up for the task. These drivers do not look like Dynaudio units, because the dust caps look different. There is not much wrong with their sound quality though.<p>There should also be an external amplifier underneath the right-hand front seat, underneath the carpet. There are 2 amplifier models; a 200W (high-performance) and 300W (premium). It is not visually possible to distinguish between the 2.<p>Chances are slim that you will have the hu-650 with premium sound as factory fitment, this combination is simply not used. The hu-650 has a built-in amplifier, and is paired with some awful dual-cone speakers, packaged as the 'performance' sound package, which imo is a misnomer. <p>You can upgrade to the premium speakers if you have the correct front door panels. If you don't have the correct panels, then there will not be room for refitting them again. It is possible to upgrade the door panels through your dealer if you do not have them. Once you have the premium speakers fitted, the built-in amplifier of the hu-650 will not do them justice though (although the sound quality improvement is phenomenal over the lesser quality speakers), you really need the big (300W) amplifier. <p>To complete the premium package you will need to replace the hu-650 with an hu-850, as well as to add the centre channel loudspeaker. You cannot add the centre speaker to the hu-650, only the hu-850 allows for that, it uses a built-in single channel amplifier, iow it does not rely on the external amplifier for powering it. <p>If you have everything in place (premium amp, premium speakers), then it is possible to replace the hu-650 with an hu-850. Plug and play. If you do not feel up to the task yourself, your Volvo dealer can swap the units fairly easily. A software download is necessary to 'marry' the new hu to the vehicle, although it will work fine without it, just an error code on the computer diagnostics (not on the car's).<p>Hope this helps.
