Geese

Hi all,

I've got a 92 with a bose tape/am/fm head unit. I just bought a kenwood MP8017 cd/mp3 player from a guy in Cali and it's coming in the mail shortly. He's including the antenna adapter which is pretty cool. Now, I ordered an oem bose adapter from crutchfield for 50 bucks.

Now, I've installed a head unit for a friend before (and it turned out really nice) so I'm comfortable with that part, but she had all the wiring needed beforehand.

My question is: if I have the headunit, it's wire leads, the bose oem adapter, the antenna adapter, some solder and an iron, and some wirecaps, am I good to go?

My concern is that if I need a wiring harness between the headunit's leads and the oem adapter. Anyone have any experience with this?

TIA

Delvin

The $50 harness from crutchfield is wasn't need in order to put an aftermarket headunit in with the Bose system. I also have a Kenwood headunit and i just used a regular harness that you can pick up from almost any electronics shop (Best Buy, Circuit City, ect.) for under $15. The main thing when it comes to using an aftermarket headunit with Bose system is to cut the Bose amps back on. I am not sure if you are aware of this but in the Bose system every speaker has its own amp. On the harness that came with the Kenwood headunit i believe that there is a wire that is used to turn on an amp. I think its labled P.CONT a Blue w/white stripe on Kenwoods. Connecting that wire to the wire on the harness from Crutchfield that is labeled something like 'amp turnon' or maybe even 'Bose'. I have been installing for years and i've seen it labeled many different ways. Doing this will cut the factory Bose amps on and the speaker outputs from the Kenwood serve as the input for the amps. One other word of advice: Solder. Solder all the connections (Except for the antenna) and cover the connections with electrical tape or heat shrink.

403forbidden

If you would like pics of the process, go here:

http://www.frysinsider.com/maxima/

Geese

As I mentioned, I will be soldering the wires and then using wirecaps (if I can find them) or just electrical tape to cover the joints.

403Forbidden:
Thanks for the link, but the only part that he glosses over is the headunit installation

FASHIZL:
Thanks for the heads up. I remember reading about the "amp switch-on", but I didn't know it was called "p cont" on the kenwood harness. It makes sense if you think about it...the amps at the speakers need to be turned on by the headunit somehow, and that wire would do it.

Thanks. Maybe I can coerce my friend into letting me borrow his digital camera so that I can do this properly and get a good tutorial made. I sure as hell would appreciate one now.

MrGone

iTrader: (30)

Hi,
this is my first post.
I own a 1993 Maxima SE, see profile.
I had the Bose AM/FM/Cass. it worked fine but the head units display didnt work so we found a station and left it there. also i talked to a stereo installer and he told me that a crackeling noise that i had when i got near the volume **** was because of dirt/dust/grit/etc. in the control. this only happened when the car was cold and stopped after ward, kinda wierd but hey its not a problem anymore.

I just put in a kenwood KDC-316s Head Unit.
When doing this project my best friend helped me out to make sure that everything was going smoothly and he is a "pro" while im an still getting into this all.

Deck:
- With the deck installation I had the kenwood wire harness which plugs into the deck and has wires on the other end. then to save time in the future (and make it look better), i decided to buy a Wire Harness for the maxima, so it would connect to the OEM connector. After some trial and error i was all set. all i did was crimp the two harnesses together (the wire ends of course) and pluged it in. I did have a problem at first. I followed all the diagrams and it did a good job, however when it came to the constant power, well it wasnt there, after testing live sources (with the glove box light bulb) i couldnt find one in the stock harness. So i spiced one off of the emergency lights (the red triangle) switch, works great.

