Brooks

My brother recently aquired a '95 with the Bose stereo system. Unfortunately, the CD player skipped badly, so he decided to rip it out and install a clarion head unit that he happened to have kept from his last car (mistake #1). He didn't know about the oddities of the Bose system, and needless to say he was confused by all the extra wires. He called me asking for help, and I told him about the seperate amps attatched to the speakers and whatnot. He asked if it was possible to use the Bose amps with the clarion head, I said "technically, yes" and pointed him to a product crutchfield sells that converst the speaker level outs to line level for the Bose amps. It came with a wiring diagram and everything, so he hooked it up per the instructions and turned his car on. The amps didn't turn on. Nothing happened.

He called me over to help him out, so I brought my multimeter to check everything and to make sure that the stereo was getting the right power and everything. Now here's the strange part: When I measured the voltage from the power wires both the switched power (attatched to the ignition) and unswitched power (for presets and whatnot) were 3 volts. Is this normal? I know the multimeter works, I tested it across the battery and got 12v. Is his dash wiring harness borked, or does the Bose stereo actually have a transformer or some sort of power supply circuit inside the dash that converts the power wires to 3 volts? I will run seperate wires for the clarion head unit, that's for sure, but I need to know what voltage I need to use to power the Bose amps. I don't want to blow them up if they're actually supposed to operate at 3 volts. Can anyone shed some light on this?


EDIT: I posted this here because it's specific to the model year. If a mod/admin thinks it really belongs in the audio/electronics forum, please move it.