As for the speakers....
- Well you cannot use the bose amps. You like me were probably thinking that this would be a pain in the *** to deal with and all, and wonder why not, etc. I for one am still trying to figure out why, but ive just taken everyones word and listened to them like a good boy. anyway, the fronts: i used 4" Alpine's because they fit the stock hole. also because i wanted to make it reversable and cutting the plastic would eleminate that possiablilty. I may make a custom houseing when i get time and am bored, but until then, it works. we took out the front amps (and speakers) and put them in a brown lunch bag and i threw them in the garage.
- For the rear, I have a pair of Infinity Refrence 692i 6x9 speakers. they are great however they lack the sub that i heard in the show room. I am probably going to rewire them when i get some time and some nice weather. I left the amps on just cause it seemed like it would be a pain to take them off. also we were finishing the install and were very anxious to listen to it so we kinda wrapped it up.

Speaker Wires:
- Now because there are 4 wires to each speaker (location anyway) we did some testing, ok, my friend did some testing, well not even that, he just said that he knew that the thicker wires are power so he used the thinner wires for the speakers. all we did for the fronts was unhook the harness from the amp and spliced the two signal wires to make life easier later.
- For the rears, well dont laugh but we just disconnected the harness and left the amps on because they seem'd like a pain and the whole plastic harness and all. so we just jumped the harness with paper clips (heavy duty ones :P) and taped it up and tucked it back in the amp. then we just hooked up the speakers with the stock retainer clips.

Also I just wanted to say that I am probably going to put an amp and sub in theyre because the bass isnt there, however im not going to try to sound like rice, just make it sound nice (hehe that rhymes).
Im want to rewire it because I think that will help the sound quality, also I am going to be making some custom speaker boxes so that I can tuck some Infinity Reference 652i in the doors.

anyway i know this sounds like an artical and with some spell checking and more info i hope it will be sometime. I gotta go to class now so ill be back later
MrGone

Geese

Thanks for the replies,

One question: If I'm using the head unit with the oem bose adapter, won't that let me keep the existing wiring and amps at the speakers?

I thought the adapter took care of all that. Yes/No?

pj93max

YES,
I recently installed a JVC MP3 HU into my existing stock BOSE system.

I got the adaptor and it basically tones down the power that is output from the HU so that it doesnt blow out your bose amps/speakers.
It comes with an adjustment screw for each speaker so you can control it - but you should leave that as low as possible.

Now, I can turn up the the volume to max and get great sound out of the bose speakers and no distortion at all.

No need to throw away perfectly working bose speakers and spend $$$ !

PJ

Geese

Ok, I just got the oem adapter from crutchfield. It's actually a Scosche FAI-1A Factory Amp Interface.

All the kit is is a regular wiring harness packaged with the adapter. They just attached the + and - speakers leads and the ground to the adapter for you. The amp switch on, power antenna, battery power, dash light(illumination), and ignition switched leads are left alone.

I think I have everything needed. Hopefully I'll be able to take pictures of the whole deal and make a good tutorial.

EDIT: Thank you pj93max! That's what I needed/wanted to hear!

MrGone

iTrader: (30)

Although I think the stock Bose speakers are fine, They are coming on 10 years (for me anyway). I would take the bose speakers over alot of the speakers on the market today; however the infinity refrence series are really great, you can get them for about $100 a pair, but prices range along with warranties.

Also I want to emphesize this: YOU CAN USE YOUR STOCK WIRES WITH A NEW DECK. im not meaning to shout that, just wanted to get the point across . im sorry if i confused you in my last post when i was talking about rewiring it. I am only considering rewiring because it would just make me feel better however its not an easy task, id leave the stock wires there but only because I am making sure I can undo every thing that I do.

any questions just ask.
MrGone

Geese

MrGone:
Thanks for your posts. I was intending on keeping my stock wires and speakers. I was just unsure of the oem adapter's wiring setup. I wish I had more money to do a full overhaul, but for now the CD/MP3 deck will have to do

MrGone

iTrader: (30)

Well the only reason I could get new speakers is because well i only had to pay for the infinities. I wanted to buy the Panasonic deck (something 701, i cant remember) it was onsale for $200 at my local cartoys because they had to beat a competitors price. Anyway my dad didnt want me to buy a new deck because he just put one in his truck (never drives it) and he just wanted me to take it out to save money, so I couldnt refuse. So i got the Kenwood KDC-316s Deck out of it and a pair of 4" Alpine's which by luck matched the maxima. All i had to pay for was the wire harness and the antanna adapter and the infinity speakers. I do not like cartoys, they are ******* salesmen (well most of them anyway). I only went there because they are very local. Anyway long story short stupid sales man gives me wiring harness and antana adapter free because theyre debit machine thingy isnt working good and they all trying to get to the group of hondas that just rolled up. anyway, i was glad and it was worth them wasting my time.

do you understand what you need to do now with wiring harnesses?
all you should need is a harness that comes with your deck(or make sure theyre are wires coming out of the deck); then connect those wires to a wireharness for our style maxima; connect the wires then all you have to do is plug in the harness to the one thats in the car already. then the antanna adapter just hooks up to the connecter in the maxima and then to your deck. (mine had two options and ones just dangling, no problem).

Since your planning on using your stock speakers (isnt a problem, the back ones are really nice), make sure you disconnect the amps power and i think youll be fine.

MrGone

pj93max

If you are using a voltage adapter (bose interface adaptor) you should NOT HAVE to disconnect the bose built in AMP from the bose speakers.

The voltage adaptor's job is to make the HU interface with the
stock Bose AMPs & Speakers.

Furthermore, you should NEVER bypass(disconnect) the bose amps from the bose speakers because they are designed to work specifically with those amps (do a search and read numerous posts on this).

I have tried that before (I installed a clarion 45x4 watts HU and bypassed the internal amps) and the result was at very low Volume...
the bose speakers would POP/Crakle - not good !! I immediately put my old HU back in ..

PJ

Geese

Yeah, PJ, exactly what I expected things to be like. thanks

MrGone

iTrader: (30)

Thanks for that info, guess i was mis-informed. Also good to know about your experience with the stock speakers with an aftermarket headunit.

greengoat

are the BOSE speakers really that nice compared to say Infinity, Polk, Pioneer, or Alpine speakers? I have heard great reviews about all of these speakers and I am wondering if I should replace all of the speakers or just get the adapter and keep the BOSE. Right now I have no adapter with my aftermarket HU and it sounds pretty ****ty when its up high. I do like the bass however....BUT I do have subs and I wouldn't need the bass with the speakers...what does everyone recommend?

pj93max

In my opinion, you can definately get better (louder) overall sound from polk, pioneer etc... If you want to and have the $$, go ahead and replace all 4 speakers...it should sound better for sure depending on what kind of speakers you get.
The Bose doesnt reproduce Mids/Highs very well or loudly
(but for me, its good enough)

on the other side, like me, I didnt want to throw away my bose speakers and since I have 2 12's, I only need the 4 bose speakers for
highs and mids. I think they sound loud enough, but I have heard louder and more crisp sound from polk,pioneer, infinity etc..

One last thing... with my setup, with JVC HU and bose speakers with adaptor, I can turn up the volume to max and still get great sound and I know its virtually impossible to blow my bose speakers.

with aftermarkets, Ive seen people blow these out on a monthly basis...

nuff said

greengoat

Alright well what I will probably do is get the adapter (crutchfield the best place?) and test out my bose and see if they are satisfactory...if not I will invest in some Pioneers....probably 4-ways for the back and some 3-ways for the front.....has anyone ever actually heard 4-ways? I mean In my ols 2nd gen Max I put bass blockers in the back cause I had enough bass from the subs already so I am looking for a highs and mids with the rear speakers and great overall sound for the fronts....what would you recommend for that? And for speaker size I have heard even 6 1/2" can fit up front...is this true?

dgraves

I'm not an audiophile or expert installer and I don't want to dump a bunch of money in the sound system. I just want a head unit that works. I'm tired of fixing the Bose one. Are these adapters something where I can just plug it into a new head unit and the factory wire harness and be good to go or do they require a ton of cutting and splicing?

Also, I had to unplug one of my rear speakers a while back because it had a constant, high pitched whine or whistle. Dos that sound like a speaker/amp problem or could the head unit be the cause of that also? Thanks for any help.

pj93max

greengoat - there are a number of good speakers out there that will sound good - try doing a search and you will find more info on good spakers. Not sure if 6.5" would fit in the front...it probably would with a little bit of custom work

dgraves - to me, the hissing of the only one speaker would indicate that it is the speaker/amp causing the problem.... the HU is probably ok (one way to verify would be to switch the wires on the HU from left speaker to right speaker and verify if the hiss)

as far as splicing the wires - not too sure on this, but ive heard of some pretty messy installs especially if you have a stock bose HU. If you get a wiring harness i think you should be ok... doing a search will give you more info.

PJ

Geese

Ok, I've found the answer to my original question.

Pieces purchased for a 92 GXE:
1 Kenwood MP8017 CD/MP3 Player with its wires and a remote
1 Nissan Diversity Antenna adapter (Nissan's two prong plug adapted into the standard one big plug)
1 "Crutchfield Bose OEM Adapter" (a Scosche FAI-1A with a precrimped wiring harness)
1 Soldering iron and some solder
1 Roll of Electrical Tape

My mission: I wanted to get a cd/mp3 headunit and still use my bose speakers/amps/wiring. I just got the headunit today and installed it with excellent success.

The oem adapter is basically a little unit that sits inbetween the wiring from the aftermarket headunit speaker wires and the bose speaker wires. It has nine wires coming in and nine going out: all four speakers' positive and negatives as well as a black ground. The other wires are left alone for regular hooking up.

What resulted in this headunit > oem adapter > wiring harness > bose plugs setup was a lot of wires and plastic. So much so that I had a bit of a time trying to squeeze all that stuff behind the deck and the slide-out cup holder thingy.

The adapter has the ability to alter the power going to each speaker by way of a nylon screw. I didn't mess with these, and the balance seemed fine.

I don't know what would have happened had I not used the oem adapter. All I do know is that it is worth the 50 bucks for it and the instructions that crutchfield provides. I get great radio reception and loud, clear mp3 music!

I am a happy camper.

dgraves

So, did you need the soldering iron and electrical tap or is it just a matter of plugging the adapter into the head unit and wire harness?

Geese

I didn't have to solder the connections, but I did for a better connection. I also was generous with the tape in covering/protecting the connections. The last thing I wanted was a short to blow out my new headunit.

The wiring harness for nissans has bare leads. The harness that comes with the deck has bare leads. The adapter has bear leads on both ends. So, wiring harness from kenwood soldered to leads in adapter soldered to leads on nissan harness.

Now, that seems like a lot of soldering. It's not. The oem adapter from crutchfield is a Scosche FAI-1A. It actually comes with the nissan harness pre-attached and heatshrink-tubed (is that a word?) for you.

Remember, the adapter only has the + and - leads for each speaker and the one ground. So some the speaker leads from the kenwood harness go to the leads on the adapter, and the rest go to the corresponding leads on the nissan harness directly. Am I making sense?

Hmmm. It's too bad my friend wasn't around with that digital camera.

Well, I decided to make a diagram for ya.


Hope that helps.

pj93max

nice diagram man - How are you guys hooking up your ground connections?

I just have the ground(blk wire) connected to the ground(black wire)
coming from the nissan harness. Im assuming that this is ok and that ground(blk wire) eventually gets grounded somewhere behind the center console... am I right?

Or...should I be running that ground wire from the HU to the side metal bracket?

Geese

Thanks, it's essentially the diagram from the scosche adapter instruction booklet.

Um, yeah, I used the black ground wire that way, too. So far, so good

greengoat

I just bought and installed the adapter today....it didn't fix my problem at all....the sound is just quieter now....but still ****ty. I am planning on just getting new speakers cause the bose are just causing too many problems. i still get no subs with the adapter and with my changer it only comes out of either the rear or the front depending on where i plug it in the back..if i take out my changer and just have the subs hooked up then the HU plays out of all 4 speakers but its very crap quality. i unplug the subs so its just my HU and the adapter....plays out of 4 speakers but still is crap. I am just going to replace the speakers unless anyone else has suggestions....what can I fit into the front doors without modifying anything too much...I would like something bigger than 4"s cause those are too small....for the back I will just get some pioneers or alpines cause i heard those are good. any suggestions?

Geese

Taking this from your previous thread...

green goat, I don't think you quite understand what the adapter is for. Reread my posts in this thread.

Let me clear this up: The Bose oem adapter made by scosche but sold by crutchfield for 50 bucks is for keeping the existing wiring, bose amps, and bose speakers.

At no point in this thread did I talk about replacing speakers or amps. You did. From your thread and what others have said, you most likely wired things incorrectly, shorted something, or blew something out.

Remember, the adapter is for knocking down the impedence of an aftermarket headunit so that it can safely utilize the stock bose amp/speaker combos without blowing them out. You elected to bypass the bose system and use an aftermarket amp. The moment you did this, the adapter became useless, and so did my advice.

greengoat

the only thing I have that is aftermarket is the subs and even when i unplug them and use all factory bose except for the HU....everything is still too quiet and sounds distorted and nasty....now at a low volume it sounds great but when i turn it up even semi loud its all distorted and not listenable (if that's a word)....now do you guys have any suggestions?

scott92282

iTrader: (2)

I have a Bose speaker system with an aftermarket HU, (KDC-LX3), without an adapter. From my experience, if you will take the time to actually set up your stereo options (bass, treble, etc.), then it WILL sound good . BTW, Bose reproduces high sounds and midrange excellently when the system is balanced correctly.

greengoat

I have tried to balance everything right but I can't seem to produce a crisp sound....any recommendations?

lophix

iTrader: (3)

Hi there..
this is my first post, and so i'll make it count lol.
I have a 91se 5sp, and it had all the front speakers and one rear working.. Apparently, the amp on the non-functional speaker was bad. well i hopped on ebay and got another for about 20bucks from some lady. swapped them out and it was okay. but i needed a cd player. so used a "ghetto-fied" method for a while( discman and wireless adapter) cos my cassette player wasnt working. It ticked me off a lot. The Bose speakers were loud and had good bass to them. But it wasnt as crisp as a headunit. So i began shopping for a headunit. Got the Kameleon 100 and tied to hook it up myself...messed it up a lot and went without sound for a week. Apparently(according to Mobile One who also ticked me off pretty good!) it wasn't at all "...possible to connect an aftermarket H/U to Bose speakers and have it play without the infamous whine". Well, some mexican dude got it working for me. Don't ask me how, but even though wires were hanging all over, it worked perfectly fine, except the front speakers were lower than usual. Well, I worked at radioshack by that time, so I felt it was time to put my discount to use I got the best polypropylene speakers for the front, as well as 360watt 3-ways for the rear and paid about 70bucks for the whole set(mind you, radioshack auto speakers are made by a reputable audio company, won't say who cos if i do, i might get in trouble and y'all buy them all out Anyways, I got me the best amp we had plus a crossover, our internal antenna that goes on the glass and get rid of that nasty rod outside! (it's about 5bucks guys and it's worth it.) all harnesses and y adapters/splitters were from radioshack(free of course!) got 2 12"tornadoes by kenwood, and got my fellow employees to join me in ripping out bose speakers and swapping out. took about 3 hours to build the box, swap speakers, rewire the whole frigging car. Wanna know how I feel? "ELATED" still do, and this is almost 11months ago. I've got my ps2 in, trying t see if i can hook it up to my laptop while in the car, but i might just have to get a screen in. Well my opinion? Sell the bose speakers on ebay: if you're short on cash, sell 'em and go without sound for a week or two. You should get AT LEAST! $90 for the speakers. sell the amps separately for at least $25 each. Sell the whole bundle for about $180 if you must. I sold the speakers for about $125 with shipping and the amps for about $75. I more than compensated for the speakers I got. get your car rewired for not more than $50. Install new speakers yourself...it aint that hard. i can explain to you how to get into almost anywhere in your car as regards to audio.

holla atchy'all later and if you have any q's, i'm eternally online: solpir@yahoo, solajune@aol and sola_x@hotmail

later

lophix

ghostmax

iTrader: (4)

I haven't posted here in a long time, but I have bypassed the Bose amps with an aftermarket HU. The instructions (no pics) are here:
http://home.uchicago.edu/~peterlaw/Pages/bose.html

greengoat: The only thing I can think of is that you need another amp to power your sub, which is power hungry. Of course, that costs more money. But I don't think that your HU can drive all your speakers plus a sub.

PJ, Geese: I grounded to the metal bracket. It is always a good idea to have separate grounds.

dGraves: The high-pitched whistle is from an amp going bad. It happened to me too. You can have it repaired or replaced with a used/new one.

The cheapest solution for me was to get an aftermarket HU (Sony550) and let it drive my speakers since my amps were going bad. That is why I bypassed the Bose amps. The story is on my website. By the way, everything have worked fine for about 5 months. There is no distortion with high volume, and I have good bass. I will eventually replace all 4 speakers.

Good luck with this stuff.

dgraves

Thanks, Ghost. Good stuff.

greengoat

I have a 2 channel amp that is powering my subs but I still get no sound out of it. So if I bypass the amps then I don't need the bose adapter correct? and when these amps are bypasseed my subs should work?? and I can get aftermarket speakers and just put them in without any rewiring and they will work?

Geese

For those only replacing their headunits, you have three options:
1) Buy the oem adapter
2) Don't buy the oem adapter but splice your speaker wires to bypass the bose speaker amps
3) Don't buy the adapter and don't bypass the speakers which is "highly discouraged for the long term life of your speakers/amps" said crutchfield.

I chose 1 because it was the least work. Two is definitely viable, just a bit of a pain to do, IMO.

scott92282

iTrader: (2)

How many watts per channel does your HU produce?

My KDC-LX3 is 45w, I borrowed a friend's KDC-SH99 (plays mp3 and disc) which is 50w per channel.

My experience....the more power, the better the bose speakers sound.

greengoat

I have a Sony which is 52x4 RMS....I bypassed the amp in the right front speaker today successfully and I will bypass the left one soon and then pull out the OEM adapter and eventually bypass the rear speakers....I hope it sounds good....Just for the record....theres no way in hell you can fit anything but a 4" speaker in the front without actually modifying something in the pod. someone in another post said you could fit 5 1/4" without modifying anything....I have 5 1/4" that I tried and theres no way it is going in that little space without some massive mods.

greengoat

Alright folks I bypassed each and every bose amp and took out the OEM adapter....oh my this sistem sounds incredible! Even though my changer still refuses to work and my subs still refuse to work it sounds like they work because the BOSE pumps massive bass and just sounds great. However...if I turn my HU up too high then it shuts off and turns back on again...this means the HU amp will eventually go out...which I WANT to happen because I have a 3 year service plan at best buy so I can get a new one for free and upgrade to a better one. If I do want to change to aftermarket speakers which brand would sound the most like bose...if not better?? I have heard you can fit 5 1/4" speakers up front with an adapter from nissan...is this true? I may replace the speakers but I'm more worried about my subs not working....I shouldn't need to wire the RCAs into the harness if I bypass all of the bose amps correct?

ghostmax

iTrader: (4)

I have the same problem of the HU turning off and on. I need to replace my speakers very soon.

People make adaptor plates (search for it!) out of wood and they seemed to have worked well for them. That is what I will do when I replace the Bose.

No, I don't think you need to mess with the RCA's if you've bypassed. If you use another amp besides for your sub then you should use the RCA's.